A Psycholgist on the Loose
Archive for August, 2009
When You Avoid an Activity, Is It FEAR or GOOD SENSE?
Aug 28th
Dateline: Dallas, Texas. Hilton Branch Office
Is your desire to avoid something a fear based excuse or is there a factual reason you should avoid the activity?
The Point: Being able to tell the difference between when you are avoiding something because… you have thoroughly experienced the activity before and determined factually that your participation in the activity makes no sense…and the times when you are avoiding an activity, saying you are operating from facts…but, in truth, you’re just afraid…Telling the difference between these two is important.
Clue: An example of the first occurs when you eat tacos from a street stand in Mexico City several times and each time become violently ill…An example of the second type occurs when you didn’t have a date to the Eighth Grade Valentine Dance and you told your friends and yourself that you didn’t like dancing.
Code red: Once again, going against unrelenting screaming evidence against such an endeavor….one more time….I determined that I would fix my website myself. After all, everyone I ask about the wisdom of such an effort, jumps in with “Oh, yeah. You can do it. Anyone can do it.”
What could get me to undertake such foolishness? Anxiety, of course. Anxiety because the site isn’t perfect and I want it fixed NOW. Thus, “I have to do what I have to do to get rid of this anxiety. Prisons are filled with people having these same thoughts. I did try to listen to My Thinking Guidance System, that part of the mind capable of reviewing the past.
My Thinking Guidance System said: “Look, you’ve let your anxiety seduce you into this website fixing fantasy before…and it was one step forward and two yards back. It took days before you were back to where you started…You were a crazy person, a miserable mate, and you PROMISED me, your logical self, that you would never, ever, even with a gun at your head…never, ever…pull the first curtain of mystery code aside from your website and attempt….emphasis on ATTEMPT…to make improvements on your own….
My Emotional Guidance System said: “You don’t understand. This time is different. I’m so anxious, I squeaked. “I’ll just try a little…”
Thinking Guidance System: “Nooooooo…save yourself… you WILL regret this…”
Emotional Guidance System: “No, really, if the project starts to go South, I’ll abort. I’ll come right back to the beginning and get some help.”
Of course, the above reasoning… if my pathetic rationalizing and delusional ignoring of the past can be called reasoning…assumed…once I began my project, once I punched that button that said, “Consider your next move carefully as data and programming could be permanently erased from your computer,” ….there would be a way back.
Where ever you are, whatever you might have been doing on your computer at approximately two p.m., Central Standard Time, yesterday…if you experienced a random crash…I’m sure I caused it. Also, that scream you so faintly heard coming from the central southwest…that was mine, too.
And what do we do when we get anxious? Yep. Go random and fling money around. Yes, dazed and confused, I signed up for a site promising ten thousand website templates anyone can use….which I can’t even bring up. Another fifty bucks into the Emotional Guidance System kitty. So, I owe you one. Go ahead and buy that new “breakthrough in abdominal flattening science”…..the thing that where you get on your hands and knees, lock your knees into these little cups, and whirl side-to-side…and you have the flat belly you’ve always dreamed of without any effort at all!” Then we’ll be even.
Perception: Taking a Chance on Dubuque
Aug 26th
The good news in the reality that we make up our world…is that…while our anxieties can make the world and people scarier than they are…We’re in charge of the process! We can change our experience. The effort, however, is not for sissies.
Heh…heh…Since we make people up….We can even make them up nicer than they are. (I suspect that everyone is secretly crazy about you and me. Even though some of them are prit-tee excellent at keeping their feelings hidden.)
Will the real Galena, Illinois, and the REAL Dubuque, Iowa, please stand up?
What? There isn’t a REAL Galena, Illinois? At least not ONE that can be seen and reported by a human…because we’re all subjective nuts, you say?
“Which is more important? The Galena, Illinois that could be captured in a photograph? Or the Galena, Illinois I made up?”
In the previous full post (there was the ‘quick post’ on my complete failure at being cool)…title, your fearless leader was preparing for a book-signing venture to Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa.
Now…Was I preparing for the REAL Galena, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa? Was I preparing to meet people like myself with their own imperfect natures? Of course not. That sort of preparation would depend on the facts regarding these two spots…and a reasonable way of rating my experiences with humans so far. Neeeuuuu. I was preparing for the Galena and Dubuque I constructed in my head. I was preparing for experiences based on my anxieties, which, given my weinnie nature…well, let’s just say…it ain’t a pretty picture.
Had I visited either place before, or met the people I was working with before, perhaps I’d been slightly more prepared to take in how terrific, exciting, and interesting these places and people are. But, no guarantee.
