What price would you pay to be extraordinary?
I will tell you a story of one young woman who paid that price and then some.
She offered an example of how we sometimes defend our self-image at the cost of our happiness.
She was a patient of another psychologist; I filled in for her treatment needs for more than a decade whenever he was on vacation.
Gloria (not her real name) had a tragic early life. Victimized by her parents’ verbal and physical abuse and neglect, she became an easy target for schoolmates.
This woman was unfortunate to be born with below-average intelligence. Her movements lacked grace, and her facial features were unattractive. But Gloria could be sweet and engaging, able to approach strangers and make conversation no matter her long history of rejection.
Even with multiple disadvantages and misfortunes, Gloria, by the time of middle age, might have had a pleasing social life except for one thing: she believed herself to be the world’s unluckiest person, the record holder for having suffered the greatest misfortune in the planet’s present and past.
Moreover, she felt compelled to recount her tale of woe to those she met—too much and too soon.
The outcome was predictable. They shied away from her, rejecting her once more, and adding to her claim as the most ill-treated human in recorded history.
I am not exaggerating here; I once asked her to compare herself to various martyrs and sufferers of tragedy. The list included those who had been tortured, casualties of natural disasters, concentration camp victims, Jesus on the cross, and those plagued with disfiguring and painful illnesses.
My sometimes-client assured me her lot in life was far worse than any of them. Justice therefore required strangers to provide the understanding, sympathy, and support she lacked.
Gloria pursued comfort and affection with a vengeance, insisting on what she asserted was her due. Her sense of entitlement, her demand that humanity should and must deliver it, drove people away as she strove for the love she had never had.
This woman’s therapist explained to her the self-defeating nature of this strategy, and the need first to establish relationships based on something beyond the other’s willingness to listen to her sadness and anger.
His patient didn’t accept it. The world and the rest of the human race owed her devotion (so she presumed); the sooner, the better, and it was only fair to expect them to deliver what she wanted.
Gloria understood that people might lack patience or interest in accepting her premature self-disclosure. As a consequence, you might well ask, why did she repeat the same behavior with the same bad results? Why not try something different?
After much reflection, here is the best answer I can offer.
First, Gloria’s desperation, neediness, and hunger for affection made it impossible for her to restrain herself from lunging at the thing she desired. More importantly, the one thing the client valued above everything else was her self-appointed status as The Most Unfortunate Person in World History.
Now, you might say that you wouldn’t want that particular title, but think about it.
I suspect that designation gave Gloria the only form of distinction possible in her life.
Without it, she became no more than a sad, angry, lonely, unattractive, unaccomplished, anonymous person. With it, however, this individual enlarged herself into someone exceptional, who stood out from the crowd, a noteworthy presence, the most remarkable one in eight billion souls.
The nourishment she received from licking the wounds attendant upon this awful position in life provided her with some solace.
Gloria, I imagine, if she is alive today, would deny my explanation of her misguided conduct, and I cannot promise it is accurate.
Let me ask you this:
Have you encountered acquaintances, friends, or relatives who persist in undermining their own happiness, regardless of the advice, therapy, or wise counsel offered by others?
Have you sometimes wondered why they do so?
Often the answer isn’t “logical” in that it doesn’t “make sense” from an intellectual standpoint. It might be emotionally convincing, however, as I believe it was for Gloria.
If, deep inside, she didn’t think the life she wanted was within reach, her actions suggested that she had found a method, however troublesome, to give herself the internal recognition it wouldn’t otherwise supply.
Gloria was dealt a bad hand in life. Her response to that deal of the cards is instructive. She chose a dreadful fantasy, a story about herself that compensated her for her adversity, even as it fueled her continued loneliness.
Perhaps, on balance, her invention of a notable identity compensated her enough for all the rest.
Was she “crazy?” She certainly was diagnosable, but we all make repeated missteps in life.
Others in our lives, past and present, deserve some compassion. Maybe even the kind Gloria wanted.
Before you condemn her, consider whether pity might be a better choice.
Gloria would have appreciated that.
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The top image is a Young Queen Elizabeth (1952), charcoal pencil on paper, by Darey popoola. It was sourced from Wikimedia.com
