Tag Archives: emotional health

Stress, Addiction, Humility, and the “Stolen Identity Incident”

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Stress, Addiction, and the “Stolen Identity Incident”

Dateline: San Antonio River Walk International Branch Office. One block over, on March 6, 1836, all the well-armed and well-dressed Mexicans in the world, stormed the Alamo killing everyone inside.  Newspapers in the weeks following ran stories encouraging settlers to “Come on down!” As one of those news articles in the Texas State Library says, “Texas is still a great opportunity for you and your family. The report claiming that the men in the Alamo were killed is a false rumor, propaganda sent out by politicians.”  Sigh. Things haven’t changed much.

In thinking about stress management and addiction, I realized it was time for the periodic pledge, the pledge that can eliminate loads of stress right off the top.

The pledge: I can be as big an idiot as anyone else. Even as big an idiot as the people I’m calling idiots. Whew. What a relief not to have to go through the world upset when people don’t do things the way I do, or more honestly, the way I think they should do them.

My special person and I were married in Mexico City and before you pull up lofty visions of the “destination” weddings where the couple or parents rent a hotel for a weekend and fly in two hundred of their closest friends to Paris or Tahiti, the event included the Registro Civil, the two of us, and the taxi driver as a witness.  He was a graduate student and I was a college junior though not the typical age of that group due to several spectacular detours.

In other words. We had no money. Before our big adventure,we embraced our American citizenship and took out a Mastercard. The trip was great, Acapulco, villages, historicalcities. A good time was had by all. The trouble started when we received our Mastercard bill which was a huge amount way beyond our own frugal spending.Clearly, the credit card number had been stolen and whoever took it charged everythingin sight knowing once they were caught the party was over.

Incensed, we marched down to the bank issuing the card and met with the head of the fraud department who was very sympathetic and assured us the bank would help find the culprit. All we had to do was sit down at the computer screen and review the charges marking the ones we did not make. Much relieved we set to work. Thirty minutes later we waited until the fraud director was away from her desk, then we ducked our heads and sneaked quietly to the elevator and out of there.

Repeat after me: “I can be as big an idiot…”

For those who honestly believe they are not subject to all the craziness of being human, there’s always Dr.Laura who knows all.

For me, it’s a comfort to recognize we’re all nuts.

Addiction, It Takes Two…Stress and Addiction, Final Episode

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Dateline: San Antonio River Walk Patio Branch Office. Jennifer Lopez stood on the nearby bridge during the making of Selena.

If you are new the story of Mr. and Mrs. Travis, Catch up with Episode One, Episode Two, and Episode Three. When the next football season came around, Mrs. Travis was the one with symptoms. She’d gained thirty pounds in the past year, had trouble sleeping, and was short-tempered with the children. Mr. Travis didn’t know what was wrong with his wife.

The cell phone in the garage and weekend depressions returned. Five days before Mrs. Travis came into my office, she had discovered a second mortgage had been taken out on their house without her knowledge and a piece of lake property had been sold. The phone rang all day with people either hanging up when she answered or demanding to speak with Mr. Travis. The mailbox was stuffed with gambling tip sheets for sale.

At the time of her appointment, Mr. Travis had been in Los Angeles for a week for continuing education and was due back in three days.

Mrs. Travis asked what she should do. I looked up at the stars. We put a family diagram together including three generations. As it turned out Mrs. Travis, one of four children, had grown up next door to her maternal grandparents, an important detail. When Mrs. Travis was around ten, her father landed an incredible job opportunity tripling the family income. After several years with extra money, the family had a chance to move from the cramped and falling down house they’d bought from the wife’s parents. Everyone was excited and when an ideal house was found, the family bubbled with plans.  Then, Mrs. Travis’s mother told her parents about the plan.