We fit the people we meet into the people we ‘expect’ them to be…and this varies depending on whether or not we’re hungry, down about something at work, reactive to physical traits, oh good grief.
Think of what happens when you visit family in another city. You do not prepare for them …as they are…you prepare for them as you remember them…even though your memory is a subjective mess based on your anxieties and expectatations….and…
Come on… those people have changed from the people YOU MADE UP last time you visited. Are you with me here? Repeat: We are all nuts making up people and the world as we go along. And that’s okay, because…We live and work with other people who are all nuts and who are MAKING US UP out of their anxieties and expectations.
We’re all a mess. Really.
To Contact MysteryShrink: bdeshong@austin.rr.com
Aug 25th
The email links on Mysteryshrink are not functioning. To send a message please use: bdeshong@austin.rr.com
Update on “Appear Cool” Efforts
Aug 22nd
So, I’m in Dubuque, Iowa (Full post on what incredible places and people are in Dubuque, Iowa and Galena, Illinois…thanks for coming out.)
….But, anyway. My plan was to satisfy the fears of my Emotional Guidance System (“Oh, God, what if they can see right through you and know that you don’t know everything?”) by being very cool. Suave, even.
This morning, I’m packing my boxes of books and my computer on one of those valet carts for the haul down to the car. #@%# box of books falls off starting a cascade topped off by my computer and about a hundred postcards. I’m “expressing myself” as a spiffed up couple in tennis togs makes their way around me and my mess. The wife looks deftly down her nose and says, “I wouldn’t complain, lady. You’re just lucky you have a job!”
Fear and Loathing of ILLINOIS and IOWA
Aug 21st
Dateline: Going live here. Airport, Austin, Texas. Goal: Chicago and certain unfamiliar spots in eastern Iowa and Illinois. (I, a product of the hot sidewalks of Falfurrias, Texas, and other near-border villiages, none of which you have ever heard of, I am not disparaging the rural and small town.)
****Remember, I show you my trembling journey because you, too, are working on becoming more of A SELF-DESIGNED PERSON? Because you, too, want to better manage the anxiety keeping you in chains and wasting your life?… If this isn’t true… if you don’t have any of these issues…there’s always Dr. Laura.
Random Emotional Guidance System Self-talk: “I don’t want to go. I’m too tired. My special person just had three surgeries in ten days. (Good surgeries…the kind done to help you function better.) I’m still not recovered from book launch party as I am congenitally deficit when it comes to hosting crowds….My feet are already are killing me and I didn’t have time to get a pedicure so that my appearance as a street person is complete… I have too much junk to carry…I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to go…who I’m supposed to meet…and did not I go to graduate school SPECIFICALLY because I’m not good at selling stuff?”
Emotional Guidance System is now in PRIMAL WHINE mode.
Specific Emotional Guidance System “WHAT IF” Fear-inducing Statements in order of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE:
1) WHAT IFs concerned with appearing “cool and in-charge”: (These fearful statements are the fertilizer for ‘blah’ feelings.)
“What if I show up at the book-signing without enough books and come off as silly for going to so much effort?” Even more tragic, “What if I brought too many books and look silly and amateurish?”… “What if I get a lousy, unimpressive rental car?” Or worse, “What if Avis only has SUVs left like happened a couple of weeks ago in L.A. and, like then, I underestimate the height of the vehicle and rip out a couple of water pipes out of the ceiling of the Hilton parking garage? What if I over-react like I did then, back up wildly, and pop off that striped garage entry arm like it was a toothpick?”… “What if I’m the oldest fattest worst dressed person there…given the chipped toenails and all?”
2} WHAT Ifs concerned with “survival”: (These fearful statements actually stir up a little energy, though survival is a concern coming in a distant second to the concern to come across cool and sophisticated.)
“What if I can’t find Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa? What if it’s too hot? What if it’s scary? What if it’s rush hour traffic when I leave O’Hare in my rental car? What if, if I’m fortunate enough to find Dubuque, but room service is closed down by the time I get there?”
By the way, the need to appear cool and in-charge pretty much ended my ill-fated, short-lived relationship with skiing. I know, I know…catching the lift seat under your rear is easy (right); and no one crashes off the lift after landing on her face the first four or five times…well, guess what? I can handle my lack of cool in most circumstances and I looked as hot and with it as anyone else buried in my ski togs, goggles and wooly hat….but….it was the screaming that got to me…not mine…I refused to utter a peep as careened off the lift chair, gave a little swush, then accomplished more triple axels and whirling manuevers than an Olympic figure skater on crack…before sliding on my face until an act of nature ended by journey. The watchers…the really cool ones…they were screaming in fear. They screamed, too, everytime I got knocked down by the next lift chair when I tried to get up from my first fall. Bunch of weinnies.
