[imagesource: Frank P Wartenberg / Getty Images]
I don’t know about you, but I tend to waver between belief and denial about the age-old saying that “money makes you happy”.
What could possibly make a rich person miserable if they can just throw money at the problem and make it go away?
Then again, another saying pops into mind: money can’t buy everything.
Granted, the human condition, for the rich or the poor, is hella complicated and more often than not, money can’t make difficult feelings or deeper problems go away.
Clay Cockrell, a psychotherapist who specialises in dealing with ultra-high net worth individuals, touches on this over at The Guardian.
Admittedly, he says that he has “developed a great deal of empathy for those who have far too much”:
Most of the people I see are much more willing to talk about their sex lives or substance-misuse problems than their bank accounts. Money is seen as dirty and secret. Money is awkward to talk about. Money is wrapped up in guilt, shame, and fear. There is a perception that money can immunise you against mental-health problems when actually, I believe that wealth can make you – and the people closest to you – much more susceptible to them.
While shows like Succession and The White Lotus give audiences the pleasure of watching the wealthy struggle, Cockrell can see how their challenges are “real and profound”.
The wealthy might even struggle with isolation, boredom, deep mistrust, fear, shame, and guilt, more than the average joe with only a couple hundred thousand in their accounts.
Not to mention all the toxicity that comes with excess:
…What would it be like if you couldn’t trust those close to you? Or if you looked at any new person in your life with deep suspicion? I hear this from my clients all the time: “What do they want from me?”; or “How are they going to manipulate me?”; or “They are probably only friends with me because of my money.”
Wealthy individuals might even struggle with purpose, boredom, and ambition:
Why bother going to work when the business you have built or inherited runs itself without you now? If all your necessities and much more were covered for the rest of your life – you might struggle with a lack of meaning and ambition too. My clients are often bored with life and too many times this leads to them chasing the next high – chemically or otherwise – to fill that void.
The isolation is also real, having been brought up in such a specific bubble, it becomes difficult to relate to or have empathy for people on the outside.
You can see this play out pretty clearly with the characters in Succession:
Notice the awkwardness and lack of human connection and how dreadfully they treat each other. It’s fascinating and frightening. When one leads a life without consequences (for being rude to a waiter or cruel to a sibling, for example) there really is no reason to not do these things. After a while, it becomes normalised and accepted. Living a life without rules isn’t good for anyone.
Otherwise, you can take major notes from Jennifer Coolidge’s vulnerable performance in White Lotus to understand more about how rich folks are often just as damaged, if not more.
The thing with mental health is that it is not visible, it lies beneath the surface of things.
So next time you see some rich people laughing and clinking their champagne glasses away at a fancy restaurant, just remember that nothing is ever as it seems.
They might, in that moment of smiling, be absolutely plagued with deep loneliness, mistrust, fear, shame, and guilt.
[source:theguardian]
