Coping with Stress and Anxiety as the Market Melts Down
Rule #1: Don't be a victim. Rule #2: Don't wait to be rescued. Rescue yourself.
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The news is filled with stories documenting the overwhelming stress and anxiety being experienced by the American people and brought on by the meltdown of financial markets: “Most Americans Stressed-Out by Economy.” “Housing Pain Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners ‘Under Water’.” “Retirement Savings Lose $2 Trillion in 15 Months.”
Unless you are some kind of environmental lunatic — or Al Gore — it is rather hard to take heart in the current economic woes and their global impact.
As I watched a comma disappear from my own retirement savings, this disaster was brought home to me in a very personal way and caused me to reflect on my own economic fantasies and less-than-thrifty spending habits.
It is well known that financial stress is linked to a variety of physical and mental health problems. Even in the best of economic times, many people have to deal with money problems or stress about whether they’ll keep their jobs or their houses; but with the mortgage and credit crisis, the rising cost of gas and food, and the startling stock market decline, more Americans than ever are feeling financial angst.
While I don’t want to ignore the (perfectly just and appropriate) suffering of all the wonderful Congressional and Wall Street types whose really incredibly bad judgment has made a bad situation much worse (you can be sure that at this very moment, those responsible for the disaster are busy covering their asses — and their own pocketbooks — by spending even more millions of our money to “fix” a problem they created and promoted for many years), I would like to primarily focus on Main Street, i.e., those of us whose financial and electoral judgment were merely shortsighted, irresponsible, and perhaps a bit reckless. How you view the crisis will have a lot to do with how well you adapt to and survive (or not) the devastation.
The key point is: Don’t think of yourself as a victim.
Ours may well be the Great Age of Therapeutic Sensitivity (sometimes referred to as therapeutic psychobabble) and the Golden Age of Victimhood, where a preponderance of the population believes that no one should ever have to suffer any untoward consequences as a result of their choices — a sort of “get out of responsibility free” card — and where competing victim groups vie for attention and remuneration for their suffering. Many such groups go even further by demanding that they be rewarded for their bad choices and decisions. In short, these pity groups give real victims a bad reputation. While it all seems rather nonsensical (and exceedingly counterproductive), in the halls of Congress such thinking is rather typical.
The attitude that we are all helpless victims of the “system” and that the all-powerful and all-good government is always there to help and protect us from ourselves and all the horrible capitalist oppressors out there is one popular way to look at the current mess. The same politicians who got us into this mess are now actively promising to make all the pain go away so that neither they nor you have to change your behavior at all!
This sensibility permeates the culture to such an extent that it grossly interferes with real psychological health and functional coping mechanisms. In fact, in my profession, it is this type of thinking that becomes the major impediment preventing patients with serious psychiatric and emotional problems from being able to take any sort of control over their own lives.
As for non-patients, just trying to cope with the various stresses of life and deal with their anxiety about the future, it promotes a passivity and the sinking feeling that you are merely a helpless victim of forces outside your control.
Of course, to some extent, you are. Everyone is. But that fundamental reality doesn’t mean you cannot take steps to reclaim your life and your future despite financial or any other kind of setbacks. Keep that in mind as we review what stress actually is and some of the healthy and unhealthy ways to cope with the current financial crisis.
Stress
These days we hear a lot about “coping with stress” and about how “stress” is behind all sorts of medical and psychological problems. Of course, what is really meant by this is that there are many unpleasant and difficult situations in life that we must respond to in order to live our lives, and that if we don’t respond well, we can get sick.
In its simplest form, “stress” is nothing more than the physiological consequences of a frustrated or short-circuited “fight or flight” response to threats or danger.
Our bodies, which have not changed much since the days of the caveman, are hardwired to respond to danger or the perception of danger in certain ways. Either we “gird our loins” and stand and fight the danger or we take flight and run away from it to live another day. These two basic strategies covered pretty much every option that our ancestors possessed to survive and they lived or died depending on how effectively they were able to utilize one or the other strategy.
