Conquering a sense of inferiority

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What does it mean if we feel inferior?
Why does this matter so much?
Where do these feelings come from?
What are these negative messages?
What effect does this have?
What can happen if we feel inferior?
Why do we hang on to this misery?
What are the advantages?
How can I change?
References
Useful organisations
Further reading

Paul always thought of himself as the little guy up against the big guys. Actually, he wasn’t little at all, but one memory from his early childhood had fixed in his mind his idea that he was small and weak. He was four years old, and he and his father were having a shower together. His father’s voice was booming over his head, telling him not to be silly, the water wasn’t cold, and there was his father’s massive body next to him. He looked down at himself and knew he’d never be the man his father was. Other men could be as strong and powerful as his father was, but he never could.

Chrissie felt like a little girl always looking, wistfully, through a window pane, watching the world go by. Wonderful people were out there doing wonderful things, but she was so plain, untalented and uninteresting that there was no place for her in that world. These wonderful people were the people her mother called ‘they’. ‘They’ were the important people, the rich and famous, the politicians, lawyers, doctors, actors, celebrities, the neighbours who had good jobs and lived in better houses than Chrissie’s family did. Not that ‘they’ ever noticed Chrissie, but if ‘they’ did ‘they’ would know that Chrissie never measured up to what ‘they’ wanted.

Paul and Chrissie always felt that they were inferior.

Feeling inferior is a horrible feeling. No one is born inferior. It's just a set of ideas that you’ve acquired in childhood. As these are simply ideas, you are free to change them.

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What does it mean if we feel inferior?

When we feel inferior, we see other people as being somehow larger and better than us. They are more vibrant, colourful, talented and successful than we can ever be. We long to be like them, but we tell ourselves that we can’t. When we think about this, a horrible feeling wells up in us; a feeling of despair, disgust, envy and longing. We are sure that other people look down on us and see us as weak, unattractive and despicable. Then, an intense feeling of shame rolls over us. We wish the earth would open up and swallow us and, at the same time, we fear that it will. We’ll be gone, finished, vanished, and no one will remember that we ever existed.

Even as we feel this, we also feel angry. Why should others have so much and we have nothing? We find that we can distract ourselves from the shame of being inferior by concentrating on our resentment of others. So we swing between shame and resentment, and in neither state are we happy.

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Why does this matter so much?

Whether we feel inferior, superior, or just plain ordinary determines what we do in life. Suppose we read that the Royal Opera House is going to sell some tickets for its productions at just ten pounds. If we feel inferior we’ll think, ‘I’d love to go, but I couldn’t be there with all those posh people. They’d look down on me and I’d feel terrible.’ If we feel superior we’ll think, ‘I’m not going to be seen in a cheap seat. If I can’t afford a good seat, I won’t go.’ If we know we’re just ordinary we’ll think, ‘That’s a great offer. When can we go?’

How we feel about ourselves also determines our big life choices - the work we decide to do, the relationships we make, and how happy or secure we feel. If we value ourselves, when life goes well we feel happy and secure, and when life goes badly we assure ourselves that we’ll be able to cope. If we don’t value ourselves, we never feel happy and secure, even when everything goes well in our life.

Paul
Paul had always wanted to be a professional footballer. He had been one of his school’s best players, but his father made fun of his efforts and Paul lost heart. Not knowing what to do with his life, he studied accountancy but, even though he earned good money, he hated his job. He coached a junior football team but, whenever he encountered a young lad with real football ability, Paul felt very sad.

Chrissie
Chrissie became an assistant in a chemist’s shop and dreamed of meeting Mr Right. What did turn up was Harry, whom her mother liked because he was steady; steady to the point of being immobile. Chrissie felt that she’d better settle for what was on offer because the kind of man she wanted wouldn’t want her.

Both Paul and Chrissie believed that they were born inferior and would be inferior until the day they died.

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Where do these feelings come from?

Most small boys feel overawed by their father’s size and power but, at the same time, they feel protected by them. When they reach the same size, they no longer feel in awe. They see their father as an ordinary chap; a bit old, but ordinary.

Paul
However, Paul’s father didn’t use his size and strength to protect Paul. Instead he used it to punish Paul and to make fun of him. Even when Paul was old enough to look his father in the eye, and strong enough to beat him in a fight, he was still afraid of him. Paul dared not even raise his voice to his father, and just the tone of a simple question like, ‘And what have you been doing today?’ made Paul curl up inside.

