What does your inner criticism say?
Feeling worthless means starting to see yourself as unneeded, insignificant or unable to be of use to others. Listen to how these thoughts sound for you:
- How long ago did this feeling appear, and how often does it come up?
- Is it linked to a specific situation, or does it spread to your whole life?
- Do you also have low mood, apathy, loss of joy, guilt or hopelessness?
- Have you started to play down your achievements or compare yourself with others more often?
- Have you begun to feel that you are a burden to the people close to you?
- Has it become harder to accept praise or recognise your own strengths?
If such thoughts appeared after a specific failure and fade over time, this is a painful but understandable reaction.
If they come almost every day and concern your whole life, especially together with low mood or a sense of being a burden, it is important to understand what keeps them going. The section “Why can your sense of worth change?” covers this.
When does this feeling speak loudest?
Imagine Mariana: a colleague praises her report, and she replies that she was just lucky with the data. The next day she finds a typo in the report and spends the whole evening treating it as proof that she is kept on out of pity. She has forgotten the praise by lunchtime, but she remembers the typo for a week.
Or Serhii, who after an operation needs his wife’s help with dressings and shopping. He apologises for every request and calls himself a burden. When his daughter offers to come for the weekend, he refuses: “Don’t waste your time on me.” He finds it hard to believe that the people close to him want to be there.
Or Rostyslav, who reads the news about volunteers and soldiers in the evenings and after each report thinks: “They are doing something important, and I just sit in an office.” He stops seeing his own work and his help to his parents as meaningful and closes the feed feeling that he is of no use at all.
Or Stefaniia, who went back to work after maternity leave and found that the team had learned to manage without her. She stays silent at meetings because “I’ll only say the wrong thing” and thinks her job was kept for her out of politeness.
In all these stories, the feeling of worthlessness takes away the facts in the person’s favour: Mariana does not hear the praise, Serhii does not believe he is cared for willingly, Rostyslav dismisses his work, and Stefaniia her experience. The thought “I am no good at anything” sounds convincing, but it relies on only one side.
If at least one of these stories resembles yours, try to recall which facts in your situation this thought leaves out. If none of them fits, go back to the questions in the section “What does your inner criticism say?”.
If thoughts of being worthless last for weeks or you feel like a burden more and more often, a psychiatrist can help you understand what keeps them going and choose the right help with you.
Consultation booking form.Who can help with feelings of worthlessness?
It is worth starting with a psychiatrist: they will ask how long this feeling has been there, where it speaks loudest and what is changing alongside it – mood, sleep, interest in activities, contact with people. Then they will discuss with you what help would suit you.
You can find out how a first appointment with a psychiatrist is organised on the initial consultation page. The profiles on the clinic’s doctors page can help you choose a specialist.
What else can feeling unneeded look like?
Thoughts of being worthless often sit next to other experiences. If you understand which one is loudest, it is easier to choose where to start.
- Feelings of guilt. Guilt is about what you did or did not do, worthlessness about who you are. The page on feelings of guilt explains how to tell one from the other.
- Hopelessness. Worthlessness judges you, hopelessness judges the future: “nothing will change”. The page on feelings of hopelessness describes this experience.
- Anxiety with depression. Self-criticism can come with constant worry that you will not cope or will let others down. This combination is described on the page about anxiety with depression.
- Social isolation. Feeling that nobody needs you pushes you to turn down meetings, as Serhii in our example turned down his daughter’s visit. If you avoid people more and more often, see the page on social isolation.
One experience easily pulls another along, so a single thought about yourself is not enough to judge your state as a whole.
How can you argue with the thought ‘I’m no good’?
You cannot convince yourself of your worth with one effort, but you can gradually bring back into view the facts that this thought throws away. Try these in turn:
- Separate the feeling from the fact. The thought “I am useless” can be very convincing, but it is a feeling, not an objective assessment of the situation. Name it like this: “I am having the thought that I am useless.”
- Ask yourself about the facts. “Which facts really support this thought, and which contradict it?” For Mariana, for example, this question is a reminder of the praise as well as the typo.
- Notice small actions. Duties done, support for someone close, looking after yourself, an everyday task solved – they all matter too. When your mood is low, these are exactly the things that stop seeming important first.
If the thought sounds a little quieter after these steps, that is already a result: the aim is not to love yourself in one evening but to see the whole picture. If it stays just as loud for weeks, go back to the section “Who can help with feelings of worthlessness?”.
Why can your sense of worth change?
Your sense of your own worth is not fixed: it depends on your mood, your workload and how other people treat you. It usually changes for several reasons:
- Low mood. When your mood is low, your attention picks out failures and skips over successes, which is why Mariana in our example has forgotten the praise by lunchtime but remembers the typo for a week. If loss of interest and sleep problems have also lasted for weeks, this may be a sign of depression. Feeling worthless does not yet mean that you have this disorder.
- Loss of a familiar role. Illness, maternity leave, losing a job or moving take away what made a person feel useful. This happened to Serhii after his operation and to Stefaniia after maternity leave. Their worth does not disappear, but it becomes harder to see.
- Comparing yourself with others. When there are many examples of other people’s heroism and success around you, your own everyday tasks seem small. Rostyslav in our example feels this way after the evening news.
- Experience of relationships. If a person has been criticised or belittled for a long time, a harsh inner voice may repeat other people’s words.
The conclusion is simple: the feeling of worthlessness says something about your state right now, not about your worth. Your worth is not defined by productivity or by having no needs.
Your plan for the next few days
- If you more and more often think that the people close to you would be better off without you, or have thoughts of death, do not wait for a routine appointment: seek help the same day, and if you are in immediate danger, call 103 or 112 in Ukraine. How to act is described on the page “Suicidal thoughts”.
- If the feeling of worthlessness persists, grows or noticeably affects your work, relationships, activity and ability to look after yourself, book a consultation with a psychiatrist. Do not put it off especially if you also have marked low mood, hopelessness, strong guilt or loss of interest in life.
- If the thought that you are worthless appeared after a specific failure and fades over time, try the steps in the section “How can you argue with the thought ‘I’m no good’?”. If it keeps coming back, go to point 2.
- If you are more troubled by guilt about a specific action or by a sense that nothing will change, compare your state with the descriptions in the section “What else can feeling unneeded look like?”.
If you recognised yourself in point 2, book a consultation. You can start with one situation in which the thought “I am no good” sounded especially loud.
Consultation booking form.Common questions
Because when self-criticism is strong, praise does not match how you see yourself right now and seems like politeness or a mistake. You do not have to argue with it in your head: it is enough to note that you were told this, and that is a fact too.