Why Feelings Of Worthlessness Often Stem From Childhood Wounds, According To A Therapist

When I started working with Veronica, she was in her early fifties. She was single, had never been married, and didn’t have any kids. She had been in therapy for decades, but she wasn’t seeing much progress. She had carved out a competitive career on Wall Street over the past thirty years, and when I commented on her raspy voice in our first session she told me her vocal cords were exhausted from all the smoking and the shouting over the men she had to do for decades. 

She gave me a look, smiled, and said, “I’m not aggressive, I’m just tired. This place takes it outta ya. Anyway, I thought this therapy stuff was supposed to work. It’s not working for me. You’re my last shot.” 

Veronica shared that she liked that therapy was a place where someone would listen to her. It felt good to vent and get it out. “I want a partner. I’m clearly over the kids thing, but I really want to love and be loved.” But after years of therapy, it seemed like nothing ever changed. “I’m not getting a good ROI,” she said. 

And I hear something along those lines from almost all my clients who work in the financial world. They talk about ROI and cost-benefit analysis and data points. (Don’t forget the data points!) Veronica felt she had spent a lot of money and time on therapy over the years, and her investment was not yielding the outcome she wanted. 

“That’s a lot of pressure.” I smiled. “We better get to work, then.” 

I started asking Veronica about her family, and I found out right away that her mother had left them when she was just five years old. 

“Do you know why she left?” I asked. 

“Yea, she never really wanted children. My mom just wanted to live the good life. She didn’t want any responsibilities; she didn’t want to be held down or lose her freedom. One Saturday morning, she packed one bag, drove away with her friend, and we never saw her again.” Veronica wasn’t emotional at all when she shared this with me. She was caught in what I call factual storytelling -- when you spill the details of what happened without any connection to the emotion attached to it or to the impact that it had or has on you. Factual storytelling is a type of invulnerability, a way of protecting yourself from what you believe is too much to feel and be present with. 

Veronica was smart. She knew that this childhood trauma was a vital piece of her story, but she’d never shared it with any therapist … until now. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work together. 

Her mother’s departure was what we call her “origin wound” – trauma sustained in childhood that creates damaging and frustrating patterns you’re still grappling with today. Veronica’s origin wound had left her with deep sense of unworthiness that was crippling her attempts at forming relationships into adulthood.

Like many who feel unworthy, Veronica was desperate to find someone who would prove her worth. But as much as she wanted partnership, it just wasn’t happening for her. She’d start romantic relationships, and after a few months they’d end. Many things can contribute to a worthiness origin wound, and Veronica could check each one off. She didn’t believe that people would stay. She believed that she wasn’t good enough, valuable enough, or important enough for someone to want to be with her. She would choose men who were unavailable, or she’d choose men who were available but would find ways to push them away. 

She told me how she’d task prospective boyfriends with endless things, “testing” them to prove that she could rely on them. She’d have them drop off and pick up her dry cleaning, schedule the housecleaners, book her flights, and make sure the refrigerator was stocked for her. She treated them like an employee instead of a partner.

As the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung would say, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” In Veronica’s case (and in many others) parents who are unavailable, conditional in their love, or hypercritical contribute significantly to feelings of unworthiness. 

After sitting with the pain she’d surfaced for a moment and acknowledging it, I said, “It must feel impossible to believe that you’re deserving of lasting partnership that will stick around when your mom didn’t.” 

This wasn’t really a question; I already knew the answer. Veronica knew the answer, too, but this was the first time someone said this to her in such a direct way. 

Shifting and changing is the work we must do, but it isn’t always easy. For a long time, Veronica couldn’t see her part in her unhappy relationships. The blame was always on others. Partners didn’t care enough, didn’t try hard enough, and didn’t love her enough. She needed to shift from her victim mentality so that she could see how she was participating. Without this, she’d continue to re-create these dynamics and keep blaming everyone else. As my relationship with Veronica developed and more trust was established, I was able to help her take an even closer look at her worthiness wound. 

“I think you’re making it really hard for people to choose you, Veronica.” I said it with tenderness, as I knew this might be hard to hear. “People don’t want to be your help. They want to be your partner. They want to get to know you. They don’t want to be given an endless number of tasks by you.” 

Veronica was beginning to see how she was pushing people away. She made it nearly impossible for people to get to know her, because if they weren’t jumping through all her hoops, she’d react strongly. “Why can’t you just help me? Am I not important enough for you to prioritize this? Am I not valuable enough in your life for you to just do the things I ask you to?” she’d ask her partners. 

Veronica was unconditionally worthy, and so are you. You are worthy of love, connection, presence, attention, safety, and beyond. You are worthy of it. But you also can’t just act however you want and believe that a relationship will thrive anyway. As we journeyed into Veronica’s origin stories, she was able to see how her worthiness wound was sabotaging her relationships. She was learning that she couldn’t push people away and expect them to stay. She needed to stop testing and learn to create some boundaries and establish some guidelines. Otherwise she’d continue to lose relationships and prove her story of unworthiness true.

Veronica’s healing required her to start making choices that established her sense of worth. Instead of choosing unavailable men or finding ways to avoid connection and intimacy, Veronica would steadily begin to open herself up to connection. Veronica worked hard at this. But this work was rewarding work. This work had a phenomenal ROI.