In our modern world, it is usually no longer appropriate — or even civilized — to employ either hardwired option. Imagine, if you will, the office worker called on the carpet by his boss, who reacts to this threat to his livelihood by punching the boss or by running screaming from the boss’s office.
Neither response would be considered very stable; nor would it be very adaptive in today’s world.
Pat Santy, M.D., who blogs as Dr. Sanity, is a physician and psychiatrist, and the author of the book Choosing the Right Stuff as well as numerous scientific articles on psychiatry, psychology, and aerospace medicine.
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30 Comments
1. kelcy allen:A CALL TO ARMS
Oct 11, 2008 - 12:53 am 2. Sassenach:THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN! The Redcoats are coming! WE ARE THE NEW MILLENIUM MILITIA…! With only three weeks remaining we ‘must’ marshal our forces! Put away your guns–THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD…..! Remember: To keep our guns, we don’t use our guns! We defeat the frenzied arrogance of the left with TRUTH! Our troops need to concentrate on finding, absorbing, and dispensing information! The economy has become a distraction–let it go, it will pass! SOCIALISM WILL NOT! We need foot soldiers, as well as online techies, examining library, newspaper, radio, and T.V. archives; combing company, banking, and storage records; and searching IRS, and dissident group computer files. Aliases, online names, web addresses–find that smoking gun! Use the Freedom of Information Act before they take it away! We need FACTS! Follow rumors, but be careful, rumors can and will destroy facts, and they are self-defeating. Find the Bill Ayers/Barack Obama nexuses, there has to be a plethora of them, and remember…..INFORMATION IS POWER!
SIDLEY AUSTIN…..Chicago law firm where Michelle Obama and Bernardine Dohrn worked, where Barack and Michelle met……clients, workers, parties?
Early CHICAGO DEMONSTRATIONS…who protested, for whom, with whom? Ayers arrested in 1968 DNC riots. Ward Churchill aka “Ward Debo”, was there.
Did Obama admit, pay fines, FILING FALSE IRS TAX RETURNS for Ayer gifts?
Woods Fund and Annenberg Foundation building names? Doormen, clerks, custodians, employment records? Adjacent offices, fellow employees, cafes?
Did Michelle and dad invest in retail property owned by Wm. Ayers in 1996?
William Ayers/Bernardine Dohrn used aliases for 2 years while ducking the F.B.I. Track her too, she sheds. Later, ANY Chicago activity/business using aliases?
The government calls them moles, because they’re hard to find, so be creative! Take a couple days off, network with friends, and brainstorm possibilities. Geeks, laborers, attorneys, truckers, moms, and moose hunters, “LET’S ROLL!”
UNITED WE STAND
Sarah Palin is the only politician whom I’ve heard suggesting exactly this….to only buy what you can afford, to avoid credit, and to have faith that we can overcome this crisis.
Oct 11, 2008 - 4:48 am 3. Lifeofthemind:Well done Doctor. I see you attracted one reader who is motivated to take action. Appropriate as that may be in this situation it does raise the issue of this condition being used by those who routinely deflect the pressures of reality by engaging in complicated theorizing about conspiracies. The problem now is that those who have spent the last 45 years trying to rearrange reality to match their theories are close to being validated with a political victory on one side and their counterparts will feel equally validated by defeat on the other side. Those in the political class, academia and media who have spent decades encouraging this flight from reality have much to answer for.
Oct 11, 2008 - 4:57 am 4. klrtz1:This article explains why Republicans are on average happier people than Democrats. Most Republicans take responsiblity for themselves; Democrats prefer being helpless victims. I wish more Democrats could see that their behavior is part of their problem.
