Tag Archives: Las Vegas

Love and Stress in Las Vegas, A Soap Opera in Four Parts

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Dateline:  Las Vegas Hilton Branch Office and Showgirl Headquarters, no one under six foot need apply. Which is the only thing holding me back from making money on my looks and high kick skills and why I am sequestered in the furthest booth in the Grand Buffet Hall. Yep, that’s me. The be-speckled blond chick in the over-stuffed cargo shorts behind the computer and the foot-high pile of shrimp shells.

Have you ever gotten high? …because someone gave you a compliment?

Have you ever given up a dream? … because someone else thought it was a dumb idea?

Have you ever said you enjoyed an activity? …to keep someone interested?

Have you ever been unable to stop a self-destructive habit? …and paid a terrible price?

Have you ever been unable to stand up to a person you cared about caught in an addiction? …and ended up in trouble yourself?

The following story is true and related with permission of the patient, Mrs. Travis. Names and details have been changed to protect her identity.

Fusion vs. Self: When decisions are made, not out of one’s best thinking, but to save a relationship or to keep a partner happy. Fusion is natural and is part of all close relationships. The problem comes in when a person with a shaky SELF matches up with a person and goes along out of fear to stand alone. The problem comes in when a person with an equally shaky SELF uses fear and threatening behavior to convince the other not to disagree with decisions when the decisions would be obviously absurd to someone outside the relationship.

Mrs. Travis called for an appointment in January with some questions regarding dealing with her three young children when she packed them up and left their father.She explained that she still loved her husband. Their marriage had been great until two years ago when it fell apart in a hurry.

The Inciting (exciting) Incident. All Self Doubts and Anxieties Are Gone

Stress Management Goes Wrong

Two years ago, the couple had gone to a conference in Las Vegas. Mr. Travis, whose only experience with gambling had been years ago when he was stationed in Malasia with the Navy. When he thought about those free and easy days being young and single and successful in dice games, he had a rush of good feelings.

An avid fan of professional football, Mr. Travis was pleased that he could bet on teams combining his remembered good times with sports. As he was knew alot about the National Football League, he thought he knew more than your average bettors.

He made two bets and won them both. He felt the problems of parenthood, marriage and career slip away. Mr. Travis felt better than he had in a very long time.

Episode Two: All I Want Is To Feel the Way I Felt When I Was First in Love

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….

Stress? Drive If You Dare! Mexico City Anxiety, Part One

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Stress: The Last Words of the Great Moctezuma, “Drive if You
Dare!”

What Will Happen to You if You Drive in Mexico City?

If you are focused on not hurting anyone’s feelings or avoiding shouting matches in Mexico City, let’s just say you might as well find a hotel room since you will not  be able to find your way out of the madness traffic circles. You might want to check out nearby hospitals while you’re at it.

Dateline Mexico City, Blond Chick Behind the Wheel…Talk about Anxiety

The fabulous former Dateline: Mexico City, driving where once the feet of Moctezuma approached Hernán Cortés in 1517. The leader of the Aztec people presented Cortés the gift of an Aztec calendar, one disc of crafted gold and another of
silver. Cortés—with the spirit of the invaders who define the New World to this day–had the magnificent gift melted down into blocks to be used in trade almost immediately.

Moctezuma launched several lines of revenge against future invaders including the infamous gastro-intestinal uproar. The traffic in the modern city now covering Moctezuma’s beautiful Tenochtitlan is another tactic of the great king’s revenge.  Isn’t a vacation supposed to be about escaping stress? “The IBM Commuter Pain Index, which surveyed 8,192 motorists in 20 cities on six continents, gave Mexico City and Beijing the worst score.”

So, what does Bowen theory have to do with driving in Mexico City?

How about this?  If you are not familiar with exactly where the drivers around you stand on the issue of “group think vs. thinking as an individual” you just might die.  And you just might take others down with you.

Dr. Bowen describes two forces continually influencing behavior.  The first is togetherness and the second is individuality.  Both are natural forces which do not cause difficulties until either force is being driven by anxiety so that behavior becomes destructive.  Too much togetherness creates fusion and prevents individuality, or developing one’s own sense of self.  Too much individuality creates social and relationship problems. For example, some individuals “opt out” of paying their income tax in the name of standing up for themselves.  Paying taxes for the services used then falls more heavily on the others in the group.

There are television commercials advertising law services to settle with the IRS.  At the end of the ad, cheery couples declare, “We owed the IRS over $100,000, and we only paid $15,000!   We owed $45,000, and we didn’t have to pay a cent!”  Are we supposed to feel good about these results?  Who do they think has to make up the difference?

Okay, now an example of when the force for togetherness can cause a problem.  A flight was very late leaving Las Vegas for DFW.  The agents made the following announcement: “As this flight is late and because most of you have connections at DFW, we are going to board the plane in the most efficient way possible. Therefore, if you have a window seat, and only if you have a window seat, line up at the door to board first.  All other passengers please wait as this process will cut down on delay waiting in the aisle as people store their carry-ons and take their seats.”

Simple, right? Everyone wants to board quickly as possible, right?

Maybe if we humans didn’t make pretty much all of our decisions with our emotions.  Anytime a change is suggested that either increases or decreases the togetherness in the relationship anxiety is triggered.  Remember the powerful role the force for togetherness in the deaths of three people who sacrificed their individuality by turning their thinking over to someone else.  In the boarding the plane scenario, fusion didn’t kill anyone, but most of us did miss our connections because the couples on the flight just couldn’t handle it. Boarding as suggested required that passengers go on board “individually.”

Instead of smoothly moving with the plan, couples clumped at the exit door saying, “But we’re travelling together.”  “We’re married.” All sorts of resistance popped up taking agent time to “counsel” the couples who didn’t want their togetherness shifted in the slightest.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  How did we “elite level” passengers react when informed we would not be able to board first?  Much indignation was thrown around.  There was hair-pulling.  There were demands for exceptions. Doesn’t American Airlines realize that we have a very fragile self?  I, personally had no problem with the plan, but then I’m a cool traveler, everyone knows that.  (My seat? Window on row nine.)  Coming: Part Two.