Tag Archives: therapy

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Swinging on the Limbs of Phone Trees. Stress, Part 3

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Dateline:  Left hand on one phone tree limb…Right hand gripping another tree limb…oops.

PART THREE.  Hour Three. You will not be able to properly feel my pain or find some shred of forgiveness for my behavior unless you have read Parts One and Two of my torture history.

Hour Three in Phone Tree Stress

Now I’m bumped up to Level Three Customer Service since my request is
apparently too complicated for the first two levels. Level Three 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. I let out a sigh of relief.

Level Three Customer Service Guy comes back on the call where I wait with gratitude and anticipatory excitement. LTCSG says, “I see the problem.  Your computer only fits with a six cell battery and what they sent you was a nine cell battery.”

I struggle to breathe. Okay. Just because common sense made no sense to Levels One and Two, maybe it will work with Level Three Guy. I begin, “Sir, I’m afraid you are mistaken. Yo see, the computer in front of me came with a nine cell battery and I have purchased several replacement nine cell batteries from Dell.”

Didn’t even make a dent. He continues, “Ma’am. No. Please listen. You have
the right battery for your computer. We just need to send you six cell batteries of the same type and you will be ready to go.”

“But–”

“Trust me. Your computer can only use a six cell battery edition of the same kind of battery you were sent. I will order two of these for you.”

At this point, I suspect I’m going insane. I give up. “Fine. Here’s my credit card number…though you are sending me an incompatible battery and wasting another week.”

To check out the insanity possibility I now drive to Best Buy to get checked out with a Geek Squad Guy. I run my story, show him my computer and ask if I’m losing it. Geek Squad Guy says: “No ma’am. That is a nine cell battery and your computer uses a nine cell battery.”

Trembling and nauseous. I know what hell lies ahead. I call Dell back. I trudge through levels one, two, and three spouting my name, address, and shoe size over and over.

Level Four Supervisor Guy apologizes profusely and says he’ll fix the problem. Could he please have my name, address, last four digits of my Social Security Number, and place of birth.

Hour Four

Fifty-six games of solitaire and four dropped calls (each requiring that I give them my birth certificate again), Level Four Supervisor Guy is back on the phone. I tell him my sad story. He looks up the order for the two batteries Level Three Guy ordered for me. He agrees that those batteries are not the correct batteries. He tells me not to worry, when I receive the batteries, my money will be refunded after I take the package to a UPS office, since I have nothing to do with my life except to do research and run errands for Dell.

Level Four Supervisor Guy has a special goodie for me since I’ve had so much trouble.  The goodie? “We are going to give you free shipping for these new batteries!” he says grandly.

I go back to the insanity possibility.  Did he just say Dell was generously going to
pay for shipping back to Dell the batteries to replace the wrong batteries for which I had paid Express Shipping?  I couldn’t hold in my glee and laughed. He asked me if I’d be interested in opening a Dell credit card.  Now I am roaring with joy.
“Oh, yes, that’s just want I want to do. I want to arrange my life to deal further with
Dell customer service, that is exactly what I want to do.”

Then, Level Four Supervisor Guy asked if I would stay on the line for a survey to help them out.  What?  I’m working for Dell Human Resources now?

Maybe I would have answered a few questions, but I was thinking margarita and a Jorge’s enchilada platter for lunch.  Oh, but wait.  My other phone is ringing….which was handy since my call with Level Four Guy had dropped before the survey commenced and before he’d ordered the correct batteries for me.

I answer the cell. “First, let me thank you for choosing Dell. We show that earlier today you ordered two six-celled batteries. We’d like to follow up on your call to Customer Service. Would you punch in your name, phone number, and the Day Lincoln was shot…and then choose from the following options…”

Lunch turned out to be a fantasy. You’d think this situation couldn’t get worse, but it does. Going insane seems like a small price for how I spent the afternoon.

 

Stress, the “It’s Just Thunder” Incident

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Relationship Stress and the “It’s Just Thunder” Incident

I’m Okay and You’re Okay… as Long as I’m With You–

Dateline: Willie’s Roadhouse, Truck Stop Cafe in Abott, Texas. And, yes, the chicken-fried steaks lap over the edges of the plate.