Oct 11, 2008 - 5:17 am 5. HardHeadedWoman:Most excellent article. My husband and I started this financial strategy a couple of years ago. No credit cards, if we want/need something pay cash or save until you can buy it–in other words, live within our means. It hasn’t been at all difficult and the knowledge that we actually own everything we have and don’t owe a bank or anyone else anything has made sleeping at night much better.
Completely OT, I read your blog every day. It’s my only form of therapy.
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:08 am 6. RE:Klrtz1,
I wish more Democrats could see that their behavior is part of their problem.
That’s a very big, but quite sensible wish. It seems that avoidance, denial, and/or outsourcing personal responsibility and accountability are central characteristics of postmodernism, leftism, and the applied Democrat/liberal/progressive politics that fosters dependency.
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:30 am 7. Chip:This is a very good explanation of why folks who still hold a moral compass within their hands feel so frustrated.
To me, I find it hard to believe that half of the electorate either doesn’t see though the blatant dishonesty of Barack Obama, or even worse, just doesn’t care about the dishonesty.
Finding more dirt on Obama, and I’m sure that there is much much more to find, still may not be very important to those who have bought into the, “what’s in it for me,” mentality.
Victimization has not only become a coping mechanism for individuals, it is also being preached about as a form of socialized acceptability. You are in your situation because of others who are trying to keep you there.
Unfortunately, there is a point of validity to this as we can historically see how the Democratic Party manipulated the welfare system for several decades to keep many people both economically and psychologically dependent upon government. Another sad aspect of this is that many can’t seem to figure out who the actual culprits were and who was trying to do what to whom and for what reason.
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:49 am 8. Sandra M:Same old, same old and same old story.
Here, I’ll discuss only high good prices, high gas prices and who is responsible for credit card interest rates a Mafia loan shark would love (Joe Biden, who’s up for re-election). Click on my name to go to my site for more.
High food prices affect us all.
1) tell Congress to rescind the corn ethanol subsidy which diverts corn from livestock feed to inefficient use as fuel.
2) a second cause of high food prices are:
High gas Prices:
1) Democrats like high gas prices because they force conservation (true)and encourage the search for alternate fuels (true) but IN THE MEANTIME they impoverish our citizens and enrich our enemies, the Axis of oil.
Solution: Vote for Republicans who support Drill Here, Drill Now.
Oct 11, 2008 - 7:36 am 9. Lea:LBYM is useful. Also, alcohol.
Oct 11, 2008 - 7:47 am 10. Roger L. Simon » Financial crisis: On the exercise machine, watching Cavuto:[...] read Pat Santy’s article on Pajamas this morning and took her advice. Don’t blame others. Do what you can [...]
Oct 11, 2008 - 8:37 am 11. J. Peden:Of course, don’t be a victim. But most importantly, Proles, don’t ever forget to keep your tires properly inflated….and your Body Mass Index correct! For verily He has also said, “You won’t be able to eat as much as you want to.”
Never fear or cringe, further Directives to follow. “Help” is on the way.
Oct 11, 2008 - 8:46 am 12. Tom Casey:Many years ago I found a book, “Less Is More”,, an anthology of simpler living, by Goldian VandenBroeck. Pretty much a collection of quotes from 2000 BC to yesterday. It appealed to my basic instincts and has had a prominent place on our bookshelf for 30 years now.
Suffice it to say that there was a LOT of truth in it. Great book, still available out there.
There never ever was a free lunch, we are not that special, and you NEVER say never.
Oct 11, 2008 - 9:03 am 13. USAF Captain:kelcy allen writes:
“A CALL TO ARMS..THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN! The Redcoats are coming! WE ARE THE NEW MILLENNIUM MILITIA…!”
Kelcy, where do I sign up! Also, should Obama win in November, this will be a two- to four-year war and I am on board for the long haul. I still remember the exhilaration of coming home at 5:15 PM on 4 November 1980 after voting and hearing of that boob Carter being thrown out into the streets.
“Tough times don’t last..tough people do.”
