Their family ties were defined by money. Suddenly, the money was gone.

The Labrador puppy at the foot of her bed on Christmas morning. The $2,000 Tiffany watch at 14. The BMW for graduating from high school.Never-ending gifts. Possessions. Things. "In hindsight, it was really empty. It was really lonely," said Christina McDowell, an erstwhile aspiring actress who grew up among the one-percenters in McLean, Va. She remembers a charming dad who filled the vacuum of his emotional detachment from his family with "a lot of stuff" -- before, she says, he used her identit...