Paul’s mother always fussed over Paul, making sure he was well fed and healthy, but she was frightened of her husband, so she never protected Paul from his father’s harsh words and blows. Paul was angry with both his parents, but he didn’t express it. Never daring to stand up to his father confirmed his feeling of inferiority. He didn’t want his mother to stop looking after him, so he expressed his anger towards her by being sullen and resentful.

Paul envied those boys who took jobs away from home and had exciting careers, but he felt tied to his parents. He’d tell himself he could leave home and get a great job but, even as he thought this, he knew he wouldn’t.

Like Chrissie’s mother, many parents worry about what ‘they’ might think, but will use phrases such as, ‘What will your grandparents (or aunt, uncle, teacher, neighbour, police or school friends) think?’ to encourage their children to do well with the talents they undoubtedly have.

Chrissie
Chrissie’s mother didn’t think that Chrissie had any talents. How could she? Chrissie’s mother thought that she herself was inferior, and therefore her daughter must be inferior too. She was scared that Chrissie might draw attention to herself in a way that reflected badly on her, or would remind her of her own lost opportunities, so she put a stop to anything that Chrissie might shine at. When Chrissie, a good dancer, wanted lessons, her mother wouldn’t pay for them. So Chrissie told herself that she didn’t want them because only snobby kids went to dancing lessons. She stopped practising her dance steps in her bedroom and, instead, spent her evenings watching television with her mother.

All babies are born with boundless unselfconscious self-confidence. They aren’t born feeling inferior or superior. They’re just themselves. They’re also born interested in the people around them. They watch what these people say and do, and draw their own conclusions about what they experience.

If their parents show them that they see themselves as not being as good as other people, small children are likely to conclude that they must be inferior too. If parents tell their children that they are not as valuable or talented as other children are, their children, like Paul and Chrissie, conclude that this must be so. Even when parents value their children, other life experiences, such as doing less well in school than others, encountering discrimination through racism or disability, being poor or living as a refugee, can create or worsen feelings of inferiority.

When we are small children, the conclusions we draw from our experiences take on the quality of absolute truths. We have no understanding of why our parents see themselves as they do, or why people treat us as they do. Moreover, our experiences as a child are first-time and unique, and so the conclusions we draw from them have a strength and power that later conclusions might not have. Our parents and other adults show us that they see us as inferior. We assume that we are born that way and can’t change. However, feeling inferior is simply an idea, a conclusion we’ve drawn from our experiences. We can choose to change it.

Paul and Chrissie had heard about books and classes where people learnt how to become self-confident, but they were sure that this didn’t apply to them. They were absolutely certain that they were inferior to other people. Everything they encountered in society told them that this was so.

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What are these negative messages?

Our society tells us that some people are superior and that everybody else is inferior. Many people take these messages to be an accurate description of what the world is like. But, if we’re wise, we know that there’s a motive behind these messages, which has nothing to do with our wellbeing and everything to do with one part of society maintaining its power, prestige and wealth.

Take, for instance, the class system. Some people try to argue that class no longer matters in the UK today, but that’s nonsense. We’re all very aware of when a person has a title in front of his name, or talks with a particular accent, or went to a particular school. Many upper and middle class people are greatly troubled by feelings of inferiority, but that’s not how other people see them. They’re seen as being superior because they belong to a certain class. Many working class people see themselves as the equal of anyone else but, unless they’ve acquired the accent of the educated classes and keep the details of their background secret, they’re likely to be discriminated against by those who pride themselves on their birth and accent.

Some churches are structured with a similar hierarchy, where those at the top are deemed not only to be superior people but also to have a direct line to God. You may be very devout, but those who claim to share your beliefs may treat you as being very inferior.

Many people believe that, if you don’t have a good job and lots of money, you’re nothing, and so much of what we see appears to confirm this view. Businessmen and financiers who have made themselves immense fortunes by dubious means can receive public honours. Bosses who’ve failed to do their job properly pay themselves huge salaries, and rich people who’ve broken the law use their wealth to avoid going to jail.

We are surrounded by adverts, which tell us that we are inferior if we don’t own their products. They add to this whopping lie by showing us that to be really superior we have to be young, vibrant, attractive and successful, both in our work and in bed. Similarly, the cult of celebrity, by which people may be famous simply for being famous, tells us the same thing.

Why are we given these messages? It’s so that those people who are enjoying power, prestige and wealth can continue to do so. We’re lied to in order to keep us believing that we’re inferior. Although these messages have nothing whatsoever to do with our true worth, we may take them to heart and feel even more inferior. But then a certain passionate, primitive pride comes surging to the surface. How dare other people have so much more! It’s not fair!

