Scared Silly
Psychologists are becoming more busy as Y2K anxiety increases.

By Rick Chandler

• Rick Chandler answers his e-mail.

A great man once said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Funny how Franklin D. Roosevelt saw this whole Y2K thing coming so many years ago. As the year 2000 gets closer, the focus has begun to shift from technology itself to potential human reactions. Computers may not go haywire all at once, but what if people do?

"Anxiety and fears among many are rising," said Kelly Cunningham, a spokesperson for the Division of Independent Practice, a division of the American Psychological Association. "One poll suggested that 25 percent of Americans believe the Y2K issue will affect them directly."

Fear of uncontrollable events is not uncommon. Even without Y2K, anxiety disorders are one of the most common reasons people see a psychologist. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 25 percent of the adult population suffers at some point from depression or anxiety.

The APA is looking ahead to Y2K. Its Division of Independent Practice has begun a program in which it offers a psychologist to visit areas that request it, to discuss Y2K phobias and ways to overcome them. Dr. Patricia Hines, based at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, is one of those licensed psychologists. Her practice consists mostly of couples and family therapy, with some health psychology.

"Most of the Y2K anxiety I've seen has been with the programmers," said Hines, who resides in Sacramento. "There are lot of stress and overtime issues that these people are dealing with connected to companies' efforts to make their systems Y2K compliant. Programmers can be fairly obsessive to begin with. Now they're really under the gun."

Among the general public, however, there aren't a lot of people coming into Hines' office with Y2K on their minds.

"That could change, though," she said. "As the year 2000 gets closer, a lot of news programs will be starting up with intense coverage."

Hines points out that the people who see world chaos as a realistic possibility are not likely to come talk to her.

"These people are not likely to see a therapist," she said. "The people who see Y2K as a possible end of the world are people who may feel disenfranchised, who want to be survivors. They want to feel that they see something that the rest of us don't.

"This ties in with some fundamentalist Christian beliefs. These people on the fringes of society may have big fantasies about people getting what they deserve."

There is always a certain portion of the population, says Hines, that don't believe anything is as good as it could be.

"These tend to be the people who store food and water in the basement," she said. "Then there are the people who don't think anything is going to happen at all. Probably most people are in between."

Hines says that people with true anxiety disorders tend to get stirred up by news events.

"Some people get totally frightened at things on the news," she said. "Good examples are the Apollo 13 mission or the Gulf War. (TV news networks) are very good at teasing these events, and some people add their own fantasies into that. A lot of people get keyed up. They can have panic attacks, where they get this huge adrenaline rush. My job is to help these people hold the whole thing in perspective."

Hines sees the potential Y2K-anxiety phenomenon as something similar to what happened when the United States entered into the Gulf War in the 1980s.

"At the start of the Gulf War, a lot of people had these horrific visions of what could happen," she said. "Many times with these types of patients, I tell them to turn off the TV."

No matter what happens as the year 2000 approaches, panic is our worst enemy, Hines says.

"As far as Y2K is concerned, I advise people to remember that we are technology," she said. "No matter what we build, there are people behind it, and if it breaks, there will be people trying to fix it.

"The example I like to use is Apollo 13. Something went wrong with the system, but there were people on the ground working to fix the problem, and they did. They got home safely.

"If we approach our technology problems with that spirit, then we will make it true."

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), July 19, 1999

Answers

There is no Doomer Illness.

Most people rightfully concerned about the y2k problem advocate preparation, not panic. It's people like you, who for some reason feel personally insulted, who try to dissuade others from preparing, who are the ones who are sick.

my little girl right here next to me, loves her daddy. know why? at the end of the year, I won't have anything to worry about. I'm prepared.

Prepared People don't Panic.

at the end of the year, the only people with anything to worry about, will be those people who haven't prepared.

illness? I think you're sick of fighting your losing battle. go watch jfk and be sheeple or something please.

no teotwawki? no duh.

it might be tpotwawki though.... the pause otwawki

and no, i'm not a troll.

-- SuperLurker (Slf@yahoo.com), July 19, 1999.

Y2K Pro,

Consider yourself lucky. You have an excellent opportunity to help the world, and get rich!

First, keep telling everyone Y2K is a hoax. When it turns out that Y2K is just a red-neck plot to sell gold, you will be credited with the education and salvation of numerous people.

In tandem, invest heavily in medical groups likely to be helping us poor Y2K "wackos"! You will make a killing! Also, since us poor idiots will badly need the medical services provided, we will be forever in your debt for investing in the medical outlets we will so badly need!