Note: This entry, along with the next introduce the series: “Las Vegas Mary Grows a Self: Relationship Dependence, A Soap Opera in Four Parts.”

We live in anxious times. Whether the current era is more anxiety-producing than frontier times, I don’t know. What is different is that presently we have much greater access to other people in times of stress.

With magic phones, tablets, computers, most of us can make contact with others instantly. The result?

We don’t learn how to build personal tolerance for anxiety. We don’t learn and we do not model how to simply sit with disappointment, anger, hurt, or even joy. I’m not suggesting a return to dial-up, only noting that in our child-focused times, parents are instantly available both as resources and as supervisors. parents have bought into seeing instant availability as being a good parent and any less as being a neglectful parent.

We don’t rush in taking our childrens’ problems away from them and making them our problems because we want to undercut our children’s resilience. We do it because we love them and want the very best life for them and we are anxious critters.

Real Life Example with Fake Names: Mr. and Mrs. C are in my office to address a serious marital issue. During the session, Mr. C receives a cell phone call. He indicates it’s his childrenm, thus he must answer. He and the caller talk back and forth a few times. Then Mr. C turns to Mrs. C and reports on the fight over the television going on back at home. Mrs. C takes the phone and speaks to each of the three children twice until she senses the battle has been resoved, at least for the moment. Their children, like most, do not live on isolated farms without communication devices, but have strings of numbers to call and neighborhoods loaded with adults glad to help in an emergency. I’m wondering what would have happened had the parents turned off their phones, trusted their children could work out whatever came up, and focused on the issue at hand.

Consider the following dilemma:   It is two in the morning when a loud thunderstorm breaks over the city. A frightened child calls for her mother who shows up immediately. The experience is new to the child, we’d expect her to be anxious.

Mother number one hugs the child and says, “It’s a thunderstorm. You are safe because I am here with you.”

Mother number two hugs the child and says, “It’s a thunderstorm. You are safe because when you are inside a house, thunderstorms are not dangerous. Sure, there’s lightening, and that can be dangerous if you are outside, and loud noise, but that’s all there is to thunderstorms. Did you ever think what would happen to all the animals in the forest if it never stormed?”

Next:  “The Intoxicated Babysitter and the Third Graders.” More on what happens to us as adults if we have not developed the capacity to tolerate anxiety and find our own solutions. Or even try to find our own solutions.

Stress, Anxiety, and Videotapes

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Anxiety and Stress in One Family’s Relationships

Hear Ye!  Hear Ye! All ye people of the town within the sound of my voice, please lend me your ears!

I have reason to believe I am being watched and videoed.  Therefore, any resemblance between a bleary-eyed, crazy blond chick you may see on America’s Funniest HomeVideos or World’ Dumbest People—and the photo in my profile, is purely coincidental.

My sister–on having learned of certain insane activities undergone by my brother who had back surgery last week and by yours truly—has informed us that she has arranged for surveillance cameras with live feeds to be installed showing any untoward activity in our yards. Sibling position does matter in the management of family affairs.

Therefore–Let this notice serve as a public denial of any future embarrassing shots of me screaming in pain and popping back steroids while dragging around machinery, wheezing, and pulling weeds in 100 degree heat, two hours after leaving the rheumatologist because the ole lupus pains are kicking up.

Any efforts on the part of my sister to claim that I am unable to manage my health or to attach beepers to my chest and flashing red lights to my forehead should be seen as violations of my constitutional rights.  And, by the way, Sammie Davis Jr., has been spying on me, I’m sure of it and my older and smarter sister knows how to train dogs and fish to do her bidding.

Take a good look at those beady black eyes.
Fair notice to all who cannot stand to hear another word about THE TRIAL, The George Anthony, Cindy Anthony, Lee Anthony, Casey Anthony family is such a classic and well known case of watching how anxiety moves
around in a system, I will not be able to resist an entry.  Nothing shakes up the homeostasis of relationships like adding or taking away a family member.

Having opened up the “How important is sibling position?” subject, there will be more.  Just think, could be we can blame some of our less attractive features on when we were born into our family. For starters,
had I been the eldest, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have a sealed juvenile record with the police.  Also, being second is, I’m sure why I’m not fabulously wealthy, too….Hey, this is fun…If only I’d been
first…I’d be the first female president right now.  Wow.

