You see that pile of mattresses over there? Guess who was there! That's right, the "Princess and the Pea". She was a classic example of the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)". This is an individual who feels "special" and who expects "royal" treatment. They are narcissistically haughty, perfectionistically picky, and imperiously exploitative.
It all got started when they were placed on a pedestal and "deified" by their parents out of the parents' own unmet needs. And while this results in the individual's getting whatever they want, down to the tiniest whim, they end up with a deep sense of worthlessness arising from feeling deserving of not having had their REAL needs met. They also feel guilty for all the ego-tripping exploitation and egocentrism underneath.
HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY?
This is a situation where one or both parents find in the individual a long-lost "golden orb" experience — a kind of "nirvanic nemesis", in the sense of potentially fulfilling some of their deepest desires and unmet needs. They see in the child the possibility of re-parenting and of merging with God in some way, at the emotional body level. They project perfection onto the child, and they in turn literally worship the ground the child walks on. They become profoundly over-impressed with the child, and they end up putting him/her on a pedestal and even "deifying" them.
The child can do no wrong in their eyes, and their message to the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" is, "I'll take care of your every need, want and desire!". The other message is that the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" is one-of-a-kind and terribly significantly "special", and that they can expect the world to bow down before them and to pay homage everywhere they go. Needless to say, this is very heady stuff, and no child can withstand it.
However, there is a darker side to this whole scenario. In the first place, there is almost always a pronouncedly erotic attitude involved in the parent(s)' reaction to them, a situation that is greatly complexified if only one parent has this reaction. The gender of the pedestalizing parent and of the individual play a huge part here, as does the matter of which parent it is. And, of course, the other parent is sure to be greatly enraged and disturbed by the whole process, both because of loss of investment from the involved parent, and because of the implied message to them and the deleterious effects on the child and their ecology. And the erotization of the parent-child relationship always involves a virulent violation of the individual's boundaries in a kind of "raped by God" fashion.
Another "down side" to this situation is that while the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" is given validation for meeting the parent(s)' needs, they are in effect prevented from developing respectability, personal power or the capacity for passion. They end up unable to fend for themselves, and they therefore become totally enslaved and addicted to the parent(s)' having complete control of their life support systems and resources. In effect, they have to "sell their soul to the company store" or starve, and they end up a "prostitute" for their parent(s).
Still a third dark side effect is what could be called a "reverse Jeweled American Prince(ss)" thing where the child is made afraid of their own personal power and characteristics, in a kind of "steamroller-anxiety" complex. In other words, the parent(s) become so over-awed by the individual's resources that they become literally afraid — both of the child and at the same time of losing the child.
In any case, the individual is in the paradoxical position of having become accustomed to the royal treatment, but they pay the price of not developing their abilities and resources in a manner that can be utilized in a true destiny-expressing manner. They are, in effect, a "golden bird in a gilded cage".
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
Underlying the regal bearing and royal expectations is a profound unconscious self-rejection and guilt in the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)". The basic problem is that in pedestalizing the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)", the parents ended up doing unto their child what was done unto them in a new form. In other words, they did not meet the individual's needs because they were so totally dominated by their own concerns and needs. And as is true in all such cases, the child interprets the lack of need-meeting as a "deserved" fate on the basis of some presumed negativity and/or inadequacy on their part in the "eyes of God".
In addition, the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" develops secondary guilt feelings for accepting the pedestalization and for the ego trip that has resulted. What commences is a spiraling process of worth-reassurance-needing, with associated demand escalation chains in which each increment in deference and pampering is accompanied by more guilt and more subtle or not-so-subtle feedback about their obnoxiousness. It can ultimately get to the point of utterly isolated effeteness (marked by excessive refinement or delicateness of taste; decadent) and/or despairing self-destructiveness.
At some level, the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" is aware that they sold out in "Faust" fashion, and they feel horrible fear, guilt and despair underneath. They desperately keep this at bay with their "Jeweled American Prince(ss)"-ing pattern. They even seek to utilize their faults as efforts to compensate for the situation. For instance, part of their persnickitiness (requiring painstaking care of detail) is a "squeaky-clean" guilt-avoidant perfectionism that is unassailable, and a reassurance against their underlying felt sense of worthlessness. In addition, it provides them total control and a sense of protection. They are also at some level afraid of hurting people through failure, betrayal, run-amok, blowing them away, steamrollering them, disaster-release a la Pandora, etc.
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" have a great deal of deep-seated grief due to the lack of real love, nurturing, need-meeting and security in their life. They feel that they have to grab compliments as a sad settle-for survival and starvation-staving response. All their life, they have had to take what was given to them in star-struck admiration, rather than being able to ask for or receive what they really needed. It's kind of a "gold, frankincense and myrrh" reaction in which the very best of a different and irrelevant culture is given to them in great reverence, but how are they to survive on a chunk of metal, a bit of bush and some oil? Their whim of iron also comes in part from deep neediness with severe ambivalence about having needs because of the ambiguous and contradictory messages from their family.