Mrs. Travis, then a young teen, did not know what was said at her grandparents’ house, but heard the all night discussion of her parents. Mrs. Travis’s position was that she couldn’t move away from her parents, that her mother had been hysterical and crying with the “good” news. Her father was angry and said he felt trapped, that the little house was supposed to be temporary and, by the way, he wanted out from under the thumb of his mother-in-law. Mother countered with crying and desperation, admitting she also wanted to move. Her father pleaded with her to “for one time in her life” stand up to her mother and stick with the plan to move.  She didn’t and the family was never quite the same. Her father died of lung cancer several years later. While Mrs. Travis didn’t know if the stress of staying under her grandmother’s thumb contributed to the cancer, but she did know that his last months were unpleasant and sad with his mother-in-law constantly butting in to his treatment. Mrs. Travis remembered her father saying, “Your grandmother finally gets what she wants. She has her little girl back one hundred percent.”

When asked what might have turned out differently if her mother had been able to tell her mother “no,” Mrs. Travis let out a long sigh. “I’ve got some things to do,” she said, and left.

Having a Self and Stress

Here’s what she did, all her own plan. The next day she halved all assets and debts the family had in all accounts, including retirement funds. She called the mortgage company and arranged a re-finance for the next week. She applied for and landed a job as a manager of a pizza franchise blocks from the house.

She met Mr. Travis at the airport and suggested a drink in the airport bar to hear about his trip. She wasn’t angry at all. She was calm and greatly empowered by letting go of her crusade to get her husband to change. In fact, as she told Mr. Travis, from here on out she wasn’t going to interfere with his freedom at all. He could gamble or not, not her business anymore. She wasn’t anxious because she’d taken care of herself. She told him what she’d done with their accounts and that she would be paying the mortgage, leaving him responsible for the mortgage. She told him she had a full time job, but knowing she needed some money to start, she had accepted the penalties and withdrawn several thousand dollars from her IRA.

Mr. Travis spoke up angrily with the IRA news. He said, “That was a horrible financial decision. Paying early withdrawal fees is throwing money away!”

Mrs. Travis simply stared quietly until he picked up on the irony. She explained she still loved him and hoped they would be back together some day, but, for now, he was not welcome in the house. Mrs. Travis said, it was not personal, but she did not want to live with someone who did not tell the truth.

Maybe he would one day be a man true to his word, maybe not. Up to him.

She closed saying Mr. Travis would have to make do with what was in his luggage for tonight. He could collect whatever else he needed tomorrow. Mr. Travis said, “Hey! How am I supposed to get home?” She told him again how much she loved him and that she was sure he could figure out a way.

Mrs. Travis kissed her husband, smiled, and was gone. She wasn’t alone though. She had her “self” back.

Stress, So You Think Crashing One Wedding Was Rude?

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Stress, Runaway Pooch Crashes Five Star Wedding !

Dateline: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Although the Sea of Cortez bears his name, it was not Hernan Cortez, but his navigator, who is credited with discovering Cabo San Lucas in 1537. Cabo San Lucas and Cabo San Jose soon became a busy stopovers for pirates.

What’s the Difference Between…Breaking Out of “Group Think Stress” and Just Being Annoying?  The trick is considering other people without over-considering them. 

Is the guy who insists on mowing the lawn in his birthday suit a free thinker or an unpleasant surprise?  Is the guy who refuses to shut down his cell phone and therefore prevents the flight from taking off…merely side-stepping ‘group think’?

And that woman in the bathing suit and the towel on her head that crashed the black-tie wedding reception? 

Dateline:  Dallas, Texas. Lincoln Center Hilton.

Finishing a swim, I’d taken Shrinker, our ancient, crippled shih tzu down for a stumble in the grass around the big fancy pool at the big fancy hotel hoping for a productive result.  I didn’t need a leash as Shrinker was as slow as certain relatives are reaching for their wallets.  Since her stroke, she’ambled sort of sideways making about a yard a minute. The pool grass part hadn’t been totally successful, but as we had group dinner plans, I was in a bit of a rush to get dressed. I carried the old sweetie to the bank of elevators in the center of the lobby and set her down to punch the button.  The left side of the main hall opened into a ballroom from which orchestra music and wonderful food smells wafted. At the far side of the ballroom the bride and groom were behind a magnificent candle laden table making a toast.

