samples
Samples from The Self-Esteem Trap
The Trouble with Being Special
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Self-Esteem Trap
Adrienne is a tall, slim, stylish, and attractive thirty-three-year old woman, a successful psychiatric resident likely to become an excellent psychiatrist. Although she is divorced (without children), she appears from the outside to have her life together. Her peers and colleagues look up to her. She has met her career objectives, presents herself well, and has a very athletic lifestyle that includes biking, hiking, and yoga. She lives in a small, comfortable house with her dog and two cats in a beautiful neighborhood on the north side of Chicago. From the outside, one would guess Adrienne to be confident and relatively happy (except maybe for the divorce). Not so. Despite her impressive achievements, Adrienne feels trapped in negative feelings about herself and afraid of being alone. Since her divorce, her parents have been supporting her financially. She doesn't really want to grow up, she says, and is uncertain about what direction she wants her life to take. "I mean, how do I deal with the world out there if I'm not getting a grade?"
The Self-Esteem Trap
Good grades were a big part of Adrienne's childhood. Like many high-achieving young women, she grew up in an upper middle-class household and went to good schools. She was bright and pretty and healthy. Her parents repeatedly told her that she could do anything she wanted, and that she should set her sights high because she was so capable and held so much promise. The only major difficulty Adrienne faced during her years of living with her parents was an eating disorder, one that developed in the summer after eighth grade. All Adrienne remembers about how it started is that she came home from camp, having had the best time there she had ever had, and her mom said, "It looks like you gained a little weight." Adrienne looked at her hips in the mirror and they looked too big to her. "I was mortified. I remember looking at the other girls and making comparisons, and I just started dieting. And it was extreme. Mostly it was through exercise and competitive swimming. I was about my full height then, around five ten, and I went from 135 to 113 fast."
Adrienne's parents insisted that she see a psychiatrist and that she follow all of his advice and instructions. Although Adrienne strongly resisted the intrusion on her control of eating and exercise, it appeared, at least on the surface, that she cooperated with her therapist. She went on to a good private high school where her mother was on the faculty, did well there, and then was accepted into the elite Ivy League college that she most wanted to attend. In college she did well with her grades and social life. All of these successes culminated in acceptance into the medical school of her choice.
Adrienne has fulfilled many of the dreams that middle-class and upper-middle-class parents have for their children. She has been successful in all of her academic endeavors, got into an Ivy League college and graduate school, is moving into a career that will pay well and be challenging, and has many good friends. And yet Adrienne is far from happy or satisfied with her life. When she thinks back to her youthful expectations, she seems a bit astonished. "My expectations were sort of fantasies. Maybe not even fantasies, because for a fantasy you have to have some kind of image or picture. I just thought that things would fall into place for me. In the last few years, when I realized that my marriage wasn't working, I just freaked out. It wasn't in the plan that anything would go wrong for me." When I ask about her goals for her life now, the first thing she says is, "I just want it to be easier." Then she poignantly sums up her thoughts: "I'd like not to sink into this darkness."
Adrienne's unhappiness is typical of the self-esteem trap in many young people in their teens, twenties, and thirties who have received the best care, attention, education, opportunities, and expert help their parents could provide. In my therapy practice I see young people like Adrienne who are confused about their negative self-absorption and restless discontent, afraid of the challenges of living out in the world without their parents' support. Many of them are children of Baby Boom parents. I also see many parents who are themselves distressed at the outcome of their dedicated parenting. Having done their best to give their children everything they could possibly need, these parents are hurt, baffled, disappointed, angry, and fearful about their children.
