What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Supernormal

Meg Jay, PhD, has studied resilience among the famous and not-so-famous for years. Her findings in her new book, Supernormal: Nearly 75 percent of us were traumatized in childhood, what counts as trauma runs the gamut, and many of us go on to live double lives—both succeeding and feeling marginalized. But, as Jay tells Jessica M. Goldstein, we are not alone

- Jessica M. Goldstein

ELLE: You had all this information about resilience and adversity from seeing clients as a therapist for 20 years, and you probably knew much more than the average person before you began this research formally. What did you find were your biggest misconceptions? What surprised you?

MEG JAY: One thing that stuck out is how common it is to have problems with siblings. If you do a checklist, abusive sibling isn’t going to be on it, even though this is a lot more common than people think. I didn’t know sibling sexual abuse was the most common sexual abuse in families.… I had never really thought about the fact that the home is the most dangerous place in America. More people are going to face adversity in their homes than they are outside of their homes.

When we think of child abuse, we think of physical abuse or emotional abuse; I did not know that neglect is even more common and just as harmful. I did not know that witnessing domestic violence is every bit as harmful to the brain and body as being physically abused.

ELLE: In your book, you mention the origin stories of superheroes, many of whom are orphans or experience some childhood trauma. Do you think we live in a culture that is excited about or maybe even fetishizes adversity?

MJ: I don’t—because what you’ll find in Supernormal aren’t extreme adversities. In most of the memoirs of terrible childhoods out there, many of which my clients read for support and recognition, either the adversity or the success was unbelievably extreme.