Which is when it happened.  When the formerly snail-paced Shrinker Dog caught the smell of sizzling steak. She shot from my between my ankles and into the ballroom going all-out, knowing when I caught up with her, all hope of garnering steak was gone.

What did I do?  What could I do?  I centered my flip-flops, re-wrapped the too-large towel around my dripping head, and flung my bathing-suited self into the party. Stroke or no stroke, sweet babe was all woman when it came to food. She rocketed in her side-ways gait across the dance floor scattering guests. Then she dove under the covered white table leaving me stupidity flopping around trying to find her. Sophisticated people glared, candles were grabbed, I heard lenses come off video cameras.  I pretended I was having an instant onset of a serious mental disorder characterized by babbling.  I kept my head down as I flushed out the Shrinker dog who bounded away and tacked her way back across the dance floor…leaving little presents, quickly picked up by men in tuxedos. Thus, a couple of good things came out of the event.  My trip down to the grass was successful after all and, having kept my head down, I’d managed to stay anonymous.

Waiting for the elevator when we returned with friends around midnight, a well-dressed man and woman sidled up. At first the man looked confused.  Then not so much.  “I know you!” he said, pointing a knowing and sophisticated finger.  “You’re the woman with the dog!”

The trick is considering other people without over-considering them.  The husband alerting his new bride not to use her fingers on her cake…could have been concerned about bothering the other guests could possibly, maybe, sort of been showing a bit of over-concern for the guests. Of course, marriage means “I love-you-your-perfect-except-for-these-few-hundred-little-things-you-must-change-if-I-am-to-be-kept-comfortable.”  And, I must not be uncomfortable, ever. That’s the deal.

Say, what? What goes both ways?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stress. The Frog Who Flung Himself Off the Mountain

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Dateline: Lost in phone tree hell. Everyone’s been here. I see your tracks, the bloody scratches on the walls made when you tried to escape to the world of real people.

The Goal: The less you take personally in your life, the better life you will have. Thus, our goal on this site is to learn ways to live more easily and joyfully in this world. One more segment in the true life experience of a psychologist taking Dell Corporation personally.

There’s a highland jungle frog about the size of a nickel. His only means of protection is to hop, which often is not sufficient to escape his enemies. His nature is to fight and hop with everything he has, then, if these efforts fail, he clinches his little legs to his sides and throws himself off the mountain.

I now understand the wisdom of the highland jungle frog.

Set-up. To endure the following conclusion to a sad tale of society insanity, you will need to catch up reading part one and part two.

As we return to the Day of Dell, I have just been bumped out of regular Customer Service into the realm of the Executive Resolution Specialist. Executive Resolution Specialist Guy thanks me for choosing Dell and asks me to give him my name, date of birth, and the odds on Texas winning the National Football Championship. He apologizes for the day I have wasted on the phone and assures me he will solve the problem. Sigh of relief. Executive Resolution Specialist Guy puts me on hold.

He returns to the call, has the correct order, and asks for my credit card number, the only number Dell has been receptive to all day. The Executive Resolution Specialist pauses. It is that this juncture that I lose it at a psycho level.

In my family psycho enters the picture when money or getting the best deal comes into the discussion. The family crest is an emblem with the words: WE PAY OUR BILLS. In other families children grow up with warm stories of family holidays and traditions passed down from one happy generation to the next. In my family the stories are about how my predecessors made it through the depression by growing their own food in the backyard and going without shoes.

Thus–when the beast bearing the name Executive Resolution Specialist said the kryptonite words: “Ma’am your credit card has been declined,”…well, given the previous seven hours on the phone…I earthquake level lost it. I regret being in one of my favorite restaurants at that point because I would have liked to return.

We grew up in a cash up front atmosphere where paying interest or a late fee would be equal to armed robbery. Okay maybe equal to burning down a shed. Or amputating one of your own toes.

