Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

“Who in your life told you, you were worthless?”

In one of the recent Dr. Oz’s shows -I don’t know which since I follow them from the DVR tapings-, a psychiatrist asked this question to overweight ladies. I thought the question was excellent for most anyone to ask himself or herself. Not only that though, for us writers, it is a good question to ask to every character we create.

Let me repeat the question: Who in your life told you, you were worthless?
In the same vein, the same question can be asked as: Who in your life made you feel you were (are) worthless?

To reach the proper answer, some introspection and painful recall are necessary.

In the show, most of the answers involved people’s parents. It doesn’t always have to be the parents, though. I think it can be anybody if the character believed their words or actions and took them to heart, or it can even be something like a malicious gossip that got out of hand. Sometimes, even a derision or an nasty implication can be enough because the mind has a way of filling in the gaps.

The idea is the same as the curse, by witches or whoever else, in fiction and visual media. The feeling of worthlessness is a psychological curse for it affects a person’s life and personality. If the person believes in his or her mind that he or she is worthless, the mind will filter out most anything that will make him or her believe otherwise. Resistance and disregard to one’s own worthlessness or, better yet, self-appreciation is the true armor a person can have.

Most of the time, however, being the vulnerable human beings that we are, we build false armors against such hurtful words and actions. In Dr. Oz’s show, the women overate and glorified in their obesity. There can be other false armors that show themselves in various ways such as cruelty, misbehaving, disloyalty, depression, overreaction, and criminal behavior.

Affirmations and positive suggestions can provide some cure for such hurts if the belief of worthlessness hasn’t become a chronic problem. It can still be dealt with when it’s chronic, but it needs a lot of work.

So, let’s not forget to ask the characters we create the telling question: Who, in your life, told you, you were worthless?