I don't matter - working through this core belief

[Movingforward10]

The whole "it didn't matter" message when I was experiencing trauma was super helpful at the time. I now know that it did matter. And telling myself it didn't was a survival strategy.

However, at the root of that was the message that "I don't matter". It's this root message I am struggling to work through.

Have you worked through it?

Cognitively I know I matter. I have people in my life who tell me that. But *feeling* it and *knowing* it is difficult. It just hard wired in my brain that I don't matter. It is still my 'go to'.

Any tips to help address this that have worked for you, gratefully received.

 

[In the weeds]

But *feeling* it and *knowing* it is difficult.

I totally relate to this. I know I'm just an Internet person, but to me, I'm glad you're here and I think you DO matter. I used journaling a lot to process things from my past. I hope you find healing soon.

 

[Midnightmoon]

Being part of something bigger than me and my tiny circle has always helped historically, not so much now because my health won't let me, but when I was *old me* I spent a heck of a lot of time volunteering. There is something very centering about being a cog in a big wheel doing little bits of something that all contribute to this bigger end goal. Present drives for the elderly in hospital at Christmas, doing a volunteer shift delivering meds to people who couldn't get to clinic after my own shift finished, baking cakes for sales and fundraisers... Nothing huge or ground breaking but reminded me that I was part of something, I existed, and I think that is at least a step on the path towards mattering.

 

[anthony]

Cognitively I know I matter.

No you don't, which you state below.

It just hard wired in my brain that I don't matter.

You are confusing yourself between convincing yourself that you know you matter vs accepting you matter.

Then we have, define "I matter" is a difficult thing.

This particular distortion, I tend to think can be more philosophical. Why do human beings have a compulsion to "matter" and in what context? Really, we're just an insignificant person in the scheme of the world, and when we each die, the world continues on just as it was. This brings me to who we matter to?

Here is what GROK puts into context on this, after I asked it:

The question "do we matter?" is one of the oldest and most persistent in human history. It usually shows up in moments of existential vertigo—when the universe feels too big, life feels too short, or personal suffering feels too pointless. So here’s a clear-eyed answer, with context.

### 1. On the cosmic scale
No.
The observable universe is ~93 billion light-years across, contains ~2 trillion galaxies, and will likely expand forever until everything is cold and dark. Earth is 0.00000000000000000000000000001% of that (give or take a few zeros). Humanity has existed for ~0.002% of Earth’s history and will almost certainly be gone in a cosmic blink—whether from climate collapse, asteroid impact, heat death, or our own self-destruction.

In pure physical terms, we are a thin film of talking meat on a watery rock orbiting an average star in a galaxy that itself doesn’t matter to the universe. Carl Sagan’s “pale blue dot” paragraph is brutal but accurate: every hero, every lover, every war, every tear happened on that speck, and the universe didn’t notice.

### 2. On the human scale
Yes—intensely.

Even if the cosmos is indifferent, consciousness isn’t. You matter to the people who love you. Your actions ripple: the way you treat a stranger today can statistically change whether they harm themselves tomorrow. Every book, song, vaccine, joke, hug, or act of cruelty alters the only realm we’ve ever known to contain meaning—the thin layer of minds that can suffer and love. In the only place meaning has ever been observed to exist (sentient experience), we matter enormously.

### 3. The absurd-but-honest synthesis
We are both utterly insignificant and the only carriers of significance we’ve ever discovered.

The universe doesn’t care, but we do—and that caring is the rarest, most defiant thing in a 13.8-billion-year story of exploding stars and black holes. Camus called this the “absurd: the clash between our hunger for meaning and the universe’s silence. His conclusion wasn’t despair but revolt—living passionately and compassionately precisely because nothing is guaranteed.

### So do we matter?
- To physics: No.
- To each other: Yes, more than anything has any right to.
- To whatever (if anything) comes after death: unknown.

The context that actually changes the felt answer is whether you zoom the lens out to 10¹⁰⁰ years or in to the person sitting next to you right now.

Most people who are crushed by the “no” haven’t fully internalized the “yes.”
And most people who cling only to the “yes” are avoiding the liberating terror of the “no.”

Both truths at once is where the question stops hurting and starts propelling.

You matter because you are the universe (temporarily) experiencing itself—and for a few decades, it gets to look out through your eyes and care. That’s not a consolation prize. In a dead cosmos, that’s the whole miracle.
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This is my point about this specific distortion being philosophical.

 

[Rose White]

I think this is related to the d-word thread in that it circles around the concept of self-worth.

I like your distinction between knowing and feeling.

There’s this idea in psychology of behaving *as if* you matter. The idea is that your feeling follows your actions, which there is evidence to support.