Remember the ole Pseudo Self? That part of who you are that’s negotiable depending on what other people think of you? My Pseudo Self is constructed such that when these words are said, “Your credit card has been declined” what I hear is, “Contrary to the image you give to the rest of the world…you are a DEADBEAT. You WILL go to prison!”

In response to being humiliated (strictly the realm of the pseudo self since you can only humiliate yourself) I launched a roaring rebuttal insisting that the Dell Executive Level Problem Resolver was WRONG WRONG WRONG. I went on to relate my life history as a faithful bill payer and threw around all sorts of high-sounding numbers regarding spending limits to make an impression and clarify my status in the world. I’m not saying I was upset, but one of the waiters came over and slipped a napkin into my view. A napkin that read, “Don’t worry about your check. You don’t owe us anything.”  I assume he meant the free meal as a parting gift.

The corker?  Still in a self-righteous melt-down, I called American Express where I was informed that Dell Executive Level Problem Resolver was RIGHT, RIGHT, RIGHT. Someone had called into American Express automated services and reported my card number as lost or stolen.  Yep. Screwed again in phone tree hell. And, now I sorta needed to call Dell back. I’m thinking put a towel over the phone and fake symptoms of a recent stroke.

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in the Phone Trees, Part 2, Super Stress

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Dateline: Seventh Rung of the Phone Tree. I can see Saturn from here.

To comprehend this portion of Customer Service Phone Torture, first catch up with Part One.

Hour Two

Now I’m bumped up to Level Two since my request is apparently too complicated for the first ring of hell. Level Two Customer Service Guy thanks me for choosing Dell and asks me to give him all my information again.  He assures me he will solve the problem.  Sigh of relief.

Someone’s going to help me.  But, oh. Nay, nay! Because what Bubble Voice Lady is really saying is:

“Hey, don’t you get it? You are the one causing us a problem. We do not hire people anymore…that’s a sham…not to mention expensive. You have landed in our Customer Service Slave Section, that is, employees who have chronic lateness issues and bad breath. What’s really going to happen here is, I am going to torture you until you quit this nonsense and hang up. We’d prefer that you spend your money with this company without us even having to hear about it.  Just check the boxes and put
in your credit card number.  Wouldn’t we all be happier if you’d just hang up and do the ordering for us?  If you continue to persist, you will be put on the special terminal hold we’ve set up for customers like you– which is a message suggesting you go online and not bother us. This will be rotated with my voice every two minutes reminding you how important your call is to this company!”

A new voice picks up the call. I’m excited. The customer service guy says, “Thank you for calling Dell. Unrli whu ssoommoo. Ursache waser.”

I have no idea what this guy means because now I’m in India.  I don’t blame the “customer service” guy. He’s working to make a little money in a poor country and he’s brave to take on the task of trying to be understood. I do blame Dell for not caring
enough about customer service to hire people for whom English is a first
language.  The call from India drops off.

Right. Start all over with Bubble Voice Lady. “Thank you for calling Dell!  Please choose…”

After five trips to India and five times giving my address, service code, order number and educational history…in my broken Indian-English I tell the guy that the batteries Dell sent me (to replace those that were stolen) arrived yesterday and they are the wrong batteries for my computer.  He asked if I purchased the batteries on line.

What he’s really saying is: “Hey, if you bought these on line, then you, dear valued customer, is the one at fault. Haha. Gotcha. No more time for you!”

I explain that, no, I purposely bought them on the phone because I wanted to be very sure the correct batteries were sent—since the last time I ordered these batteries it took Dell three shipments before I was sent the correct batteries.  That I had ordered
on the day my luggage was stolen because I needed them as soon as possible.
They are the wrong batteries. What follows is thirty minutes of repeating what
I told my Indian friends.

I am kicked up to Level Three. I think Foreign Legion Customer Service Guy hit the panic button on his keyboard.

