Hitting the jackpot, a burden? Although he won a $1.3 billion profit in the United States last week, the idea of winning the lottery first sounds like luck. However, such an event disrupts a life and can generate questions and changes with loved ones, between “euphoria”, “paranoia” and “existential rupture”.
A “loss of meaning and orientation”
Who has not dreamed of finding the correct numbers? If the announcement is first and foremost “very good news”, it also has “consequences”, warns BFMT Elsa Laurent, a psychologist and addictologist.
The winner first feels “a lot of adrenaline” and often experiences “a total euphoria,” according to the psychologist. Under the impact of the news, winners usually go through a period of “loss of meaning and orientation.”
It regularly results in a “frenzy”. Winners indulge and shop with envy, not caring about their usefulness. A dangerous aspect, since the psychologist claims to have come across cases of new millionaires who “suddenly liquidate with purchases that do not make sense”, following a form of “drive”.
“There’s a feeling of not having boundaries anymore, which is toxic,” he says.
A risk of “social and friendly breakdown”
Winning a very large sum of money in the lottery not only allows you to satisfy your desires, but also offers the possibility of a sudden change of life, which is not always without consequences for family and friendship ties.
Elsa Laurent rightly warns against the risks of “isolation” and “social and friendly ruptures,” especially for people of modest origin for whom change is even more brutal.
“You can be in an environment with anti-rich hatred that suddenly makes you a target,” he says, referring to possible “jealousy” or the risk of being “judged” by those close to him after the announcement of this sudden wealth, to sometimes considered undeserved.
This explains why many winners choose not to reveal their new millionaire or billionaire status to those around them.
“You can develop a certain paranoia when you get rich. We are afraid of exposing it to others because there is a lot of guilt”, estimates the addict.
The FDJ offers psychological support
After a while, questions also arise. In fact, the winners experience a form of “existential rupture”, suggests the psychoanalyst Pascal Neveu, interviewed on BFMTV.
Getting rich in a short time “completely disturbs the questions of desire,” Elsa Laurent abounds. “Life is essentially articulated around desire and when it is no longer lacking: where do we go? What do we like? ”, she develops.
To help winners deal with these risks, La Française des Jeux has offered support since 1993. It covers both asset management, in order to avoid sudden ruin or scams, and also allows winners to discuss among themselves and Discuss the consequences of this life change.
In the United States, winners do not immediately receive the full amount won. Either they are paid little by little over decades, precisely to avoid sudden excesses, or they immediately receive a much smaller amount.
However, according to psychoanalyst Pascal Neveu, despite “some cases of ruin”, in France “the vast majority are people who have been very moderate” and first ensure their daily life and that of their children.
Source: BFM TV