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), July 19, 1999.

Y2K Pro,

Are you trying to imply that the people at following organizations are ill?

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/bigstory/070199/main.html

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 19, 1999.

Well, let's see.

This psychologist says, "Most of the Y2K anxiety I've seen has been with the programmers," said Hines, who resides in Sacramento. "There are lot of stress and overtime issues that these people are dealing with connected to companies' efforts to make their systems Y2K compliant. Programmers can be fairly obsessive to begin with. Now they're really under the gun."

These stressed-out programmers, who are pushed to the wall trying to resolve y2k problems, are her customers. These are the people she is treating.

She also says: "Hines points out that the people who see world chaos as a realistic possibility are not likely to come talk to her. "These people are not likely to see a therapist,"

In effect, she has said, 'I am just speculating about this, since these others "are not likely to come talk to her"'.

Hmmmm. The people she sees who are experiencing Y2K ANXIETY are programmers who are on death marches (what a surprize). Then, she has a lot of derisive guesses about a group of people she doesn't actually ever see or treat.

Looks to me like Y2kPro has just made a point he didn't intend to make.....

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 19, 1999.

"As far as Y2K is concerned, I advise people to remember that we are technology," she said. "No matter what we build, there are people behind it, and if it breaks, there will be people trying to fix it." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes,my husband has been saying Just that since January while enjoying his Miller beer. What scares me is he is a manager for a international vaccine producer which has older computers, some will probably not work, why? Because the company has a procedure call Validation, a long process before new equipment can be used. So they are user older ones still, one in particular was tested by there IT unit, forwarded to 1/1/2000, needless to say it shut down and they could not restart it again. My husbands answer to the concerns of next year; "It's not my problem, if they go down,then I have a few days off, Yahoo!!"

So here is part of Managements view..

-- Cassandra (american_storm@usa.net), July 19, 1999.

I still believe that the brighter pollytrolls are doing what they do on forums of this nature solely as part of a campaign to discourage other people from preparing, and thus interfering with availability and low prices of survival items that said pollytrolls still intend to buy. Note that I didn't say they were polite or remotely ethical...

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), July 19, 1999.

I love it when people use Apollo 13 as a rational example of how people can solve problems even when the odds of survival seem so low.

Q: Why did NASA not have contingency plans for the type of failure that actually occured on Apollo 13 (loss of most of its power and failure of life support system in the main vehicle after the explosion).

A: NASA considered the odds of any astronauts SURVIVING such a catastrophic failure as being so low that there was no point in making contingency plans.

Q: What were the three factors critical to the safe return of the astronauts to their families and a grateful nation?

A: Their excellent physical and mental health, the brains of the ground-controllers working non-stop to troubleshoot their return, and duct tape (without which they would have suffocated to death long before returning to earth for lack of properly-sized air filters). P.S. They were also really lucky sons-a-bitches.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), July 19, 1999.

Here's some tidbits.

Westergaard:

"On the other hand, we are not yet seeing immediacy given to the lack of preparedness of major cities for Y2K. There's no great challenge in this, really. The local evidence and stories are increasing daily. Pretty soon, however, as newsrooms across America will realize, the Y2K story will no longer be an issue of "when systems will be ready," but "what systems will and will not work" come the rollover. The immediacy given to the story then will be self-evident. How useful it will be at that point remains to be seen."

THE LINK

Another:

"What's the Real Y2K Problem?

The problem isn't Gary North selling newsletter subscriptions. The problem isn't Michael S. Hyatt or Ed Yourdon selling books. The problem isn't survivalism companies peddling their wares.

Here are the Y2K problems:

-computers that demonstrably won't work right unless they're fixed;

-computerized mechanisms that demonstrably won't work right unless they're fixed;

-critical functions in essential industries all over the world that depend on computers and computerized mechanisms that demonstrably won't work right unless they're fixed; and,

-livelihoods, businesses, and economies that depend on critical functions in essential industries that depend on computers and computerized mechanisms that demonstrably won't work right unless they're fixed.

