Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
But I wonder, if Frankie-boy had ever turned around and called her an ugly old bag, or dropped her like a hot potato once he reached the White House, would she have had to add a caveat? “…without your consent. Uh, depending who that person might be.”

Because let’s face it, what she says is true. It is our choice how we feel about anything, everything, how others behave towards us, or the things they say. And if we feel inferior, it is because we are allowing ourselves to feel so. We have chosen to feel that way.
We are supposed to use our self-esteem and self-confidence to know our self worth and realise that the thing said/done against us has more to do with the issues the person who said/did it is facing, rather than with the person it is directed at.

But…and of course there’s a but!....if that person is someone you love and trust and respect, someone whose advice and counsel you rely on, when that person tells you that you are worthless…well, what are you supposed to think?
It is still ultimately true that it is more a reflection of them than of you, but how can you not take it to heart at the time?

When you love and trust another person, you automatically hand them the power to hurt you. Like it or not. And it’s WAY hard to get past. You have to go through a whole exercise of picking up the shreds of your ego and putting it back together again. Desperately trying to remember exactly why you ever thought you were worth it in the first place.
And the next step is to withdraw that automatically bestowed consent.
Learn your lesson properly and that person will never be able to make you feel inferior again.

As it turns out, Mrs. Roosevelt was also the person that inspired ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’, which is a modern bastardisation of her quote, “If someone betrays you once, it is their fault; if they betray you twice, it is your fault.”
Oh yeah, Eleanor definitely knew she needed that caveat.