why low self-worth can linger long after trauma
This post is the first of two about the film Mickey 17. Check out the whole series.
I sometimes find myself surprised by my clients or people I love when I realize the extent to which they don’t know their own worth. Many have been through some terrible things – and it’s a big deal when they realize they didn’t deserve them. But knowing that our experiences were terrible and shouldn’t have happened is quite different from having a felt sense of knowing not just that we didn’t deserve what happened – but that we deserve better.
The things we’ve been through can become so intertwined with who we are that we don’t even know there’s a “better” to be had. We may not even remember that we thought more highly of ourselves before the terrible thing happened.
Today I will be exploring this idea through the film Mickey 17, directed Bong Joon Ho. Mickey, the main character, goes through some pretty unsettling and violent experiences, so trigger warning and take care. Spoilers ahead as well.
when being treated poorly starts to feel normal
Mickey 17 is a sci-fi film taking place in the not-so-distant future when many people feel compelled to flee Earth in favor of a faraway planet called Niflheim. So many people want to leave that securing a place on a ship is difficult. But there’s a backdoor option – if you want a guaranteed spot on a departing spaceship, all you have to do is sign up to be an Expendable. Mickey Barnes is one such person desperate enough to leave Earth that he’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen – so an Expendable he becomes.
An Expendable voluntarily opts into dying repeatedly, then having an exact copy of their body – down to the last mole, pimple, and memory – reprinted an indefinite number of times. It means Mickey is the ultimate lab rat. The spaceship’s research team can abuse his body with no concern for ethics or Mickey’s general well-being because all they have to do is dispose of the broken Mickey and print a new one.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a toll on Mickey that no re-birth can undo. It’s traumatic dying over and over again. “Even on my 17th go-around,” Mickey says, “I really hate dying.”
why some people struggle to recognize their own worth
The real impact of Mickey’s experiences becomes apparent when he falls into an iced over cavern on Niflheim during an exploration expedition. A group of the planet’s native species – whom the Earthlings have dubbed “creepers” – rush to Mickey with an enthusiasm that looks as though they’ve found dinner. But they don’t eat him. Instead they work as a team, carrying Mickey through a labyrinth of underground tunnels, then bump him upward, through the ice, and send him on his way.
Mickey’s journey back to the surface leaves him feeling confused by the motives of his saviors.
Is Mickey relieved at not having to die, yet again?
No. He is not.
He leaves the cavern dejected, his feelings hurt that the creepers did not deem him worthy of being a meal. “Has my meat gone bad after all that re-printing?” he wonders to himself. As the creepers leave him, Mickey yells after them, “Hey! I’m still good meat! I’m perfectly good meat! I taste fine! Ditching me out here in the middle of nowhere, it’s not cool!”
It’s not until some time later when he’s back at the ship and reunited with his girlfriend, Nasha, that he understands what happened to him. He re-tells her the story saying, “They kicked me out….They were all pushing me and pulling me and they all threw me back into the snow. Maybe I didn’t look tasty enough or I smell off.” To which Nasha responds, “Hold on. You’re telling me they saved you.”
It had never occurred to Mickey that he had been saved, that the creepers actively wanted him to live. He has been treated like an object for so long that it’s like he forgot his value could be understood in a different way.
As Nasha continues verbally processing the implications of Mickey having been saved by the creepers, the camera continues to zoom in on his face. Mickey looks entertained initially, with a face that seems to say “Huh, go figure.” Then he begins to look more serious, pensive, as he digests this information.
This moment, watching Mickey’s face go through a range of reactions, felt so familiar to me. It got me thinking about all of my clients who’ve had a similar eye-opening experience in session when I make an observation or ask a question that, to me, felt obvious. It felt so obvious to Nasha that the creepers saved Mickey. And it feels so obvious to me that my clients deserve to be treated as equal in worth with their romantic partners, their co-workers, their family and friends.
how trauma shapes the way we see ourselves
But what’s obvious to me may conflict with what my clients have learned about themselves through invalidating, dehumanizing experiences with other people. Those lessons can’t unlearn themselves, they have to be challenged with new experiences that teach us something different, and kinder.
We’re using data from our world all the time to help us understand ourselves. When we’re treated poorly and as lesser-than over and over again, our brain uses that data to draw a conclusion about what is normal and about our worth. Then that conclusion becomes a foregone assumption in future circumstances. When Mickey’s status as an Expendable is repeatedly reinforced with literalism, his brain did a great job learning exactly what the research team wanted him to learn: he is an expendable person.
This repeated reinforcement is why healing from complex trauma – and religious trauma as well – can be such a long, many step process. It’s why many people can find themselves wondering why they still feel unworthy after the trauma has passed. There are so many tendrils of pain and internalized beliefs about ourselves that must be identified and slowly challenged. You deal with one piece of the hurt, then somewhere else in your life, the impact crops up again somewhere unexpected like emotional whack-a-mole.
sometimes we need someone else to see us clearly first
Mickey’s connection with Nasha is what helps him start to see himself differently
It’s an incredible breakthrough when we’re able to challenge the conclusion that some of what we went through isn’t normal – or that it shouldn’t be. But for many people, low self-worth can linger long after the trauma has ended. The understanding of our value as a person can remain hidden even after we’ve done work to heal so that we can live a better story. Sometimes unearthing what is hidden takes someone who loves us for exactly who we are and is able to see us more clearly than we see ourselves – someone who sees us the way that Nasha sees Mickey.
Thank you for reading! I’m Trina, and I’m a therapist in Austin, Texas. I write about movies, TV shows, & other media that reflect the kinds of patterns, relationships, and questions my clients are exploring in therapy.
I wrote this post myself, drawing on my own ideas and clinical perspective. I occasionally use AI to help me with things like titles, keywords, and SEO. But the reflections are always mine.
If you’re in Texas and looking for therapy, I’d love to connect and hear more about your story.