Here are the Y2K problems that are making those Y2K problems harder to fix:

-professionals who are more interested in finding some quick-and-easy way of dismissing the problem out-of-hand than in researching to see if there is a problem and how big it might be;

-corporate and political leaders who are more interested in keeping the status quo for as long as possible instead of doing what they can to get people -- industries, companies, communities, families, and individuals -- to find and fix problems and to prepare for troubles if problems aren't fixed;

-editors, writers, anchors, and reporters who would rather take the quick-and-easy route of sensationalism and of journalism by press release rather than invest the time, effort, and money to conduct a serious investigation and present a responsible appraisal of the situation; and,

-individuals who find it much easier to attack motivations than to examine evidence lest they might have to change their vision of the future, and act accordingly.

And here are the biggest Y2K problems:

-More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined, according to the software-project management classic The Mythical Man-Month; and,

-it's now the beginning of June 1999." (Now mid-July; no change)

THE LINK

Another couple...

Fast and Loose: Y2K Coverage in the Media

Progress Revisited: That Darned Reality Just Keeps Intruding

AND !!!!!!!

Here's a site that has FACTUAL FAILURE INFORMATION, of REAL FAILURES, including type of equip, mfr, critical date, effects, etc...

Site is the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Britain.

The LINK. CLICK HERE.

------------------------------------

But ya know, you pollys go on back to sleep now... Nothing can go wrong... go wrong.... go wrong...

Dennis

166 days

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 19, 1999.

Yay for the American Way!

Truth, Justice and Duct tape! (Don't leave home without them!)

Now, with that moment of levity behind us, let us examine the context in which FDR uttered that famous quote (in his first inaugural speech).

"I AM certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itselfnameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

So, the situation was really bad.

He felt that fear was counterproductive to making it better.

So, alleged doomers,

"Are you afraid?"

(I don't think so.)

BTW, wonder if the new President will have occasion to use that FDR quote in his/her Inaugural address of 2001? Hee. Hee.

-- yay (for@duct.tape), July 19, 1999.

This is really pretty funny to me. One of the households in my Y2K-prepared rural neighborhood is a 25-year member of the APA, as well as being an officer of the state division of the APA. This individual is VERY well prepared for at least a year of 8+ on the scale. Does that mean it will happen? NO. Does the fact that Dr. Patricia Hines in Sacramento thinks it won't happen make it so? NO. The only thing Dr. Hines has PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE of is that she is treating programmers for Y2K-related stress. Hello?

-- RUOK (RUOK@yesiam.com), July 19, 1999.

RUOK, What does APA stand for? While I await your informed opinion, here's another little lesson from history. (Wonder if Dr. Hines would have encouraged anxiety-ridden German Jews to stop reading the newspaper?) Philip Trauring February 27, 1995 German Jewry on the Eve of Destruction

German Jewry on the Eve of Destruction

Did the Jews of Germany do enough to prevent their wholesale massacre by the Nazis? Should they have resisted earlier and to a greater degree? Should the Jews in Western countries acted even when Jews within Germany did not? In 1933, there were several different responses to Germany's increasingly anti-Jewish tendencies. Then, on the eve of destruction, before the Nazis had fully planned for their extermination, the German Jews had a chance to affect Germany and their own lives. I have chosen a few of the German Jewish responses to examine in this essay. After the single-day boycott of April 1, 1933, where the Magen David was posted on establishments of Jewish-race ownership, a Zionist named Robert Weltsch wrote the following lines in a Zionist newspaper article titled '"'Wear It With Pride, The Yellow Badge'"':

"This is a painful reminder to all those who betrayed their Judaism...The Jew who denies his Judaism is no better a citizen than his fellow who avows it openly...The Jew is marked a Jew. He gets the Yellow Badge...This regulation is intended as a brand, a sign of contempt. We will take it up and make it a badge of honor." As a Zionist, Weltsch was critical of those Jews who had replaced their Jewish identities with solely German ones. He was happy to see the German government show those Jews that they were still Jewish, regardless of what they thought -- as far as he was concerned the German government was helping his cause by reawakening the assimilated Jews in Germany. The Magen David was being recreated as the symbol of the Zionist movement and so why shouldn't Jews be proud to wear it? What Weltsch unfortunately did not seem to comprehend was the significance of these initial acts of discrimination. The Central Committee of German Jews for Relief and Reconstruction[*] proclaimed the following shortly after in a liberal Jewish newspaper: There is no honor in leaving Germany in order to live untroubled on your income abroad, free of the fate of your brothers in Germany...Every prospect will be examined, every possibility exploited to help those who no longer have a prospect of earning a living in the German Fatherland to find some means of settling abroad! But don't leave Germany senselessly! Do your duty here! Don't push people off blindly to an uncertain fate...Let German Jewry prove itself capable of facing this hour. Consider what might have happened if they had chosen instead to encourage immigration. This loose association of Jewish organizations had committed itself to preserving the German Jewish community instead of preserving the German Jews. By discouraging free emigration they kept the Jews within Germany at a time when they were still able to flee. Between the years 1933 and 1938, well under the maximum quota of Germans allowed into the United States actually emigrated there. When the war started in 1939, there were still some 350,000 Jews in Germany. It is interesting to consider what might have happened if they had all fled Germany and used their influence once outside Germany to hamper the economy of the Reich." For more fun facts on what can happen to entire populations when obvious "clues" are ignored because of being afraid to fact the truth or whatever, be sure to visit

