Growing up, Tracy Gary lived in opulent homes in Manhattan, Bal Harbour, Fla., and on Lake Superior's Madeline Island, traveling among them in the family plane, helicopter and yellow Rolls-Royce. Parties and presents were plentiful, including a Ford Mustang for high school graduation. At 21, Gary received the ultimate gift: a $2 million inheritance. Most people would have been overjoyed, but the windfall only intensified her long-held feelings of guilt, isolation and impotence. "I was overwhelmed," says Gary, now 36, who lives in San Francisco. Her problem: the plague of anxieties that seems to afflict a growing number of the very rich.
In well-off circles around the country, they call it "affluenza." It is a malady that draws little sympathy in a society that cherishes money as the solution to most ills. Even so, psychologists are slowly recognizing that great riches are sometimes accompanied by a wealth of crippling emotional and psychological fears. Affluenza can be acute, striking lottery winners or newly minted doctors and M.B.A.s. It can also be a chronic and pervasive condition in families where riches extend through generations. Says Aryeh Maidenbaum, a psychoanalyst in New York City: "The children grow up in a sheltered environment, a kind of golden ghetto without the walls."
Frequently brought up by nannies and servants and insulated from the stresses of having to hold jobs, many fail to mature emotionally or intellectually. "You can avoid growing up," says one wealthy Chicago woman. "My brothers and sisters are in their late 30s, and they're still complaining about this mean thing someone did when they were kids." Notes John Levy, a San Francisco-based consultant to heirs and heiresses: "There's a lack of reality because there's no price to pay. They can go out and do ! something stupid or wrong and be bailed out. It's almost like being in a movie."
Along with their self-absorption, many harbor a sense of worthlessness. "It's hard to build self-esteem if you don't deal with the challenge of getting a job," says George Pillsbury of Boston, scion of the flour family. There is also a feeling of guilt for having been born with money. "That was the worst problem I had," admits Chicagoan Abra Prentice Wilkin, great- granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller. "I didn't earn it." The knowledge can taint even the pleasure of making expensive purchases. The first time Wilkin spent $100 for a pair of shoes, she was so upset she never wore them. And nagging twinges persist. "I still rationalize buying a $3,000 set of sheets," she says. "Well, shoot, why not? You spend a third of your life in bed, and they last." The sheer social inequity of their gilded circumstances gnaws away at some. Declares Paul Haible of San Francisco, who inherited $1 million: "I'm still confronted with people sleeping in the streets. Money may filter that out, but it's not a shelter."