Okay, Illinois and Iowa. Here I come. Be gentle. My knees are shot.
Dangers of Friendly Persuasion
Aug 19th
How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”
The world is a constant demand situation. If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you.
Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool? And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you?
….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?
…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System. The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall. (See previous post.) I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…
My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up…
I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer; 3) Indoor pools are yucky; 4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course. And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.
“Oh no,” he said. “You’ll like it,” he lied. “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things. This would be good for you.” And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.
I did come to my senses. But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular. I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture.
Here’s the picture. I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready. From there it was downhill. The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over. The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done. Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms. Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.
Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge. I’d almost make it, then plop back in. I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.
The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.
The Body Snatchers Invade Psychologist: “The Chicago Water Tower Place Incident”
Aug 16th
Each of us has three limited entities–time, energy, and money. And one boundless entity–love. Love we can afford to splatter around and we’ll never run out.
How we “use up” our time, our energy, and our money…is another matter. How much of your time, your energy, and your money…is thrown away in the service of your Emotional Guidance System? How much of your time, energy, and money is sacrificed in efforts to rid yourself of anxiety? (See ‘What Would You Give Not to Feel?)
‘Worrying’ is the king thief of time. Saying ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’ and ending up on projects we don’t value takes lots of energy. And money? Well, someone’s buying that tape that you place over your chubby spots and it sucks the fat away while you sleep. Someone’s out there renting a storage locker to escape the anxiety of making decisions. And, “Yes” the reason my name is listed with five stars next to it on every company that makes downloadable emergency disk rescue software…is because when my computer crashes in the middle of the night…I thrash around like a big, desperate fish on a sidewalk, clicking “Buy Now” on every rescue offer popping up and promising to save me. 
The ‘Water Tower Place Incident’ provides an example of FUSION (when the functioning of one person is determined by the functioning of another person) and how the breakdown of boundaries led to one person (me) almost spending some of my life ‘time’ doing something I had no desire to do.
Dateline: Chicago, a while back, still in graduate school and attending a downtown conference. Mental state: google-eyed impressed with the opportunity to have my expenses paid in a wonderful, sophisticated city I’d never visited.
Exact place: I am on the escalator of Water Tower Place, a multi-storied shopping complex with all the best stores…when I realize my physical self has been invaded by the Body Snatchers. “How did I get here?” I’m asking myself. “How did I end up on this escalator in a monster shopping mall?” “This couldn’t be me. I don’t even like shopping at home, how could I have chosen this place for the afternoon?”
The fusion: Earlier that week back in Austin, I’d remarked to a professor–a world-travelled, highly respected researcher and writer, who I greatly over-valued as I did most of my teachers– that I was going to Chicago. With my excited annoucement, Over-valued World Traveler said, “Oh, you are going to have a great time. You want to put shopping at Water Tower Place at the very top of your ‘must do’ list!”
I said something like, “Oh, that sounds perfect! I can’t wait!” Then it was: fly to Chicago, check into the hotel, and take the first opportunity to check out Water Tower Place. Had I consulted my Thinking Guidance System, I’d have asked myself, “How did things turn out the last time someone (at least she had been with me, not just in my imagination) talked you into going to a shopping mall? And I wouldn’t have woken up standing on a crowded escalator wondering how in the hecko I’d gotten there.
Okay, this example is kind of ‘fusion-lite’, but it’s still fusion. Fusion of this sort–when you agree with someone because you value them as a person without thinking for yourself–is common. Careful now, I’m not saying that the ‘self-defined’ move…when the professor says ‘you must go shopping at Water Tower Place–is to pop back with “Well, I don’t really don’t enjoy shopping, so I won’t be going to Water Tower Place.” To respond with an unsolicited negative response is just as much having behavior determined by the other person… as was the ‘unconcious’ following of her advice.
STOP Being Yourself… You are “MAKING” me ANXIOUS!
Aug 12th
Now, back to … as the stomach turns, we return to the hotel dining room in Kansas City (See Previous Post) … and observe the terribly dangerous and relationship-determining autographing incident.