You said that you cognitively know you matter because you have people in your life that tell you you matter. Have you also decided that that’s true even if other people didn’t tell you that?

 

[Movingforward10]

I totally relate to this. I know I'm just an Internet person, but to me, I'm glad you're here and I think you DO matter. I used journaling a lot to process things from my past. I hope you find healing soon.

Thanks @In the weeds . You too.

Nothing huge or ground breaking but reminded me that I was part of something, I existed, and I think that is at least a step on the path towards mattering.

Thanks MM. I think that's why I like work? Gives some validation. But also I think I'm totally replaceable and it doesn't quite help with the 'mattering' business.

You are confusing yourself between convincing yourself that you know you matter vs accepting you matter.

Thanks @anthony. Trying to work that through.

### So do we matter?
- To physics: No.

Agree. And it gives comfort really , thinking about the universe and how vast it is. And us humans are nothing more than a phase in it's existence.

- To each other: Yes, more than anything has any right to.

Working on this. This is the crux of it.

- To whatever (if anything) comes after death: unknown.

For me: there is nothing. I don't have beliefs of after lives.

Have you also decided that that’s true even if other people didn’t tell you that?

Thabks @Rose White . I haven't decided that. Something for me to think through.


So basically, the upshot is: humans matter to other humans. Intensely. Whether they tell you or not.
I'm still stumped. What am I not getting?

 

[No More]

Is this more in relation to mattering to other people, or you accepting that your life/feelings/experiences matter to yourself, regardless of what other people might think or feel?

 

[Movingforward10]

Is this more in relation to mattering to other people, or you accepting that your life/feelings/experiences matter to yourself, regardless of what other people might think or feel?

I think I am probably confused about what it relates to. I think maybe mattering to myself? Because I know I matter to my partner and friends.
But equally, I just don't understand what that means, if that makes any sense? But that is prob another thread (learning what mattering means).

Working it out: it's me understanding that I matter. To myself and others. That I can put myself first (not saying that I am some saint that doesn't, because I do but not because I matter but because I can't deal with what the other thing is).

Idk.
I am confused.
And stressed at this point about some other stuff so it's all blurry in my head.

 

[arfie]

Have you worked through it?

works still in progress. my golden years have added new dimensions to the work, especially since fate decreed i start a second parenting career at age 65, derailing all my personal projects in the process. always something, huh?

when i get to feeling like i don't matter, i look for little things i can do to make the world a better place. pick up litter. open a door for someone. bring a smile to a worried face.

 

[No More]

Working it out: it's me understanding that I matter. To myself and others.

I’ll do my best to get my thoughts down - I’m not always great at translating thoughts to text.

I think cognitively as you said, you know you matter enormously to friends, E, your sister, your colleagues etc. In terms of the concept of mattering, can you maybe think about how others matter to you? How that feels to you to give that care, and worry, and hope, and then reverse it, so that’s how others will feel about you. A colleague for example, will matter to us on a different level than a partner. In a colleague, mattering might be the usual; they matter as a human AND then they matter in terms of their expertise, knowledge, reliability.

I’m not sure you intrinsically believe you matter, separately and outside of people’s feelings. Sometimes I get the vibe from you that ‘if I matter to them, I matter to me’.

Take for example, someone that is very isolated, that person would still matter, what happens to them would still matter, regardless if they had anyone around them that they externally mattered to.

Learning and believing that for me helped. That I matter, as a human being, what happens to me matters, as a human being, regardless of whether or not anyone else thinks that too.

 

[Movingforward10]

Thanks for that @No More.

My T was asking how do I show that E matters to me. And I get all that on a cognitive level.

But yes, I think it is this internal "I need to matter to me" thing. And yes, I do have this "if I matter to them, then I matter" thing. Which is why I get so much from work I think. All that external validation. Which is what I grew up with. That conditional love of: if you do this for me, then you get attention.

It is that internal "I matter" that is the difficulty.
How do you learn how to matter for yourself?
I know you said that learning that as a human being you matter helped you.

I'm trying to digest that. (This is word salad coming...)
As a human being I matter.
So I suppose, I tell the messages in my head that tell me I don't matter "that's not true, I do matter" etc. Like I have for other things. Those counter messages for those cognitive beliefs. Works for this one too?

 

[Rose White]

I do have this "if I matter to them, then I matter" thing. Which is why I get so much from work I think. All that external validation. Which is what I grew up with. That conditional love of: if you do this for me, then you get attention.

This is landing really heavily for me. I don’t want to face these difficult truths.


It is that internal "I matter" that is the difficulty.
How do you learn how to matter for yourself?