As I tried to explain to my daughter tonight, children get their sense of success or failure from school, sports, and/or extra-curricular activities. Adults get their sense of worth primarily from their jobs, relationships, faith and organizational involvement - be it religious, volunteer, socio-political causes, etc.
It is a shameful feeling to believe that you are not contributing to the people and causes that you love. Feelings of worthlessness, humiliation, and shame can take over all logic and evidence to the contrary. Even when those you love the most are reassuring you that you do have worth and that you are contributing in ways that matter to them, you might still believe otherwise.
A person with self-hatred and feelings of worthlessness is a sad thing indeed. I have deeply loved someone who felt this way, and I tried in every way I knew how to show that person their worth in my eyes and their value to me. I encouraged and supported, tried to motivate and be positive, but mostly listened and always firmly stated that there are many ways we contribute to the world, and that vocation and income are not a person’s sum worth.
I think that sometimes no matter what you say, do, or demonstrate…if a person has their mind set that they are not worthy according to their criteria, you cannot convince them otherwise. They may even turn on the few that support them the most, perhaps directing their own guilt onto others and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fearing the loss of what they love the most, they force life’s hand into dealing them a loss.
I cannot control other’s feelings or choices. I can only control my reaction to them, and control my own choices. At the end of the day, I bring what I have to the table and you bring what you have. We either choose to lay it all out or we don’t. And maybe we each walk away with exactly what we contributed, even if the “winner” leaves with less and the “loser” leaves with more.
What am I trying to say here? I’m trying to say that if you are uncomfortable in your own skin and feel unworthy of love, but are lucky enough to have someone love you for who you are and not what you have, what you do, or what you possess….that I hope you will have the wisdom to keep that gift of love and acceptance, nourish it, and return it. If you are the person loving the self-hater, you may be better served to allow that person some time and even space to come to terms with who they are and to learn to love themselves so that they can come to you as a whole person, able to love and accept love freely. Or it may be a lost cause. And no amount of love is going to change the end result.