Not only would I never asked for an autograph, I have made an art out of being next to someone famous and pretending I don’t even notice….breathing normally as if being next to celebrity is such a common experience for me. (I had the opportunity to calmly pretend to read my book at a horseshow while Patrick Swayze stood next to me watching horses warm up in the coliseum in Albuquerque. He’s shorter than you’d think.) And here’s the thing. My special person says he loves me and I’m thinking he probably does. And he KNOWS I freak out and get all weird and over-excited around famous people or college basketball players and thus it is very important for me to PRETEND I DON’T NOTICE I’m surrounded by famous people or college basketball players.
My special person knows how I need things to go (I’ve certainly told him often enough) … and, yet, he just goes right on being himself. Nudging and teasing…chuckling, really. He really likes me, too, so he thinks I’m kind of cute all nervous like that. I give him the Disapproval Death Stare”, which only makes him giggle, nudge, and he hands me a napkin and a pen…”
My Emotional Guidance System is SCREAMING. I’m tempted to unleash the EGS monster and claim, “You couldn’t possibly care about me and keep doing this!” To which he’d likely chortle and say, “What are you going to tell the judge? That you were the victim of forced autograph getting?”
Here’s my 2 percent victory: First, I recognized the anxiety before I fired shots at my special person. I recognized my rising anxiety as something I could handle differently than I had in the past. Usually, I would go on the offense, “What’s wrong with you?” “You‘re acting like a child.” “You should not be doing this to me.”
Instead, I was able to take responsibility for once. I was quiet (but not pouty) for a few minutes. I engaged my Thinking Guidance System… The facts: no one cares one way or the other how I conduct myself in a hotel dining room in Kansas City; most people asked for autographs are flattered and don’t consider autograph askers to be hicks and fools; there isn’t a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ behavior code when in the presence of celebrities and college basketball players. … and I was able to say something like, “I really admire the way you are more comfortable in public than I am. I get all twitchy and weird even thinking about asking for an autograph, but it’s not your fault that I get all anxious.”
Okay, what I said wasn’t that good, but it was in the ballpark.
You get the idea.
What Would You Give Not to Feel?
Aug 11th
First, DIETBABBLE ALERT: New Scientific Breakthrough! The reason you’ve had a hard time losing weight is because you haven’t been eating according to your DNA! That’s right, folks. Now you can send in a saliva swab, the “lab” reads your “sample” and POOF… the exciting secret foods you need to avoid will be revealed and the weight just falls off. Of course, you have to coordinate this amazing scientific breakthrough with dieting according to your blood type and the phases of the moon.
Also, a thermos maker cashing in on “going green” by showing piles of plastic bottles (gallons) lists both ’saving the planet’ and ‘weight loss’ as results you can expect by using the thermos.
Still the favorite in my heart: the man walking along the beach with a split piece of metal, ending his spiel saying, “And my wife can’t stop talking about the weight I’ve lost since I’ve had my new metal detector.”
Anxiety. How far will you go to push down your anxiety?
It’s interesting to notice that recent celebrity drug deaths are overdoses … not of a drug that would make a person ‘high’… their deaths have not been the result of going too far with a substance known to make a person ‘happy’. Their deaths have been the result of taking drugs which make a person numb, even unconcious.
Anxiety.
Anxiety is the fuel and the product of the Emotional Guidance System. Anxiety is powerful, powerful enough to make a mess of a person’s life. We are all anxious. Dogs and cats and cows are anxious, too. Some dogs chew through doors when left alone, some cats hide even when hungry, cows stampede sometimes. People chew (overeat), hide (avoid), and stampede (run away), too.
The goal of this mysteryshrink journey we are on is to get a little better hold on anxiety. (See Wildebeest entry)..2 percent…a shift of only 2 percent can improve life experience.
What would happen if you could manage a 2 percent improvement in your ability to manage your anxiety when someone else is saying something that makes you anxious? Aha! Of course, no one can “make you anxious”… No one else can even reach your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM button… I was just giving you a little test…
Situation: The spouse and I are having breakfast in Kansas City during the Big Twelve Basketball tournament. As it happens, several team members are enjoying the same hotel buffet. My special other, being much better than I at realizing his importance or lack of importance in the world, is nudging me in the shin and teasingly suggesting I make up some story about a young nephew and collect a bunch of Texas Longhorn autographs. Since my Emotional Guidance System is always ready to exaggerate things, always ready with the caution, ”Don’t call attention to yourself! People will think you’re crazy! Your complete hick-dom background is going to show and you’ll never recover! What complete strangers think of you is incredibly important! A frown from a stranger will ruin your whole day!” “When your special person does something that he thinks is cute and you think is embarrassing after you’ve TOLD him how he’s supposed to behave to keep you calmed down…his continuing to be himself means he doesn’t love you!”