 

Stress: Woman Lost and Alone in Scary Alleyways of Istanbul

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Stress on the Cool, Blue Mediterranean

Stress and Group Think Invade Istanbul and Mexico City and a Cruise Ship in the Carribean, Part One

Isn’t Taking a Vacation about Escaping Stress?

The next three entries will be examples of ‘group think’ and pressure to conform from around the world.

These situations are not nearly as stressful as the persuasive tactics used by Jim Jones and James Arthur Ray in the Arizona sweat lodge, but the nature of the emotional process is the same.

Dateline One: Lost in Istanbul

“A person with a well-differentiated “self” recognizes his realistic dependence on others, but he can stay calm and clear headed enough in the face of conflict, criticism, and rejection to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotionality. Thoughtfully acquired principles help guide decision-making about important family and social issues, making him less at the mercy of the feelings of the moment.” Bowen Theory

Turkish Stress

The pressure to conform part of the adventure in Istanbul did not actually occur in Istanbul, but later when I was telling a group of friends and co-workers about my stepmother’s time lost in the Turkish city.  My parents had been on an extended
cruise involving many stopovers around the Mediterranean when my stepmother got separated from the group and ended up thoroughly lost among the city of five-hundred mosques and many, many thousands of bicyclists, Moped riders, and
taxi drivers with their eyes on martyrdom in the streets.  As was the agreement between my parents, when my father couldn’t locate his wife, he sailed out with the group knowing she would catch up with him at a future port of call. Which is what happened in spite of the fact that my stepmother had no money or credit card on her….

The pressure to conform occurred as I shared my admiration for my father’s resourceful wife. What I thought was a lovely story was heard quite differently.  What I thought was a compliment to my stepmother and my father’s relationship was seen as disturbing evidence that my father was not nearly the really nice guy I’d always portrayed him to be.

Here are the remarks I expected to hear: “Wow, she must be one confident woman.”  “That’s a good idea—having a plan so that they don’t both end up lost.”  “Your father must think a lot of his wife.”

Here are the remarks I heard: “That’s absolutely the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard a husband do!” “Why does your stepmother put up with that kind of treatment?”  “That’s abuse.  Just think of all the horrible things that
could have happened to her!”  “How selfish can a man get?”  “You read the papers, you read the news. He had to know what horrible things they do to womenthere!  How could he just leave her there?”

Mostly I just blinked. I didn’t point out that my father’s staying would not have changed any of the “horrible things they do to women over there.”  Agreement was reached that my father was an uncaring, selfish man.  I blinked some more.  I did not tell them I was driving to out-of-town horse shows on my own when I was fourteen or that I rode the train to Mexico City by myself the summer I was fifteen. Or that I’d headed back to that fabulous city in July.

Oh, and speaking of Mexico City.  This fair city will be the next site of the‘group think’ ‘individual think’ dilemma.

Do You Procrastinate? Your Rough Trip through the Birth Canal is the CAUSE…

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Is Psychology a Fad? Can a Person Really Change?

Why Bowen Systems Theory?

Reason One: Desperation

A decade after leaving graduate school and practicing psychology, I was done. I didn’t respect myself or my profession.

I’d been attracted to psychology because it was described as the “science” of human behavior.  Yet, what I saw happening in the field was far from scientific. In fact, from what I could tell, psychologists were just making up things as they went along.

The explanation of why people behave as they do was certainly faddish and wildly subjective. One year, how a person functioned was “caused” by being the “adult child of an alcoholic”, the next year behavior was caused by “enabling”, the next year “toxic parents” entered the scene. The one thing that stayed constant was an emphasis on pointing to other people and events as causing current behavior.  And, since a psychologist can not go out and “fix” these people other there…psychotherapy seemed rather pointless, beyond finding someone to empathsize.

With our “explanations” for behavior, psychologists covered all the bases.  If a client ruminated about career, the cause was “fear of failure.” Either that, or “fear of success.”  Depression and relationship problems?  Either you didn’t get enough attention from your parents or you got too much.