Oct 11, 2008 - 9:19 am 14. Ken Mueller:We really have only one national political party, do we not? I mean, of course, an organized group of people who plan to benefit themselves from gaining political power. The rest of us, almost all commoners, do our best to vote against them, but we are losing the battle.
Thanks Dr Santy for your sane psychiatric thoughts.
Oct 11, 2008 - 11:03 am 15. Panic Attacks! « Thinking Things Through:[...] should we cope with all the financial stress? Ask Dr. Sanity! My favorite quote: In the not-so-remote past, Americans tended to view human suffering as the [...]
Oct 11, 2008 - 11:17 am 16. Sissy Willis:Waiting around for an outside force to rescue them and/or bail them out is the Democrat way. Would you deprive them of their very souls?
Oct 11, 2008 - 12:10 pm 17. John:Well written article.
“If I may suggest, it is perfectly appropriate to use the anger and outrage productively by voting the morons who facilitated the financial crisis out of office — or at least by not rewarding them for their denial of reality. Make sure that the ideologies, financial policies, loopholes, and subsequent scapegoating that permit them to get away with their financial delusions are exposed and changed.”
I’ve been typing this idea as much as I can. Politicians of all stripes got us here; spending so much time trying to pin it on a specific individual or party is as useless as it is possible.
What everyone should understand is that when Bush announced the impending doom and proclaimed the urgency of the $700B Paulson plan, we were doomed. Why?
In the 2 weeks between the announcement and ultimate passage of the bill, except for 1, 534 of our elected finest wasted over 20-person years of time; complaining, whining, and pointing fingers at each other. Then they settled down and figured out how to pass it by making it more expensive: THIS SUCKS.
I vowed, before passage, to vote against any of my representatives who supported this bill. As it turns out, one of mine was the sole individual who spent the 2 weeks developing an alternative to Paulson’s plan.
If you want control of your government, focus on the leaders closer to home. President’s can have ideas, but, ultimately, power is in more local hands. Time to vote for ideas, not necessarily by brand name.
Oct 11, 2008 - 1:48 pm 18. John:kelcy allen: Oct 11, 2008 - 12:53 am
I’m not sure of why you posted this here, but you raise an interesting topic. I socialism disturbs you then why don’t you do something about undoing the socialism that exists right now.
National Parks: These socialized assets are a huge drain on the taxpayer. The paltry admission charged bears no resemblance to the taxpayer cost of the federal departments and their operating costs that maintain them. Further, there is no recognition of the market value of these properties reflected in the admission. Either have the entire cost of owning these lands borne by the user (including a “rent” that reflects market value) or sell them and reduce the public debt.
Timber and Grasslands: I’ve never had herds of cattle that could graze and I’m certainly not allowed to fall timber for my own use. By selling these huge socialized landholdings not only would the debt go down, but we’d no longer need the Forest Service, BLM, or USGS.
FDA and related agencies: Total cost should be borne by the end user when they purchase products. That way I, who have minimal use for drugs wouldn’t be subsidizing my neighbor who takes 10-12 pills a day, every day.
Transportation Safety agencies: Put the entire cost of these on the end consumer. Those who don’t fly, don’t pay.
Highways (federal, state, county, city…): Technology could make it easy to charge those who use highways for the cost to build and maintain them. That way, the elderly neighbor next door who has no vehicle won’t be subsidizing her neighbours with 3 cars and a boat.
McCain’s proposal to taxpayer fund (by giving money or reducing taxes) is socialism of the worst kind. The taxpayer is contributing to the most profitable corporations in the US to allow them to use socialized property. Why?
Both candidates propose huge sums to the auto industry who sat around for 30 years and watched foreign automakers eat their lunch. Why should I reward highly paid executives for doing a bad job?
If socialism is your concern, be constructive and get rid of that which exists. And if you don’t like any of the above ideas it is only because you personally benefit from them, thereby proving you want selective socialism.
