Compartmentalizing Emotions
 

I need some help and guidance with this. I've been accused of doing this, well accusation is not the right term, I've been told I do this. Understanding this the way I do, I would agree. The problem is "how do I get past this?"

I hope this is a long thread with many ideas and understanding around it. I think I am at a time in my life when I need to open up the compartments and let the garbage out ..... just not so sure I can do it!

"Compartmentalizing Emotions" to me would suggest that a person is either angry or glad about something, happy or sad, et cetera and that there is no room for a grey area in the emotional realm or the way in which one deals with those emotions. To "un-compartmentalize" I guess you would start by taking all of the feelings in one compartment and analyzing the reasons for the anger or sadness or whatever emotional compartment you're digging into. Then you would ask yourself how else you felt about it and why???

Ok- I gotta run now. I'm starting to confuse myself---LOL. :09: I could very well be WAY off the mark here!

you could journal?

What's the "garbage" in your "compartment"?
Anger? Resentment?

I'n not really sure what this means. Could you maybe expand a little more?

OHHHHH do we have to talk about emotions again.....

Na I am kidding. I am kidding!!!

I wrote a journal for each emotion. I broke it down into: sad, glad, & mad to keep it simple.

The mad and sad were a little bit more full than the glad ....that spoke volumes to me too.

I also attched little notes about things I had seprate sub headings under each emotion I had a particularly long section in the mad book on lies and additional sub heading for lies I have told myself and, lies from others. I think I was equally mad about both.

Emotions became much more easy for me to manage when I got current with them and acknowledged my pride,anger sadness, and joy. Now they don't gang up on me I can feel what I feel in the moment and deal with it in whatever way is hopefully appropiate. Something I found about anger that helped me so much is that unacknowledged anger scalds and hurts and current anger is warm and doesn't burn. SO take your angers tempature and find out how current you are with it and if you are scalding acknowlege it to you self on paper and if it is current and warm just go ahead and write about it too...

and good boundries help our emotional life because many things that make us mad, sad, and glad are about boundries. Boundries are about our personal space and the personal space of others and taking responsiblity for who I let into my own personal space and stop allowing the things that blasphemy my soul to happen in my space. hope you can take what you like and leave the rest...

Judy I am a mess again this evening and not quite sure where
your head is right now....you know you can always pm me...
don't know how helpful I would be a this moment....
You are in my thoughts this night as well....
(((Judy)))

I seem to compartmentalize ....interesting word, by the way, if you break it down you can learn volumes:

com:of or relating to
part:a portion or incomplete aspect of a larger experience
mentalize:to make mental, conscious or bring to the iintellect

So, as I was saying: I compartmentalize my emotions as a coping mechanism. I came from a chaotic and sometimes overwhelming family of origin, and I felt I would be consumed by my feelings many times. If not that, then I feared that intense emotional exchanges would kill one or another family member.

So, as an adult, i dissociate which is the end result of compartmentalizing. To a lesser degree, in its positive mode, compartmenatalizing allows me to feel organized, in control, safe, coherent, strong and in my power as a feeling human being. I am better able to speak about my experience and negotiate compromise in relationships.

However, it is still a removal from direct experience. For me, I absolutely need to gt in touch with my emotions lest I shut down. Music, dancing, inttimacy, conversation...all are lifesavers.

hope this feeds the thread of thoughts......

Judy it'd be really helpful if you could say how you understand this. I could Google it but I'm more interested in what you think it means than google!!

Oooops!! I googled - well it's a word and you know me!!

The Google dictionary defines compartmentalize like this:
It doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me - I find it important to be aware what emotions improve my life and what doesn't. We know happiness and laughter is good for the health, we know stress and fear isn't - in a sense that's already distinct groups.

I can actually see someone who knows you much better than I saying you do this because, I can see how you do this.

To me, it's like mega said, not seeing any grey. But more than that, it's feeling something and sticking to that....having a hard time seeing the "other side" or moving past it. A simple example would be if you view something as "bad" , it's labeled bad. To label it anything other than just bad would be near impossible. Someone or something would have to jump through hoops to have you see it another way.

I use that example because my therapist told me I do this and he showed me examples. What I came to understand after I learned how to "let the garbage out" is that it boiled down to the fact that I was rather opinionated in a negative way.

