What Anne Sexton Says About the American Dream
Anne Sexton was a poet and writer who struggled with bipolar disorder for most of her life - and yet she was a strong woman in history. Here’s her thoughts on not listening to who you really are and being what you really want to be.
“Until I was 28 I had a kind of buried self who didn’t know she could do anything but make white sauce and diaper babies. I didn’t know I had any creative depth. I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children,” said Sexton.
She didn’t live with intention or figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Instead, she accepted the good old American dream.
Sexton goes on to say: “I was trying my damndest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out. The surface cracked when I was about 28. I had a psychotic breakdown and tried to kill myself.”
For You: Even if you can’t forget how you were brought up and let go of other people’s expectations, you can admit that you care what others think even as you pursue your dreams. For instance, I totally care what my family thinks of my ambitions as a writer (I work too much, I’m obsessed with it) - but I won’t let others’ expectations stop my from achieving my goals. I’m not hurting them or neglecting my kids.
I’m also not burying myself in the expections of other people.
If you conform endlessly, you may not have a breakdown like Anne Sexton did, but you could instead turn to food, drugs, alcohol, movies, or shopping to kill all those dreams that are clamoring for life. So instead of bowing to the forces of society and culture, why don’t you try just being yourself?
The more you accept yourself and your dreams, the more others will accept you for who you are.