Oct 11, 2008 - 2:16 pm 19. fiona:And consider that if your plan were implemented, we’d be able to pay for the things we value (I like National Parks and support the Nature Conservancy) with all the taxes we’d save.
Note that we will soon have toll roads paralleling public highways - these roads will charge a toll commensurate with the traffic on the “free” roads - the heavier the traffic, the higher the toll to avoid it.
Maybe we could keep moving in this direction, but it is most important to oppose additional movements in the socialistic direction…
New Party, anyone?
Oct 11, 2008 - 4:38 pm 20. thegr8_1:The far left led by Obama, Reed, Pelosi, etc want to socialize this country. Now it is our financial system and credit markets? Do you want the government to hold your mortgage and regulate the temperature in your house, what size house you can live in etc. They are about to nationalize the automakers. Maxine Waters blurted out nationalizing the oil companies. Then comes health care etc. Washington stay out of our lives. The stock market is down 2000+ points since the tipoff bailout was passed. We would feel better if those responsible for this mess would be put in orange jumpsuits. If 60% of the people want to replace all of. Congress go out on Nov 4 and do it. We cannot let our founding fathers and future generations down vote these bums out now.
Oct 11, 2008 - 7:03 pm 21. Random Thoughts » It’s all in your mind…:[...] Santy offers valuable insight in coping with stress over the economic crisis: How you view the crisis will have a lot to do with how well you adapt to [...]
Oct 11, 2008 - 10:53 pm 22. Otis:Barack Obama’s Involvement with ACORN Unearthed, Missing
Cleveland Leader ^ | October 9, 2008 - 9:08pm.
While Barack Obama’s connection with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has not gone entirely unreported, it has not been fully explained. Most media background pieces simply note Obama’s involvement in a 1995 lawsuit on behalf of ACORN. Obama’s own website, as well as most major media, fail to reveal the full depth and extent of his relationship with the organization.
Attempts to hide evidence of Obama’s involvement with ACORN have included wiping the web clean of potentially damaging articles that had appeared, and were previously publicly accessible. Unfortunately, those behind the attempted cover-up failed to realize that in today’s day and age, nothing disappears forever. There also exists another layer of the web, the hidden web, which is full of information included in proprietary scholarly databases where these very same “missing” articles can be easily uncovered.
Obama’s campaign website states:
Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.
Is that really a FACT, or just another lie? Let’s take a look at a quote from a 2004 article - Case Study: Chicago- The Barack Obama Campaign - written by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN Leader, which was published in the journal Social Policy. Did we mention that Social Policy recently pulled this particular article from their website, while leaving links to all other articles up?
“Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).
Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for STate Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.”
Not only does Foulkes boast of Obama’s ACORN leadership training, but also makes it clear that Obama’s post-law school organizing of “Project VOTE” in 1992 was undertaken in direct partnership with ACORN. The tie between Project VOTE and ACORN is also something that Obama and others have attempted to disprove in recent weeks as ACORN has come under fire for allegations of voter registration fraud.
As recently as March 2008, the Los Angeles Times also made reference to Barack Obama’s involvement with ACORN:
“At the time, Talbot worked at the social action group ACORN and initially considered Obama a competitor. But she became so impressed with his work that she invited him to help train her staff.” (LA Times, March 2, 2008)
All this information was easily pulled up with minimal time investment. It took less than thirty minutes to find, despite attempts by some to bury the truth. If I could find this with little effort, imagine what could be dug up with a serious, in-depth investigation. Scary, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, Barack Obama’s campaign website continues to lie and deny the truth about his involvement and association with ACORN. No matter how many times you say it, it does not make it true. The facts do not lie, Senator Obama. It’s time to come clean and tell the truth, and it’s time for the American people to demand it.
Oct 12, 2008 - 8:11 am 23. tanstaafl:I’ve felt the stress and anger, physically, for a long time, especially the past week.