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What effect does this have?

All of us feel angry and resentful occasionally. It’s when anger and resentment come to dominate our thinking that we get into difficulties. We feel very, very angry. We want to smash the people who’ve got everything, but keep our anger inside us, where it turns to destructive envy and endless, bitter, smouldering resentment. We can’t resolve this anger, envy and resentment because we daren’t show those people who treated us badly what we actually feel. Instead, we turn our anger, envy and resentment against the people we feel able to regard as being inferior to us.

Paul
Paul blamed his mother for making him feel weak and inferior. All her fussing - that’s what had ruined him. When he saw other mothers fussing over their sons, he’d be so angry he couldn’t bring himself to speak to them. He was attracted to women, but he couldn’t help feeling that women were stupid and dangerous. His first marriage ended disastrously and his second marriage was rapidly going the same way.

Chrissie
At school, Chrissie had barely noticed that some of her fellow students came from Caribbean or Bangladeshi families but, at home, she’d hear her mother complaining about what the council did for 'the Blacks and the Pakis’, which they didn’t do for her. However, after Chrissie had given up her dreams of being a dancer, she found that if she listened to her mother’s complaints, and added a few of her own, she felt better, as if in some way she’d got her own back. What Chrissie didn’t notice was that she was becoming very frightened of strangers.

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What can happen if we feel inferior?

When we see ourselves as being inferior to other people, we become frightened of other people, because we fear that when they realise how inferior we are they will be unkind to us and reject us. Being frightened of other people means that we daren’t get close to other people and really get to know them. This means that we’re always lonely. When we see ourselves as being inferior, we become wrapped up in ourselves, worrying about how we look and what we do or say, and so we’re often not aware of what concerns other people have. This, and our fear of other people, leads us to make some bad mistakes with other people, who are then hurt by us or feel that we don’t like them. Feeling inferior means that our relationships are always going wrong.

When we tell ourselves that, even though we are inferior, we are not so inferior as some other people, we can’t get to know that these supposedly inferior people are really just like everybody else. We see them as strange and dangerous and, when we encounter them in the ordinary way, we are too nervous to act with confidence. We can end up feeling foolish, and believing the supposedly inferior person is laughing at us.  When we do something well, we can’t take pleasure in our achievement but instead feel that, had we not been inferior, we could have done better.

We are always in danger of blaming ourselves for any disaster that may befall us. Thus it’s very easy for us to turn the natural sadness, which follows a disaster, into the prison of depression.

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Why do we hang on to this misery?

Whenever we do something that causes us nothing but pain, we try never to do that thing again. However, suppose you have a mother who is quite cold and rejecting. As a small child, you accidentally put your hand in the fire and suddenly your mother is there, holding you, comforting you, giving you all the love and attention you’d been longing for. If, when you’ve recovered from the burn, your mother again ignores you, might you not be tempted to have another accident which, painful as it may be, will give you the reward you long for?

It’s the hidden reward within the pain that keeps people persisting in doing something that they know is harming them. This is why people will go on believing that they are inferior, even though this belief brings them so much pain. There are advantages to holding this belief, and people won’t give these up, despite their unhappiness.

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What are the advantages?

• You never lose any competition because you never enter any. Thus you avoid much tension and possible disappointment.
• When you talk about how inferior you are, your friends rush to tell you that you’re wrong; you’re a wonderful person; you shouldn’t underestimate yourself, and so on.
• When you tell your friends how incompetent you are, they then do the things that you don’t want to do for yourself.
• You tell yourself that you can’t take responsibility for important things, because you’re inferior. Other people do that.
• When other people take responsibility you can blame them when things don’t turn out the way you think they should. Whatever happens, it’s not your fault.
• You envy those you see as being better than you, and when these ‘betters’ fall from grace, you can feel very joyful. It’s what they deserve. Tabloid newspapers give you many opportunities to feel this joy in another person’s discomfort.
• You can protect yourself from the pain of feeling pity for people who suffer, by telling yourself that people, especially the people you see as your inferiors, deserve the punishment they’ve got. So you don’t have to worry about people who are hungry, or ill, or have been forced from their homes by starvation and war.
• When you see family or friends enjoying advantages you lack, you can make them feel uncomfortable by talking about ‘poor me, lucky you’ whenever you meet.
• You can tell yourself that, if other people hadn’t forced you to be inferior, you would have been one of the most superior people in the  world. By remaining inferior, you never have to put this to the test.

