It is a modern tragedy. A young man is born with incredible talent and promise, and then achieves unimaginable success early in his life. A glorious future is predicted, but instead his life is a series of increasingly bizarre behaviors and events, culminating in his untimely death. Michael Jackson is called “The Prince of Pop”, but he should be known as the tragic hero of our time.
Who was he, really? Michael Jackson has been, paradoxically, both the most public and the most private figure of the last half century; a man whom everyone in the world knows but few, if any, really know. He fiercely guarded his privacy; sometimes he goes to extreme and even bizarre lengths to hide his appearance and that of his children. He was there and he wasn’t there, and now he’s really gone.
His tragic story began more than 50 years ago. According to many accounts, he was severely beaten and verbally abused as a child, and was teased by his father for the size of his nose and the color of his skin. At a very young age he and his brothers became world famous, but he stood out as the star. Fame is never an entirely positive thing for a young man: he projects a false public persona onto a formless personality and confuses the young man about his true identity.
The combination of early childhood trauma and very early fame is akin to nitro plus glycerin: highly explosive. MJ never had the opportunity to find out who he was like an ordinary young man would. He was the Teen Heartbreaker; the Musical Sensation, the Shining Star. These characters placed on top of significant abuse are like a magnificent mansion placed on a fragile foundation. Inevitably, everything must come crashing down.
There were early signs that things were not right. He didn’t come off as a normal guy, but he did have hard-to-define relationships with other famous people. Some were much younger and others much older. With most people we could say, “This couple suits them” or “This couple doesn’t suit them,” but with MJ, neither couple seemed to fit him. In fact, his sexuality was as confusing as his choice of mates.
Then there was the plastic surgery. Photographs taken after his first nose job showed a handsome young man, but the second one left him looking a bit too pretty. Until that time, he seemed like a normal young man, albeit slim, but after the second surgery he became more and more androgynous.
Multiple surgeries later, it was obvious there was a serious problem. Her face seemed mutilated. According to some reports, the tip of her nose had been destroyed by too many operations and she had to wear a prosthesis. It was almost a relief when she came out wearing the mask she used to wear.
His eyes fared no better. They seemed to protrude from under her overly prominent forehead; lined with thick black eyeliner and abnormally long lashes. Her bright red feminine lips were drawn and stretched like a middle-aged woman who’d had one too many bad facelifts. This handsome young man had become terribly deformed.
The most confusing thing was the color of his skin. Growing up, he had the typical characteristics of an attractive African-American man. However, as the years passed, he paled and lost all evidence of his African ancestry. There was a cruel joke that implied that he had started out as a black man and had become a white woman. No one unfamiliar with him could have visually connected the young Michael Jackson with the man he later became.
Far past the point where it became grotesque, his face kept changing. Perhaps work was being done in vain to repair damage caused by previous surgeries, or perhaps he had a condition known as “Body Dysmorphic Disorder,” in which someone falsely believes that one or more parts of their body are unacceptable and should be removed. change. . From one public appearance to another he looked different, altered. Nobody knew what to expect. His face was a work in progress, never to be completed, and perhaps this was the most apt metaphor for his identity.
Despite his ever-changing face, he was instantly recognizable. Her lanky body, military-inspired jackets and skinny jeans. Aviator sunglasses and long hair. At one point, the only glove. And yet his personal identity seemed so unstable. He engaged in a series of compulsive behaviors. Aside from his continued alteration in appearance, there was his excessive spending, an altered eating pattern, multiple substance abuse, and a pattern of surrounding himself with young children.
He was accused of many wrongdoings and acquitted of some of the charges for which he was brought. A legal suit was settled out of court for possibly millions of dollars. There is no way of knowing if he was guilty of anything other than ill-advised decisions. Regardless of the behaviors he actually engaged in, any and all of his compulsions could be seen as the result of early and ongoing childhood trauma.
Some people said that he had problems with the race and he vehemently denied them, claiming that he was proud of his heritage. He was confused, then, when he adopted three white children. He claimed that the two eldest children of his were his, but the genetics of this would be so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. He was briefly married twice and both women were also white. This may all be a coincidence, but one wonders if he hated his father so much that he tried to erase everything about himself that might be similar to this abusive and rejecting father model.
Sometimes MJ would do wonderful things, like “We are the World”. She sometimes did horrible things, like dangling her baby over the balcony in front of a group of reporters. She would sometimes do unexplained things, such as trying to buy the remains of John Merrick, the “Elephant Man,” who was suffering from a disfiguring condition called neurofibromatosis. It is chilling to think of him wanting to possess the bones of a man who was seen as a physical freak and who tragically died very young.
MJ bought a ranch and called it “Neverland”. He seemed obsessed with the symbols of eternal childhood. People with early and severe trauma often have difficulty growing up and seeing themselves as fully-fledged adults. They tend to remain childish in their appearance and attitude and naive about how the real world works. They cling to their past in hopes of creating the happy and loving childhood they never had. Was this what Michael Jackson was doing with his petting zoo and his carousel? Was that why he, like Peter Pan, surrounded himself with his own gang of “lost boys”?
More recently, it seemed to have stabilized somewhat. She was allowing her children to be seen in public without their masks and shrouds. He had settled comfortably into the role of loving father to him and his legal problems were behind him. He was embarking on a major concert series and was diligently rehearsing for the shows. His death was a great shock for many people, but perhaps not for all. After all, there was still a fabulous mansion teetering precariously on flimsy foundations.
Recently, it was discovered that MJ had such a severe sleep disorder that he had been using general anesthesia to sleep. The physician who was administering this anesthesia outside of the proper hospital setting has much to answer for.
Apparently, the temptation to behave unethically was too great for plastic surgeons, family doctors, and many of the other health professionals involved with MJ. They put the desire for personal benefit from him, whether in the form of money, power, or access to the star, before what is good for him. Perhaps it was that they were so amazed by his greatness that they simply couldn’t refuse his inappropriate and dangerous requests, even when they should have.
He was in a series of dysfunctional, symbiotic relationships with people who were supposed to be taking care of him, but who were instead exploiting or pandering to him. Paradoxically, the fact that he had so much money and power made it possible for anyone around him to become an enabler of his self-destructive behavior.
It could be that, like so many child abuse survivors dealing with deep ambivalence and denial about their past, MJ turned down the help that was offered. However, unlike most people, she had the ability to isolate herself completely from those individuals who might insist that she distance herself from toxic enablers in her presence and get real help for her problems.
We may never know why he did all the wonderful, horrible and inexplicable things he did, and herein lies the greatest tragedy. Obviously, a lot of people loved him, but it seems like no one was able to tend to his emotional wounds or help him get the therapy he needed to deal with his initial trauma. If only there had been someone in his life who knew the truth about his past and he had the courage and wisdom to take a stand; perhaps his life could have been saved.
(C) Marcia Sirota MD