I give my information again to Level Three Customer Service Guy (LTCSG). This is the seventh time I have given this information to citizens whose native language is not English. The Level Three customer service guy puts me on hold while he checks part numbers, computer service tag numbers, and blood type.  He returns to the call.

Here is where the conversation really slips off the page.

I am sitting at my computer. I am holding one of the wrong batteries in my hand. Foreign Legion Level Three Customer Service Guy says:  “Ma’am the batteries you received are the correct batteries for your computer.”

Did I mention I was holding one of the wrong batteries in my hand?  That it did not look like, nor was it configured like the battery that came with the computer or batteries I’ve bought since. I convey this to Level Two Customer Service Guy.  He repeats his assurance that I am holding the correct battery.

I say again that I have the battery in my hand and it doesn’t fit the computer. You can see that from just a look.  It’s not the battery for the computer.

LTCSG repeats his claim and asks me if I will open the package the battery came in and take a look at it.  Did I mention…

Part 3…Level Four…

Stress. The Global Village Is Missing Its Idiot.

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Dateline: American Airlines xxx

The point of all this: ’Brain changes’ occur when we are anxious. We go blind, deaf, and confused.

We lose our ability to respond according to priorities.  Finishing a minor task, such as learning how to pick up email on a new device, takes precedence over getting a good night’s rest or having a pleasant evening instead of picking a fight with your special person who has the nerve to point out your bizarre behavior.

We lose our judgment. We say things to customer service people in foreign lands, bad things that are not in line with the good person we want to be in life.

We lose our openness to new ideas–such as reading the instructions.

We DO NOT SEE a way out of our dilemma even when the solution is right in front of our face.

Part Two of Advances in Technology Have Made the World a Village, and I am its Idiot. Without part one the following will make no sense. With part one, it has a shot.

As we return to last night’s battle, no war, with the Freaking Samsung Techno Devil FSTD. I poked around on obvious buttons until the sucker came on. Well, a sunburst welcome screen lit up.

A few seconds later, the puppy went black. I refered to the miniature instruction booklet and was impressed with all the apps and task tools availble on the minuscule replica of the Home Page. The booklet read, “From your home page…” One problem, I couldn’t get past the sunburst to the Homepage. I wildly tapped the screen all over during the brief time it was alive.

I repeat this bizarre tapping and cursing routine twelve times before I am convinced there is no secret tap which will land me on the Home Page. I pack up my pile of device and assorted attachments, climb into my car (which is still 116 degrees in the garage) and return to Best Buy for some help. The nice Geek Squad guy says, “Sure, no problem,” when I tell him about the powering off problem. He taps the welcome screen ever so slightly dragging it sideways. I study his moves like a double agent spy. I need to know how to get to the Home Page without admitting I didn’t know how to get past the welcome screen.

The problem, he said, was that the “sleep function” was set to react in a very short stretch of time. That matter settled I head home to set up the device. I’m feeling pretty spunky, given that sleep function business could have thrown anyone off. I clear a space on my bed and lean back on a stack of pillows to continue my triumph. I put the tip of my finger where the Geek guy’s had been and drug it across the screen. Nothing. I repeated the move four times. Then the screen went black. My spouse suggests there’s not much evening left to pack, eat, and deal with the dogs. I reassure him I will only be a few more minutes. I notice a touch of pique and that “we’re been here before” look.

I remembered something about using a stylus. I’d bought two. I retrieved the Jaws of Life and unpackaged a stylus one. I dragged the stylus corner to corner. The screen went black. Except for the blue X. Turned out, the stylus doubles as a ball point pen.

A call to Best Buy Geek Squad and I’ll all set on the Home Page. I heard giggling on the other end of my phone line, but I’m sure there was a clown making funny animals near phone at Best Buy.

