In October's Vanity Fair, there is an interview with a petulant Lindsay Lohan who obviously, despite imprisonment and a public fall into tabloid Hell, still doesn't seem to understand that she is coping very poorly with fame, fortune, or being a sexualized stereotype of the 'fallen' woman. When I read about young adults like her, and there are others like Brittany and Paris, I want to send them a short personal note: "Come out to the quiet east coast and get some therapy. I can help. I think you need a little time in a safe place where people are more genuine and where you'll be able to remember who you are beyond the frenzy of photographers."
There is something calming about finding a place where people will speak to you honestly, where they are not overly nice (and superficial) but instead kind and caring. Ellen Page is from my community of Halifax. She roams our community with deference and respect. There is a quiet calm here, and an intolerance for tall poppies who think themselves better than anyone else. I think Page uses her visits to stay grounded. I admire her for that.
I think Lohan needs to sit with me, or someone like me, beyond the public gaze. Like all young people, I think she needs to find a place where the narcissism that most young adults experience won't be fed. I am simply appalled that no one has been able to help her. Or are those who try to help part of the problem? A phalanx of folks enamoured with the fame that brushes onto them by association. If the quotes in Vanity Fair are even 50% sincere, then Lohan needs someone who isn't going to tell her "Yes" just because they're worried about being fired.
What therapy has she received? Has it been like Tony's in the Sopranos? A forthright search for inner peace? Or has it been like the doctors who helped Michael Jackson mutilate himself without ever confronting him with a simple unspoken fact: that superficial changes of his looks would never change how he felt, or the story he would tell about himself as someone worthy of the respect of others. Do stars simply attract meglomaniacs to match their own narcissism? Young adults are often the same. They only want to hear they're perfect and that their dangerous lifestyles aren't really all that dangerous. Their drug use not really disadvantaging them. Their sexual promiscuity simply a recreational pursuit. There's much more going on there that seldom gets named whether one is Lohan or my neighbour's young adult.
Here's what I'd ask Lohan, just as I'd ask similar questions of any young adult who is confused and hurting: "When you look in the mirror, who do you see?" As a young woman, I suspect Lohan is no different than any other emerging adult, confused by what she sees and the task of becoming independent.
"When have you felt that what you were doing really showed people who you want to be?" Our identities have their own stories, much like characters in a novel. New stories can be written easily when we know who we want to be. I wonder when Lohan's fame was something she was proud of having accomplished? When was it fun to be a star? And when did all that change?
"Who relies on you? Who do you give something special to?" I'm not interested in the superficial acts of being a spokesperson for some distant orphanage in India. I want to know where the young people I work with find the opportunity to actually touch another's life.
"How do the parties and the drugs help you cope?" Notice the question is worded positively. I don't want to lecture any young adult (I never lecture my clients) about the evils of all the things they do. I suspect Lohan is more than clever enough to have figured out that she is risking everything when she uses hard drugs or drinks excessively. Rather than criticizing, I want to hear how these behaviors help her cope in a crazy world of excessive expectations.
"Now tell me about a star you admire," I'd ask her, just like I ask every young person about the people they want to emulate. "Is there someone who uses their fame in a way that you would like to use yours?" This question points me in a positive direction. I can't just suppress Lohan's troubling behaviours. If therapy is going to work, I need to help her find substitutes to her party girl identity that are just as powerful and bring her just as many magazine front page covers (or at least that satisfy her need for fame). With someone with the status of Lohan, one wonders whatever could give her as much of a psychological rush as playing the bad girl in front of the international media. But that's the task, isn't it? To help Lohan find a way to be in the public eye in a way that she can control.
She'd likely threaten to fire me at the first sign of discomfort. She'd likely be angry with me when I failed to be manipulated, or pander to her sense of entitlement. She would likely think that some fella far away from the lights of Hollywood would never understand what she lives. But all that would be nothing but background noise. Somewhere along the line, I think Lohan and others like her lose their sense of being real. Of being just an ordinary person living in extraordinary circumstances.
If Lohan took a quick walk around my community she might turn heads, but the people she met would treat her with respect, keep their distance and be polite. She might be reminded in my office and on the streets beyond that we are all the same. We are all searching for a powerful way of defining ourselves in front of others.