The History Place: Holocaust Timeline

The best thing that can be said for Chandler's article is that it appears in a low-rent college magazine. At least we now know that Y2K Pro has a low level reading list. ROTFLMAO!! I bet he/she is a college student! Hardy, Har, Har!

-- history (contains@plenty.oflessons), July 19, 1999.

history,

The APA discussed in Rick Chandler's article that Y2K Pro has posted here is the American Psychological Association.

-- RUOK (RUOK@yesiam.com), July 19, 1999.

OT? The APA was recently in the "spotlight" for printing an article claiming that concentual adult/child sex was perfectly healthy and normal.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), July 19, 1999.

Mr. Cut and Paste, oops I mean Y2K Pro. Its nice to see you today. Tell me Jethro do you get your jollies by posting here? Did you get demoted at Burger KIng and now you are only the "clean up" boy?

-- Ronald (RonaldMcDonald@bigmac.com), July 19, 1999.

yes, anonymous99, the apa did publish that pedophilia was normal and okay. just another example of the liberal, orwellian concept of 'crazy is normal, normal is crazy' school of thought.

actually, an endorsement of my feelings as 'crazy' by the apa is the most heartening news i've heard yet.

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), July 19, 1999.

Why not start a new forum called "Y2K good news." Fill it with reports from IT pro's who will say anything to keep their jobs. Get quotes from stockbrokers who don't want the 401K money to stop flowing. Get stories from executives who want their stock prices to stay up so they can exercise their lucrative options. Be sure to include US Gummit sources that are preparing to blame problems on viruses that will be launched, "we were ready for Y2K, then this dog- gone virus screwed everything up!"

Avoid companies that started late, recently had to replace IT heads who quit, sold out to another company where the president took a lucrative retirement, and communties with sewage running down their streets. Don't talk to programmers that admit that the vast majority of IT projects run late. Don't question why companies are still scrambling to finish an important project that could put them out of business even though they started years ago. Avoid lawyers that salivate at the mention of Y2K and exclaim "we get to sue just about everybody now!"

Some potential good news headlines-- "50% chance solar flares will happen at night--not to worry!" "Al Gore promises everything will be OK" "Get Real--they just won't let it happen, there's too much money at stake" "Just hype to get the govt to spend billions for nothing, they do that all the time anyway" "Clinton won't have his legacy written in pencil, of course computers will work" "who needs streetlights anyway, the glow from the nuke plants will light up the night"

Have fun with your new forum, and stay away from this one.

-- not scared, prepared (notworried@preparing.com), July 19, 1999.

Not scared -- that was really funny! Now, to sum up:

Y2kPro posted an article from a college magazine (written by college students, those great sources of deep knowledge)

A spokesperson for a branch of the APA is interviewed.

The APA promotes the use of children for sex with adults.

A psychologist in practice treating stressed programmers is interviewed.

The psychologist says, in effect, 'if we just think right, everything will be okay.'

Does anybody else see a major disconnect going on here? I mean, really -- using Apollo 13 as an example? How about the Challenger?

Whew! this is a pretty weak argument for Pollyannas, for "millennium madness", and for y2kPro in particular.

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 19, 1999.

Say beaker boy.....I've been thinking about your inability to participate in your Polly team 'wave'. Remember those little glass 'dipping birds' they had in the early 70's? Maybe 'Engineer' could develop something similar for your test tube! You might want to velcro your brain to the enterior somehow, so you don't swoosh out and bounce off the astroturf in the big dip.........just a thought.

It could help your grey matter atrophy problem too!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 19, 1999.

Why not start a new forum called "Y2K good news." ....

We already have that: the mainstream media.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), July 20, 1999.

$200 in Y2K preps will go further toward relieving anxiety than would 50 minutes of expert treatment by Dr. Hines.

Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), July 20, 1999.