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" accept the pedestalizing because their survival depends on it. But then they get scared and full of "fraud-anxiety" and "faking it to make it" feelings. They have a great deal of accomplishment-anxiety due to the extremely high expectations they and others have of them. They are trapped in a feeling of phoniness because of their intense demands and expectations, and because of their awareness of their lack of ability to truly contribute. They are both inflated with specialness feelings and deflated with fraud feelings. Yet at the same time, they are too terrified to really grow up and away, and they scout, scan and scour for pedestalizing parent-substitutes, they keep the awareness that "They'll catch me if I fall", and they have a constant desire to run off to Daddy's condo. They are in effect profoundly dependent and even parasitic, and at some level they know it.
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" have a humongous rage at their plight and at the invalidation of their "world owes me" orientation and at the requirements of responsibility and restrictions. They also have a lot of betrayal-rage when they begin to lose their parental support system, strangulating though it is. They end up needing an entourage of support systems just to survive, and they deeply resent it at one level. The result is a tremendous rage over their incapacitation. They are also full of sabotage-paranoia about the neurotic court entourage due to their family process and the realities of human relations.
The reality is that "Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" are utterly enraged when they have to take care of themselves in any way. They expect to be taken care of, and they can't hold a job or make a meaningful contribution because of that. They just can't cut it in the world, and they expect to have it all handled for them. And when it's not, it utterly terrifies and completely infuriates them. They will hold out until hell freezes over or until death is imminent before they will in any way accept any responsibilities, requirements, and restrictions. And when this happens, they go into a potentially lethal severe depression.
HOW DO THEY FUNCTION?
Behaviorally, little or none of the above is likely to show up in the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" functioning. Their behavioral style is totally obnoxiously hedonistic, lethargic and exploitatively unwilling to carry any weight or freight. They don't take care of themselves — they expect to be pampered and protected down to their toenails. They are imperiously/furiously demanding perfection resources instantly constantly. They are so egocentric that they expect everything to be free of charge, and they expect to be treated like royalty with no output of their own for the rest of their lives.
They can't conceive of self-support or self-responsibility. They rely on their spouse or their parents or windfalls or whoever they're around to handle all their needs. They totally freak out if self-sufficiency seems to be required of them. They expect a living, a loving and a lavish of luxury, as well as to be pedestalized and waited on hand and foot. They refuse to lift a finger, and they become utterly infuriated if they are required to be self-responsible.
They have a tremendously inflated sense of self-importance and "specialness", and in effect they expect deification everywhere they go, with its associated prerogatives and prestige. They are intensely narcissistic, arrogant and elitist. They are also jealous of others' success because it threatens their standing (and underneath it makes them anxious about their worth). They literally have a blind delusion of superiority and specialness, and they function in an imperiously selfish, exploitative and tyrannical manner. They are super-insensitive and unable to empathize, due to their infantilely (like or suitable to an infant, esp. in behavior; babyish or childish) grandiose "center of the universe" experience. Their experience is that there is no way that they can lose, they are simply ma-a-a-ar-velous, (marvelous, said with emphasis) etc. They tolerate no demands, period.
They are dependently dissatisfied, and they are insatiable and unsatisfiable (unable to be satisfied) . They are esthetically perfectionistically fixated, and they experience every "fall-short" (by their irrelevant perfectionism standards) an insult and assault to their sensibilities, significance and standing. They are into super-subtle satisfactions and trivially detailed expectations. They manifest the "Princess and the Pea" persnickitiness, and they are inordinately judgmental and perennially peeved by the "complete inadequacy" of their environment and the inability of people to "measure up" to their lofty expectations.
They also have an intense need to show how well they are doing to everyone, to demonstrate how "successful" they are. They are always living somewhere else — some one, thing or place other than what is happening would always be better. They're always looking for more and they are never happy with what is, feeling that such sentiments are degrading and disgusting. They even hold God in contempt.
They are supremely confident-seeming, and they are masterful at the release of the "expected respect" authority-deference reactions in others. They are world-class string-along artists — keeping you totally involved with implied promises, pseudo-changes and "needs". They are very good at giving big pseudo-paybacks for their biggest takings, but it is all bullshit. They give nothing, and they are super-tight-fisted unless they get something out of it. They are a total taker and completely oblivious about it.
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)'s" are "ambulatory alum" in the sense that they consume 47 times their weight in energy everywhere they go. They are masters of coercive control, cunning and conning. They constantly suck and demand, studied incompetent care-coerce and "pea", judge and discriminate. They can either be loose, have fun and exploit or they are totally repressed, castrating, controlling and cruel, depending on their family culture. But they are always totally doing their thing only.
