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In recent years, members of the 1% have been singled out by protesters seeking to highlight the growing disparity between rich and poor. Now Jana Kasperkevic writes in The Guardian that it can be very stressful to be rich. “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people’s reaction to you,” says Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. "There is a fair amount of isolation if you are wealthy."
According to Clay Cockrell, who provides therapy for the rich, this means the rich tend to hang out with other rich poeple, not out of snobbery, but in order to be around those who understand them and their problems. One big problem is not knowing if your friends are friends with you or your money. “Someone else who is also a billionaire — they don’t want anything from you! Never being able to trust your friendships with people of different means, I think that is difficult,” says Cockrell. “As the gap has widened, they [the rich] have become more and more isolated.”
Cockrell says that a common mistake that many of the his wealthy clients make is letting their money define them. “I don’t think it’s healthy to discount your problems. If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are legitimate to you. Even when you say: ‘I don’t have to struggle for money’, there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that defines you. Your problems are legitimate.” To avoid problems, some Americans have taken to keeping their wealth secret. “We talk about it as stealth wealth," says Jamie Traeger-Muney. "There are a lot of people that are hiding their wealth because they are concerned about negative judgment."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jiro on Monday October 19 2015, @02:45PM
It is often true that people who have X have problems that would not otherwise exist. People with children can worry about their children doing poorly in school. People with hands can have diseases that affect the hands. People with cars can have car trouble. Do you tell people with car trouble that you have no sympathy because they could always get rid of their car? Being rich means you can have rich people's problems in the same way that having a car means you can have car problems. They don't turn into non-problems just because not everyone has money or a car.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday October 19 2015, @03:12PM
Getting rid of your "rich" returns you to normal, and makes someone else very happy.
Getting rid of your hands, cars or children is quite a logistical nightmare.
Not a great analogy