How Many Kristen Wiigs Are There?

Kristen Wiig

Bridesmaids

I'm probably the last person to see Bridesmaids.   

Quick  therapydoc  synopsis:

Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a relationship with a man who tells her, after a night of serious hard work in bed, that he wants her out of his apartment toute de suite.
It is morning.   It is against the rules, sleeping over.

She knows the rules, and she knows who makes them.

Right away we have a problem.  Annie is creative, she's smart.  She looks like Meg Ryan, but is so much funnier.  She shouldn't have trouble finding a man who will treat her right.

It's a trite theme.  Girl in her thirties tries to please a guy who isn't good enough for her, who treats her badly.  It is a friends with benefits relationship. Even Annie would say that the benefits don't outweigh the emotional costs, a rich-boyfriend-who-uses-her-for-sex versus always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

But she hangs on, probably because she doesn't want other people to think she's always alone, a definitive loser. At least that's what my patients tell me, and there are many like Annie in therapy.  To her credit, she's taking some control because indeed, she doesn't want to be alone. Not every. .  single. .  night.  She wants someone she thinks of as her boyfriend.  She wants someone to love her.

We call it settling.  Something's better than nothing-- the rule, not the exception in relationships.  And let's talk-- many a woman would settle for a man who looks half as good as Jon Hamm.  But this is the movies and most of them don't.

In reality, men are treated poorly in relationships, too.
Being a guy doesn't prevent a significant other from walking all over a person, the wishes and needs of the other ascendant, superseding their own.  It isn't gender-specific, self-denial.  The denier feels powerless, pathetic.

Not an unusual topic in therapy. Therapists, like friends, want to shake the patient, who tends to be among the good people in the world, a sincerely giving individual.  We want to scream, The best is yet to come!  Ditch him!  Ditch her!   Easy for us to say.  Tempting, but inappropriate.  Not our call to make.  More powerful coming from the patient.  We'll get there, give it time.

So of course you want to take a look at the family of origin.  Who raised Annie?

Her mom (perfection, Jill Clayburgh) goes to AA meetings and sponsors alcoholics even though she doesn't drink.  She never did.  What's up with this?  Why not Al Anon, go to meetings with people who have to deal with people who use?

We can assume that people in Jill's family did drink, and that Annie's mother got very comfortable in the fixing role, the helping role.  Alcoholics need a lot of help (read Dry, but Augusten Burrows, if you haven't already).  Annie's mom is that woman who can't give up the rescue role (co-dependent), who loves to see a down and outer get off the sauce, needs to be a part of it.  She desperately wants to be involved in the sobriety of others. A talented artist, she can lose herself in her healthy coping strategy.  Annie is artistic, too, there's clearly some transference.  But Annie isn't out there fixing an alcoholic.  She is the addict, and the drug isn't alcohol.

Mom adores Annie and Annie loves her mom, knows she can come home any time.  And  when Annie hits bottom, desperately trying to help her friend Lillian, the bride, she does.  She comes home, penniless.

Did Annie watch her mother do everything for her father with very little, maybe nothing in return?

I think so.    Seeing your mom in that selfless, co-dependent, giving role, it has to wear off on you, especially if she is as wonderful and as entertaining as Annie's.  She's so good, so selfless.

Says it all, don't you think?

Annie is chosen as Lillian's Maid of Honor and she wants to make everything wonderful for the bride, beginning with the bachelorette party, the shower, a dinner to celebrate.  Her wacky blunders are probably the movie's draw for most people.  The film is a comedy of errors, everything Annie does, a disaster.  We like her more for her incompetency, of course, and because she's so naturally funny.   Lillian can depend upon Annie to make her laugh. Most people who know her probably do.

That's a role in an alcoholic family, too, being a clown.  Somebody has to clown around, make everyone laugh, so that nobody has to look at the problem:  Dad's a drunk, not funny.  Somebody do something funny, please!  Distract us.

I love a good movie about co-dependency.  This one worked for me on that level, much more than as a comedic film.   I really didn't need to see that first scene, how hard Annie works to sexually satisfy a guy who will never work that hard for her at anything.  It is a stellar example of co-dependence.

You give, but you don't get back, and you'll settle for that.
It's what you're used to seeing in the family or origin, you can bet on it.

therapydoc  

Enlightened

I see a lot of really good people. You could say that most of the people in my practice-- no, make that all of them-- are just great people. Not that some don't have personality problems, or disorders that make them difficult to like, necessarily, or to be around, but if you get to know people, basically, they're pretty lovable.

So it baffles, me, low self-esteem, even though it shouldn't. A therapist like me will be working with a perfectly wonderful person, an individual that most people like, indeed rely upon, the go to guy, girl, and this person doesn't feel he or she measures up. The person I see as kind, good, caring, unprejudiced, compares himself with other people and thinks, I'm so not as good.

I, personally, want to blame society, more-so than the family, the values of the greater culture, the world out there, television, advertising, the movies, movie stars, professional athletes. How can we compete, seriously, with the wealthy, the talented, the beautiful? Most of us equivocate about buying a new purse, new socks.

When I say most, I mean most.

So society knocks us down several notches. And then there are parents. It's not cool to pick on parents anymore (so much else enters into the equation), but parenting matters when it comes to building self-esteem. Kids are vulnerable, look to parents as large people, giants, really, whose judgment means every thing. I told my son recently that I know that I still hope, want, approval from my parents, and feel that's a good thing. It isn't a primary motivation for my behavior, but it's in there, deep inside. And they weren't bad, to tell you the truth. They esteemed me plenty.