But when a person’s functioning was presented as “caused” by his or her trip through the birth canal—I didn’t think psychology could sink further.

I was wrong. Along came the perfect “explanation” for troubled behavior. Repressed memories. Talk about setting up psychologists with the perfect scam.  Now, no matter what your problem in living, there was an explanation…we just couldn’t tell you exactly what…since you repressed the memory.  Psychology couldn’t go lower than rebirthing ceremonies which cured all your problems in a kiddie pool. Rebirthing–like those weekend seminars when they don’t let you eat or leave the room to pee—gives people an intense feeling experience and the illusion of having changed.  Surely, psychology couldn’t go lower than this—treating intelligent adults like three-year-olds.

I was wrong again. Psychology could go lower. I had interns call me from their new jobs which included personal psychotherapy—calling to ask if I agreed with their therapists that repressed sexual abuse memories were behind their inability to get organized or finish writing a book?

The conversation was something similar to the following:

Former student: “I wanted to get your take on something. As you know, I sometimes have trouble finishing things.”

“Yes…”

“My psychologist says my behavior shows that I was sexually abused when i was a young child.”

“Okay…”

“My psychologist says that the reason I don’t remember being sexually abused is because it happened when I was an infant and hadn’t yet learned to talk.”

“Okay…”

“Also, the sexual abuse which ‘caused’ my helplessness was probably the way my older brother looked at me when I was an infant.”

“Whoa…say what?”

“I couldn’t defend myself from the sexual abuse of his lewd expression (since I was only a few months old) and that’s why I can’t succeed now.”

…I was re-thinking veterinary school when the Menninger Clinic held a series of classes on family therapy in our office. One was a presentation on Bowen Family System Theory. It was the first way of thinking about behavior that made sense and was based on solid science. I’ve spent the last twenty years studying and applying Bowen theory. So here we go.

Next, the second reason for going with Bowen Theory. The lovely spring afternoon when I had evidence a person could really change.

 

 

Achew! Don’t You DARE say, “God bless you”

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sneezedreamstime_1146330The more you take personally, the tougher life you’re going to have. 

From an article in one of the many free magazines that come to my office. (Why is it my little practice gets fifteen to twenty free mags a month and all I find in my doc’s offices are vintage Field and Stream and Parents’ Weekly?):

 ”I wish people would stop saying ‘God bless you’ when I sneeze…”  Complaintant goes on to rant about how distressed he is that when he sneezes people he doesn’t even know foul his private space and push their version of religion on him. 

What?

“Which is more important?  The world you can actually touch?  Or the world (full of rude, intrusive, mean religion-force-feeders) you are responding to?”

Now I’m pretty twitchy and quick to expect criticism.  (Especially from those ladies in lab coats at the cosmetic counters.  They see right into me and know about every night I’ve landed in bed without a thought to taking off make-up, which would be would every night).

But, demanding that all the people in the world stop trying to be kind?  Does he really think people ignoring other people is a swell way to go?  Does he really think that when a stranger takes the time out of their day to say “God bless you” their plan is to invade…  This has to be a terrible way to live  if allergies where he lives are anything like they are here.  Maybe this guy should stay in his house or wear a sign, “In case I sneeze, do not say ‘God bless you’.”  That probably won’t work though, because, what are the odds that the same people who see your INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE their lives will be the same people on the other side of the cereal aisle when that sneeze comes on?  Not too good.

I mean, I can go through the cosmetic department at warp speed with my eyes slotted straight ahead like I’m late for an appointment inside the mall.  But, you can’t time a sneeze like that.  Could happen anywhere, anytime…poof, the guy’s invaded by rude people. 

Oh well.  I’m reminded of a long ago woman who, like the rest of of us, was experiencing major pre-Christmas stress. On this particular day she lamented how she dreaded going to her mother-in-law’s for Christmas because Grandmother always went so overboard buying presents for the children.  “What kind of values are the kids learning?”  (This, save the character of the poor children argument is commonly used to justify what we want. Apparently, if we don’t stop relatives from being themselves, our children will all end up in prison.)  “She’s just ridiculous with the gifts,” she said.

“That’s it?” I asked.  “Grandma’s too generous and must be stopped?  That’s all you got?”

She smiled.