They have an extremely hard time adapting the first law of the universe, the equal exchange of energy. It has to come down to a do it or die situation before they can even attempt a change, it's so ingrained and pervasive a pattern. When confronted with the requirement to change, they seek to do everything under the sun to convert all pressures, parameters and processes into sustaining their trip in a super-suck process. They become incredibly ingenious, resourceful and exploitatively extreme in their frantic efforts not to grow up. They have horrendous and self-endangering growing pains.
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)s" become intensely aggressive, accusing and imperious if you give them feedback. Once the inputs are in, they ruminate on them and then demand explanations, elaborations, and justifications at a very high cost to those around them. And if you require anything of them at all, they are apt to go into "rape and assault" revenge tactics on their environment with their incredible resistance. They don't give a shit who or what gets hurt in their final flailing before their "final reckoning" choice is made.
It should also be noted that there is a type of "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" who lives out the total intention to exploit and extort the environment in a vengeful taking to make up for their felt deprivation at the real need level as a child. These individuals are ruthlessly relentless and devastatingly destructive wherever they go. This generally arises out of extreme cases of over-indulgence and effectance-undermining (effectance: to be able to impact the world around oneself ) in a "killing with kindness" subtly hostile parenting pattern.
The reality is that "Jeweled American Prince(ss)s" don't have any real relationships. They just have "subjects", "retainers" and "people in waiting". The trouble is that their support entourage is always "poison apple" neurotic — like their parents were. "Jeweled American Prince(ss)s" distrust love intensely, and they do a pronounced "come hither — go away" thing with intimates. Female "Jeweled American Prince(ss)s" also tend to attract psychopaths because they think the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" is just like them, and the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" finds them wonderfully familiar, as they think they are like them and can take care of them $ucce$$fully (successfully) . Which of course leads to disastrous results on the emotional level, as does their whole pattern.
The fact is that they are in real danger of "going down the tubes". There are no guarantees that the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" will pull out of the depressive spiral that results when they are inescapably confronted with the reality that they have to "grow up". It can go all the way to the point where pragmatics or death out does them in. They are so determined, unprincipled, narcissistic and ragefully indignant that they will do anything to avoid assuming the reins of their life. Even then, they won't let go of the betrayal-rage and resentment, and they become more and more cynical, bitter and despairing as time goes by. And to top the whole thing off, if they remain too good at keeping their trip going, it ultimately brings it all down on their heads due to the first law of the universe — the law of karma.
HOW CAN THEY BE HELPED?
Intervention needs to focus on two fronts simultaneously with "Jeweled American Prince(ss)". On the one hand, the ultimate issue is a desperate drivenness to somehow catch up with the "runaway truck" of their worthlessness feelings, and they need an avalanche of worth-reassuring experiences. But on the other hand, the experiences must not feed into their imperial pretensions. Indeed, the other front of the program is the "dethroning" process.
What is needed here is continuous caring confrontation in conjunction with realistic recognition and reward for genuine attributes and achievements. They need to be allowed to "face down the dragon" of their terror of growing up, and to thereby acquire and use their personal power. Heretofore, they have been entourage-enslaved, and now they have to strike out on their own. They need to be themselves without all the pretensions and artificial support systems to be free. They also have to channel their sexualized energy into power rather than into "prostitution". To do all this requires a true intimate and/or a relevant "pole-vault" relationship therapy person to guide and support them through the process, including "caring enough to give the very worst".
Interestingly, the "Jeweled American Prince(ss)" usually does indeed possess extraordinarily well-developed and/or inherently valuable assets. Any and all validation of personal worth must be based on realistic reactions and considerations in the form of recognition of these genuine articles in a matter-of-fact but appreciative manner. And any "pretensions to preciousness" must be compassionately but firmly rejected as unwarranted and unworthy of them. They also need help in overcoming the conflict that will develop between their wanting others to manifest their destinies too and their fear of their actually doing so.
Finally, they must be systematically assisted in the development of the coping and contribution skills and credentials that they will need to function in the world as an independent and meaningful member of the community, society and the cosmos. As was indicated earlier, they usually have "more than the average bear's" equipment despite all the handicapping their history created. These need to built on and built up to the point where they can be justifiably proud of the own accomplishments and contributions.
What will ultimately result is a well-grounded self-appreciation and an identity based on fully realistic self-assessments and valuable contributions. And this will in turn reflect the "death of the demon within" that drove them to distraction and destruction for more and more insufficient compensations for their sense of worthlessness.
WHAT IS THEIR PURPOSE?
"Jeweled American Prince(ss)s" have an enormously inflated image until they heal, but then they become super-confident and accomplishing. They come out of it with command, competence and confidence, and they are regal, royal and noble/graceful. They then deserve to be treated accordingly, because they have in effect become a genuine giant among people. They become an accomplisher of the impossible, and a masterful resource-generator and resource-deployer. They come on like "Tony the Tiger" and "Paul Bunyan" put together in a super-attainment for the community and the cosmos pattern.
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