Before you go “Poor diddums, earning only £50,000 a year and feeling distressed — get a grip”, there are two things you need to know about the high-achieving man. The first is that, hard though it may be to believe of your control-freak boss, he is probably more emotionally vulnerable than you. In many cases, these people really are compensating for a profound inner sense of powerlessness and worthlessness. The workaholic pursuit of institutional power and the externally conferred self-esteem of social status and celebrity — whether national or restricted to his profession — keeps him from cracking up.
Almost all dictators — Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein — lost a parent before the age of 14. The same is true of a third of British prime ministers and American presidents, and a third of leading entrepreneurs. Exceptional achievers are determined to wrest their destiny from fickle fate through impregnable success, never again to be at its mercy, as they were when the parent died.
They are also more likely to have had cold, controlling mothers who rewarded only success. Their best was never good enough. They were made insecure by being more liable to have divorced parents. These experiences create personalities prone to being hyper-competitive, chameleon and Machiavellian — all traits linked to career success. Many are also what is known as Marketing Characters, people who regard themselves and others as commodities to be bought and sold. They are suspicious of others’ motives to the point of paranoia, and perfidious and superficial in friendships and their love lives.
An extraordinary recent study showed that senior managers are more likely to have certain personality disorders (narcissism, obsessionalism, histrionics) than criminals in hospital. But if the successful are more likely to be looping the loop because of difficult childhoods, that is not the only reason why earning more than £50,000 a year correlates with feeling distressed.
We are suffering an epidemic of what I term the Affluenza Virus — putting a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and celebrity. These values place you at greater risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder because they impede the meeting of true needs (security or intimate relationships), rather than confected wants.
The Virus has spread in the English-speaking world like a plague. For the people at the top, the pressure to work longer hours in an increasingly competitive, complex and technologically speeded-up global economy has become overwhelming. For men, it has been especially problematic.
From the 1980s women poured out of the universities to compete for the senior jobs but there was no diminution of men’s feeling that they must be breadwinners. Dual-earning households increased the family wealth, raising the ante for positional, status goods.
It became unthinkable for men, trapped on this treadmill, to slow their rise up the career ladder. Those who were Virus-infected Marketing Characters, already programmed to think like this, did better and better — and became unhappier and unhappier.
Of course, there are exceptions among the high achievers. Some find work absorbing and intrinsically interesting, rather than chasing Virus prizes. But the Men’s Health Forum survey reveals that they are a minority.
Most of our Marketing bosses and rulers will be watching the World Cup only with a view to crafting a soundbite or being able to pass themselves off as one of the lads. They may be bossing and ruling us to be more like them, but spare a thought for how sad that would be if it were (or is) you.
- Oliver James is the author of They F*** You Up — How to Survive Family Life. His book Affluenza — How to Be Successful and Stay Sane will be published in January
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Men’s health: what the survey found
A new survey commissioned to mark Men’s Health Week this week suggests that nearly half of British men (46 per cent) suffer from moderate or extreme stress every week — and 17 per cent of those have not sought help.
Despite their affluence, 59 per cent of men earning more than £50,000 a year say they suffer “moderate to extreme” stress every week.
Higher-earning men are the most likely (22 per cent) to binge eat to try to get over feelings of depression, stress or anxiety, but are the least likely to have seen their doctor (23 per cent) about the problem, or to turn to illegal drugs (2 per cent).
Ten per cent have attended counselling or therapy sessions. The most popular techniques for dealing with stress in this income category are to exercise more (33 per cent), take a break (33 per cent) and to get to bed early (31 per cent).
Fifteen per cent of men in this income bracket say they would try to conceal that they thought they had a mental health problem.
Fifty-four per cent say a better work/life balance would alleviate their feelings of stress, depression or anxiety, 29 per cent say having a less stressful job would help, and 23 per cent say having more money.
- Research carried out for the Men’s Health Forum by YouGov among a representative sample of 1,212 men across the UK
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