 

Stress: Mobile Communications Have Made the World a Village and I Am Its Idiot

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Stress: Mobile Communications Have Made the World a Village and I Am the Village Idiot

Part One: Anxiety and How Your World, Bad or Good, Is a Projection of Your Thoughts

Dateline: Flight American Airlines 859 Austin to LA. There are a hundred or so people on this flight. We will all go through the same sky over the same period of time. But each of us will have our own personally produced and directed experience. I hate knowing this. Makes me responsible for what goes on inside my chest cavity even when I’m surrounded with all these handy scapegoats.

While once you are on the plane your physical choices are limited, there are certain bits of advise you can follow to improve your chances of keeping your cool on a trip. here are a couple of stress preventing tips.

Travel Tip One: Do not buy a new pair of shoes before a trip. Not following this simple rule could land you bribing a taxi driver who is forbidden to pick up short street fares forty dollars to take you the six blocks between the Mandalay Bay and the MGM on the Las Vegas Strip.

Travel Tip Two: Do not buy a new electronic device, say a Samsung Galaxy Tab, on the evening before a trip. with the plan of conquering the new system and set-up so that you can transfer your current manuscript from your seventeen inch monster laptop into the new device and use the new device the next day, easily balancing it on the tray table on the plane.

Sure, I know this tip NOW. But not yesterday afternoon when I stopped at Best Buy to pick up a Hepafilter replacement and wandered, as always through the laptop section…just in case. “Any non-Apple seventeen inch laptops weighing less than a banana yet?” “No, Dr. DeShong, the one you have still leads the pack.” (I know. Way too many waiters and way too many electronics’ salespeople know me by name, the first because of my lack of kitchen time and the second group because every purchase I make comes with return trips and questions these young salesmen find hilarious.)

Had I zigged left instead of right last night, I wouldn’t have passed a table showcasing new tablets and so much about this trip would have been different. For example, I wouldn’t be on both the Best Buy and the Samsung Ten Most Wanted lists. When I spotted the shiny new toy my heart took off. I waved at my salesman friend and said, “I’ll take this tablet and this cover and this keyboard, and this stylus and this screen cover (VERY IMPORTANT, see below). “This will be easy for me to set up, right?” I asked.

“Practically automatic,” he said with the confident enthusiasm of a pre-teen IPhone owner.

I bring my new toy home. I haven’t packed yet, and the dogs have to have a bath, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have a client or two before the workday officially ends. I should wait till later. There is absolutely no good reason to open this puppy and attempt a new system.

Foam and plastic flew as I took the Jaws of Life to the packaging. Tiny unreadable warranties and instructions flipped out into the foam, plastic and cardboard debris. I held the slim, glowing beauty in my hands and grinned smugly picturing myself whipping out my tablet while others on the flight struggled with clumsy laptops. Why can’t these people keep up with the times?

As I placed my new toy on my desk to await my magic fingers until I finished my appointments which ended at 7:30. The Voice of Reason, that witch so often ruining my good times, called to me from out of the fog:

“Pack first, bathe the dogs, return calls first…this new device set-up could take longer than you think…” That’s the problem with the Voice of Reason. The V of R is way too tied to the past, way too determined to hold that unfortunate and unpleasant weekend we call “The Hellhole Weekend of the Apple Air” against me. Hey, Best Buy took it back, didn’t they? Scratches and all.

Free tip: Those young boys at the Geek Squad return desk can’t take a mature woman crying in public. Okay, wailing.

So, forget it, Voice of Reason. Pshaw. Maybe most people would pack first, but learning how to use my new toy wasn’t going to take more than a few minutes. Again I flashed on myself on the plane, whipping out my snazzy new tablet and clicking through the manuscript I’d downloaded from the clumsy seventeen incher (the one I’m using now on the rickety tray table).

Appointments over, I began the tablet set-up. I made it all the way to “how to turn on” what we shall refer to as call that Freaking Samsung Techno Devil or the FSTD.

Oh, wait. Here comes the beverage cart. Pretty hard to find a place for my Coke can with this giant computer on my tray table. Oh, I’ll just stick the can in the seat pocket in front of me. Oops…sheesh…ouch! I hate it when my computer hits my bare toes. To be continued….