Yes sunshine, that is a good description. Someone, Jazz I think, asked me to elaborate and I'll give you the example that comes to mind.

As many of you know, I lost my son 7 years ago to cancer. This issue of course came up in my therapy sessions and my therapist told me that I use "compartmentalizing" as a coping mechanism with anything that hurts me. I confront it, I accept it and then I stash it away (a compartment in my brain) to use at a later date when I feel it is useful. The way I see it, is another form of manipulation.

Thinking about this, I do this with a lot of things and I have to tell you, my brain is getting bogged down with all the little compartments holding tidbits of information. It makes it hard to move forward with my life and inhibits a lot of things, such as living my life and enjoying it. Now I need a way to figure out how to get rid of the compartments. This of course is too big of an issue to be figured out on SR ..... it looks like I'll be going back to the counsellor very soon. It's time.

Hey there Judy,

Sorry to come in so late on this thread. I do quite a bit of compartmentalization too. Around here we use shorter words and call it denial. What it is for me is just denial of the pain. I become aware of something painful, I accept that it happened, then I toss it in a bin somewhere in the back of my mind so that I don't feel the pain.

What I have learned in these programs of recovery is that in order for me to grow and become a better person I have to follow the 3 "A" steps. Awareness, Acceptance, Action. Thru the use of compartmentalization I avoid doing the last of the "A's", and I never heal. The pain just sits there in the background, slowly adding up like water behind a dam until it overflows.
What works for me is to take action. Sharing at meetings about the _pain_ is a big help for me. Doing "mini-4th steps" is also a huge relief. There's all kinds of workbooks such as Al-Anons Blueprint for Progress that are wonderful.

And no, it's not too big an issue for SR. We can all use your experience, strength and hope and apply it to our own paths.

Mike :-)

The thing is Mike, my compartmentalizing, or denial is also a good word, is not really around enabling, co-dependency etc. I don't know ..... maybe I don't have enough to do and my mind is running in overdrive these days.

I feel very introspective, questioning my motives about things, questioning my self as a human being. Blech .... I sound depressed don't I? I don't feel depressed, just very introspective.

Well I know what you are saying Judy. And yes, I'm sure you need to discuss it somewhere bigger than here BUT we might be able to help you sort through it a bit. I bet it isn't as big as you think it is.

It's simple really. You nailed it, you store these things in archives and use them later. You said you view it as another form of manipulation. I also view it as a way to protect yourself. Or, a way to shut others out....however you look at it.

It's probably the latter.

Not sure where you get manipulation from that. I can do the same thing sometimes w/process and store away for a later date. I would liken it more to a less then healthy coping mechanism. Judy having two boys myself I would have no idea how I would handle a loss like that. Not very well probably.
But knowing you I'm sure you have the tools and ability to work through this issue.
And don't sell SR short, sometimes just getting another persons perspective is enough to jump start a brain out of analysis paralysis mode.
I would use all the tools available to me.

I do this, too. In working with my therapist it is becoming more clear to me every day, too, how I use it to manipulate. It is uncomfortable looking at it, admitting it and dealing with it. I'm very confused by a lot of it; because what happened is real and often times painful. It's what I DO with it that has been causing me grief. Sorry to be vague, but I'm at the babysteps stage with this.

Denial, compratmentalizing and all other character traits are not good or bad. They are _traits_. Just that. It's how I _use_ them in my life that makes the _results_ good or bad.

As a child I lived in an abusive, "toxic" family. My denial was a lifesaver then, without which I would have gone insane. Now that I am an adult that same denial trait is harmful to me.

When I first began to realize that some of my motives were not what I thought they were I also doubted myself. After all, if I can't trust my feelings about love towards my addict wife, what can I trust? That's where a fearless and thorough inventory works for me, it allows me to see that it's not my traits that are wrong, it's not my intentions, not _me_ that is wrong. It's the situation in which I apply those intentions that is wrong, and that is just a skill that I learned as a child, and that I can now un-learn as an adult.

I have learned that my "self" is just fine. It's just a little short on experience in this business of dealing with life.

Mike :-)

so judy, when you say you "stash it away" and use it again later, would that mean you throw it up in someones face type stuff? Or something different?