Not all of us are great at self-esteem building, even when we think we're doing a great job. It's a humbling job. In fact, we can be perfectly clueless when it comes to values. We really want our kids to learn these things, so we try hard to get our message across, and often it is received and the answer is no. (Like unanswered prayers). But sometimes we're trying to inculcate a value that doesn't need inculcating, like humility. Now there's a value that needs to be reconsidered.

Humility, I've humbly suggested on this blog before, can work against kids, not for them. It's a good thing to understand that in the grand scheme of things, we're very little, that it's not about us. Our contributions are few, and our lives are short. We spend most of our lives becoming, changing, maturing, changing some more, and when we're old enough to really understand the errors of our ways, it's too late. When we get old and sick we lose the power to do anything about it, can no longer start all over again.

So we should be humble, really, because face it, we're so limited.

But a person has to believe in himself. You have to believe in yourself, if you intend to ever accomplish anything. You can't say, Why bother trying? Because if you don't bother you'll never know who you are. You'll never recognize your own skills, your own value. What's the worst thing that can happen? You fail. Aw. Get over it, get over yourself when that happens, no big deal. Brush it off, try something else. Life is long, or it might be.

It can feel huge, failure. Slows us down, is what it does, smashes the ego, forget about deflating the ego, these aren't balloons. Unfortunately, not knowing that potential is immeasurable, failure slows most of us down, sometimes to a crawl, not a good crawl. So it has to be good to brush ourselves off, pick ourselves up, not look back. Learn from it and move on as fast as we can. Let's not dwell here in our failure. The company is depressing.

Ball players know this. A professional football player can play ball with a dislocated shoulder. Not that that's a good thing, but that these men do this is significant, illuminating, really. The human spirit dominates pain, can forget, can get over anything. (For $50,000 a game, I might consider this too, come to think of it.)

Probably the only good thing about humility, actually, and this is a very good thing, is that it tempers conceit. No one finds conceit attractive, indeed it's pretty repulsive, a big ego, which is probably the reason some fiercely believe in beating a kid into humility. Not to argue with religious teaching, discuss this with your clergy-person, please, but you don't want to miss the lesson that most of us will fall somewhere between narcissism and being a nobody. (Jewish joke, remind me to tell you one day).

Thus a little humility is a good thing, but beat the "I" out of a kid only if you want that kid to forever compare himself and come up short. Any beating will do, to facilitate low self-esteem. Just name your abuse of the day-- emotional, verbal, physical, financial, sexual-- they'll all do the job.

The most clever method, of course, often innocent, too, is denying praise. Deny it. Deny this thing called praise. It is in your power, as a parent, to do so. You don't want your kid to grow up with a "big head", right?*

Never say, Great job. For sure don't say, Brilliant! And those little pictures they make in nursery school? Be sure to say, oh, don't worry, one day you'll be better at this.

If your kid is upset about a 'B' be upset, too. Tell him he should have made an 'A'. What an idiot, seriously, for getting a 'B'. He could have done, should do better.

Parents who buy into this method of child rearing tell me that it gives the kid a bar, a standard to strive for, "You'll do better next time, you'll try harder, study more, workout more, practice more." Not all of them will, however, do better. Sometimes you want to go with what you got and see it as good, do your best with what you've got.

Thankfully, most kids are resilient. They know their strengths, and they resent, rightfully, a parent who withholds praise. It feels good, praise, doesn't it? Who doesn't love praise?

Let's not forget, too, that peers at school can be harsh, and siblings merciless. I'm preaching to the choir, you all know this, when I talk about parenting. Anyone interested in being a good parent should be able to do a pretty good job; there are parenting classes at community centers, zillions of websites and blogs to read. If you let your kids carp on one another, beat on one another verbally, physically, sexually, the siblings will do damage. Nothing like brothers and sisters to humble a person.

So what have we got here? And do football players have low self-esteem?

I don't know. But let's review:

(a) there's that comparison thing, looking around and seeing how small we are, how incredibly powerless, and how inferior to others in, well, so, so many things

(b) and there's the social war our egos have to battle, growing up with people who beat on us, remind us how inferior we are (even if we're not), how fat, how dumb. And remember, we're supposed to take failure on the chin, especially as adults, for failure makes us feel like losers. Failure in adulthood can hurt us even more if our parents and siblings have already fertilized the field,

and finally,

(c) the praise-deficiency model, which suggests that we need praise, and without it some of us will never be quite sure of ourselves, won't ever have a solid, I'm good enough feeling. Not that that's always good, feeling good enough. It suits some of us well to feel we could always be better, try harder.

But you don't want to be feeling bad, inferior, not all the time, not to the degree of pining and moping, depression. You just don't. And praise is the antidote for this. It's like water. A little every day, some form or another, and a person thrives.

Apparently there's a movie, can't remember the name, about enlightenment. (oh, someone just told me it's the Celestine Prophesy and the book is by James Redfield). It's sci-fi and the idea is that some people in society are enlightened, they get it, and others don't, and those who do try to keep it to themselves. Apparently enlightenment is understanding that the only thing that really matters is kindness, being a good person, meeting people in a way that communicates acceptance and understanding.

I might be wrong about the message of the movie, because I didn't see it, but that's what I got out of my friend's description. What it means to me is that enlightenment and self-esteem may actually be discrete variables (are very different, don't intersect, necessarily, at least not significantly). People who have all those enlightened qualities don't necessarily feel enlightened, not if their self-esteem is low. Which means that one has nothing to do with the other, maybe.

Okay, so you already knew that. But I thought it was interesting.


therapydoc

*I am being facetious, here, tongue in cheek. Do not withhold praise thinking it a good parenting strategy, and do not abuse children, either.