Okay, there I am, exposed for the sucker FUSION (See Fusion, think ropes twisted together.) And how do I FEEL? To what degree do the actions of another change (signal you to change) what’s going on inside you?
Anxiety 101. Tune in tomorrow for miraculous 2 percent victory in the terrifying autographing incident!
Can You Really Manage Your ANXIETY?
Aug 5th
You know what they say…. talk is cheap.
No where is this truer than in psychobabble-land. How easy the words…”It’s just your FEELINGS making you crazy….Not the real world… Not the FACTS.” …roll off the tongue.
Oh, how glibly this truth can be spoken… If you are not the person who is whacked out at the time. If you are the Whacked Out One (the WOO), glib is a bit harder to muster. In fact, the non-WOO could be in danger since their kind pointing out that we are not managing ourselves well … could just be enough for us to turn our WOO-ness toward the pointer-outer.
There was a time when I wasn’t quite sure anyone could really get a handle on strong emotions. Several incidents convinced me that each of us has within us the power to manage anxiety better. The first was the ”hot tea incident.”
Remember, just how well you are able to manage your anxiety around anxious people (the degree of FUSION, see recent posts for definition) depends partly on the nature of your relationship to the other. In this case, the “other” was one of the first couples I saw for marriage counseling. (Word to the wise… don’t be any psychologist’s third case.) The nature of my relationship with the couple was… they were important because, like I said, they were my third case and messing up would register as “tragic.”
I seated the couple in a small room in the university health center which had next to it a snack room. Only a pair of louvered doors separated the snack room from the consultation room, so that clients could clearly hear anything that occurred in the snack room. Once the couple was comfortable, I went into the snack room to complete making myself a cup of hot tea. I’d left the teapot boiling on the stove earlier. I placed a teabag in a mug, brought the teapot over to the sink, and proceded to pour the boiling water into my cup. Except I’d misjudged how much water was in the teapot, plus my hands were a bit shaky. The result was that the boiling water raged out of the pot, roiling over my hand holding the cup. We are talking really, really hot water. 
And here’s the thing. I did not so much as make a peep. (Okay, if you’d been in the same room and could read lips, you could have picked out a couple of unfriendly pharases.) In an ordinary situation in which it was not incredibly important for me to make a good impression, I would have screamed. I would have let loose a few barn-learned epithets. But I was quiet. Something flipped in me then. A knowledge I hadn’t had before. I’d proved to myself that if a person wanted to badly enough, he or she could change an “automatic” reaction. During the session, I quietly watched welts grow on my hand.
I re-mention the hot tea incident now, because understanding and dealing with FUSION, is tough sledding. So tough that most people don’t even give it much of a go. It’s easier to give other people responsibility for our feelings. It’s easier to try to get other people to change. (Not that this works, it’s just easier to focus on changing others than it is to focus on changing self.) It’s easier to reach for short term anxiety binders-substances, shopping, relationship dependence, worry…
The “hot tea” incident proved there is hope. Even those of us regular WOOs can manage our emotions better. Even two percent is a huge gain.
Anger and Fusion
Aug 3rd
Fusion: the naturally occuring process when what goes on emotionally inside one person is influenced by what is going on inside another person.
Let’s take what happens when one person is angry toward another person. Fusion is the automatic transfer of anger and upset. The degree to which this occurs depends on several elements. One element is how important the angry person is to be person on the receiving end.
Which leads me to report a minor victory in this project of becoming a person able to function according to my own BEST THINKING, instead of having my functioning TOTALLY DETERMINED by WHATEVER EMOTIONAL CHARGE is pinging my way.
Now this is a minor victory, but, for me, it’s a start. Have you ever pulled out on a busy street, in what you thought was plenty of time, only to see, looming in your rear view mirror as you accelerate….a young man in a baseball cap driving a pickup truck jacked up like a rabbit caught in mid-scare on seeing a snake….and the guy in the cap is shooting you the bird?
Usually, that sneering face and flicking finger stirs something in me. Maybe something defensive and angry, like a comment or a hot face. Sometimes I blame myself and WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE me is a guilty, a wanna-slink-away sinking feeling.
Here’s the thing. I got the sneer and the bird twice yesterday and I didn’t FEEL anything. I only noticed… that I didn’t notice. It was as if their opinions of my behavior didn’t matter anymore. …Because their opinions didn’t matter anymore. I realized my EMOTIONAL Guidance System was a little less in charge. That my THINKING Guidance System’s statement that… the opinion of random strangers did not need my attention… was running the show.
One small step ahead for my Thinking System and emotional freedom…. maybe not real good news for the driving public.
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