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How can I change?

In one way, thinking that you’re inferior will ensure that you are inferior, because it stops you from being the person you are; a person with the talents, feelings, hopes, joys and sadness that everyone has. We all need to understand that no one is superior, no one is inferior, everybody is ordinary. Some of us were lucky enough to be born in a peaceful country or to parents who got along well with one another, but, no matter what material advantages anyone has, no one escapes the pain of living. We all suffer disappointment, loss, heartache, separation, failure and death. We all have to try to cope with life as best we can. Envying others only makes our own life worse.

The advantages of seeing yourself as being inferior can be very seductive, because they can give an immediate reward. The big question is, are you prepared to give up these advantages? You will need to:

• Recall incidents from your childhood where you drew the conclusion that you were inferior. Look at this incident now, with an adult eye, and see that the incident did not prove that you were inferior.
• Be responsible for yourself. We have little control over much of what happens to us, but we have total control over how we interpret what happens to us. Always try to create interpretations that don’t make your life worse, in the long term, and that can add to your contentment and satisfaction.
• Have a little mantra to say to yourself whenever you feel your self-confidence slipping; something along the lines of, ‘I’m all right, I’m okay’.
• When you’re confronted by some Terribly Important Person and you feel a bit daunted, imagine what he looks like when he gets out of bed in the morning, or what she looks like in curlers and face mask. One way or another, we’re all ridiculous and we’re all important.

Paul and Chrissie wasted their lives by feeling inferior. Don’t you do the same.

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References

Guide to life Dorothy Rowe (HarperCollins)
Depression: the way out of your prison (3rd ed.) Dorothy Rowe (Brunner-Routledge)

Useful organisations

British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP)
The Globe Centre, PO Box 9, Accrington BB5 0XB
tel. 01254 875 277, fax: 01254 239 114
email: babcp@babcp.com web: www.babcp.com
Cogitive behaviour therapy helps people identify and change their unhelpful thinking and behaviour. BABCP publishes a full directory of registered psychotherapists

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
BACP House, 35–37 Albert Street, Rugby CV21 2SG
tel. 0870 443 5252, fax: 0870 443 5161, minicom: 0870 443 5162
email: bacp@bacp.co.uk web: www.bacp.co.uk
Counselling and psychotherapy help people explore their distress. See BACP's website or send an A5 SAE for details of local practitioners

United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
167–169 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5PF
tel. 020 7436 3002, fax: 020 7436 3013
email: ukcp@psychotherapy.org.uk
web: www.psychotherapy.org.uk
Psychotherapy helps people to explore difficult, and often painful, emotions and experiences. UKCP is an umbrella organisation, which publishes a regional list of psychotherapists

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Further reading

Conquering fear D. Rowe (Mind 2003)
Depression: the way out of your prison (3rd ed.) D. Rowe (Brunner-Routledge 2003)
Heal the hurt: how to forgive and move on A. Macaskill (Sheldon Press 2002)
How to accept yourself Dr W. Dryden (Sheldon Press 1999)
How to assert yourself (Mind 2003)
How to cope with loneliness (Mind 2004)
How to cope with relationship problems (Mind 2003)
How to improve your mental wellbeing (Mind 2004)
How to increase your self-esteem (Mind 2003)
How to stop worrying (Mind 2004)
How to survive family life (Mind 2004)
How to survive mid-life crisis (Mind 2004)
Making sense of cognitive behaviour therapy (Mind 2004)
Making sense of counselling (Mind 2004)
Making sense of herbal remedies (Mind 2004)
Making sense of homeopathy (Mind 2004)
Making sense of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis (Mind 2004)
The Mind guide to managing stress (Mind 2003)
The Mind guide to massage (Mind 2004)
The Mind guide to physical activity (Mind 2004)
The Mind guide to relaxation (Mind 2004)
The Mind guide to yoga (Mind 2004)
Overcoming low self-esteem: a self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques M. Fennell (Robinson 1999)
Relaxation: exercises and inspirations for wellbeing Dr. S. Brewer (DBP 2003)
Sunbathing in the rain: a cheerful book about depression G. Lewis (Flamingo 2003)
Understanding anxiety (Mind 2003)
Understanding depression (Mind 2004)

For a catalogue of publications from Mind, send an A4 SAE to:
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London E15 4BQ
tel. 0844 448 4448
fax: 020 8534 6399
email: publications@mind.org.uk
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This booklet was written by Dorothy Rowe © Mind 2004.
ISBN 1-903567-59-9
No reproduction without permission