Not healthy, of course.
I’m very disappointed in CEO’s exploiting their positions for personal gain (see esp. Franklin Raines), liars saying their banks were well capitalized days before meltdown (see WaMu CEO, an uninspiring Hank Paulson and “bailout”, Barney, Dodd and other Purple Dinosaurs pushing for years for standards in “credit” that involve no credit whatsoever…
And, (as we speak) that raunchy Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi laughing in his socks (along with other Islamist types) that our “western” meltdown is a thumbs up for their worldview and the Islamic financial system to replace capitalism.
I hate to give those turds ammo.
Replace capitalism with Islamic financial system
Oct 12, 2008 - 11:34 am 24. Otis:Farakhan has called Obama the Messiah. It is a penalty of death for a muslim to blasphemy the muslim faith to call a so called christian the messiah. This means that Obama is really a Muslim in christian clothing. wake up and see the pigs come home
Oct 12, 2008 - 3:02 pm 25. Believer:The stock market is tanking in large part because the polls show BO may win this thing.
Markets do NOT like liberal Dems.
The Dow will jump - big time - what do you want to bet, if Wall Street heard McCain with his “no tax” and “cut spending” policies were on the way.
So put your money in the market now and work to defeat BO like crazy. You’ll thank yourself later.
Oct 12, 2008 - 5:11 pm 26. Believer:I read earlier this AM that BO’s website is now “cleaning up” to get rid of the evidence they’ve been lying about his association with ACORN.
He’ll lie until someone produces evidence. And that’s finally happened. But there’s so much more the American voter needs to know.
Has America become so morally and intellectually bankrupt that this man will get elected?
God help us.
Oct 12, 2008 - 5:24 pm 27. Stress Relief - The Best From the Web | New Age Self Help:[...] Coping with Stress and Anxiety as the Market Melts Down - Rule #1: Don’t be a victim. Rule #2: Don’t wait to be rescued. Rescue yourself. [...]
Oct 12, 2008 - 7:05 pm 28. katinga:Umm. Sorry. Done all that, including diversifying assets. Still feel sick to my stomach.
Everything’s down significantly–there was nowhere to hide, except cash. And a year ago with petro hyperinflation, cash looked like a loser.
Voting people out of office? The ones responsible are successfully blaming the ones who are not. Term limits are the only way forward.
Oct 13, 2008 - 6:27 am 29. Sandra M:Part of the stress and anxiety caused by the market melt down is that there have been few good explanations of what went wrong.
We now know that Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and other democrats kept regulations for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae being adopted in the interests of housing for the poor, whether they could afford to buy housing or not.
The Wall Street part in this is explained by a former hedge fund manager, Andy Kessler, writing in this week’s THE WEEKLY STANDARD. His article “The Demise of a Giant Hedge Fund (that fund being Wall Street) makes great sense.
When brokers became irrelevant to many with the advent of on-line trading which people could do themselves, Wall Street found that “The one group making money were these weird guys with math Ph.D.s creating exotic securities, derivatives, pieces of paper backed by pools of assets, maybe airplane leases, or home mortgages. The neat thing about derivatives is that no one but the person who created them knows what they’re worth, so you can sell them at huge markups. Woo-hoo. Mammoth departments were created all over Wall Street to securitize everything that moved. With the Fed forcing low interest rates in 2002-2004, the higher the yield the better.”
Had Sarah Palin been in charge, this would never have happened because Sarah has common sense and the humility to ask questions when she doesn’t understand something. No one understood derivatives, I’ve known that for a long time. Finally, a wall street insider has connected the dots.
Oct 13, 2008 - 6:43 am 30. dvd:go to http://www.deepcapture.com
the story of the naked short selling will dispel the output of MSM media….its real and its a system of corruption protected by a clowngress with a less than 9% approval rating and an SEC who aparently is bought and paid for.
Oct 14, 2008 - 5:31 pm