Do You Compartmentalize Too Much?

[caption id="attachment_834501" align="alignleft" width="1068"] Bigstockphoto.com/Portrait of attractive young african american business woman standing outside[/caption] Everyone has to compartmentalize at some point in life. If you get tragic news during your best friend’s wedding—on the happiest day of your best friend’s life—you’re not going to interrupt her first dance with her husband to cry to her. You’re going to put on a happy face, try to still take in some of these rare and precious moments, and address the news when you get home. But that is a very specific and rare type of situation, and in that situation, compartmentalizing would feel very hard to do. But that’s good! Compartmentalizing should feel difficult because it isn’t natural. If you find compartmentalizing hard to do then that means you allow your emotions to flow, and you don’t deny things. Meanwhile, if compartmentalizing comes easy to you, that’s a concern. Do you compartmentalize too much? [caption id="attachment_716083" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

You’ve gone to work when you shouldn’t

Your work has sent you home, against your will, because you came into work after a tragedy. The day after your divorce, the day after the death of a loved one, the day after you found out your husband cheated on you…there you were, at your desk. Everybody was shocked, and your boss had to take you into a room, spoke to you like you could snap at any moment, and gently sent you home. Sick days exist for a reason; you can use them in times of tragedy.         [caption id="attachment_719795" align="alignleft" width="429"] Shutterstock[/caption]

You sit on information for a long time

People have often been astounded and confused about when you told them information. You’ve had perfectly normal brunches with friends and mentioned, casually at the end, that your parent has been diagnosed with a severe illness or your husband left you. Your friends have been visibly uncomfortable at the knowledge that you sat on that information for as long as you did, behaving normally.         [caption id="attachment_716483" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Your friends say you’re different around your partner

Your friends say you are completely different around your romantic partner. In fact, they say you aren’t yourself. You heighten parts of your personality around your partner, and other parts around your friends, to make the relationships work. But you should be free to be all of yourself, all of the time. At least within personal relationships.           [caption id="attachment_624838" align="alignleft" width="505"] Corbis[/caption]

You keep your partner and your friends separate

You don’t even let your partner and your friends meet. You know that you deny certain facets of your personality to make your romantic relationship work, and you don’t want your friends to see that. In fact, you feel like you’re living a double life; the one with your friends and the one with your romantic partner.         [caption id="attachment_723763" align="alignleft" width="414"] Shutterstock[/caption]

You keep your coworkers and your partner separate

Perhaps at work you’re a ball-buster, unemotional, abrasive and intimidating, and at home, you’re nothing but sweet, gentle, demure and kind of a pushover. You can’t let your partner see that intimidating side of you, because you’re afraid it would scare him off. You can’t let your coworkers see the sweet side of you, because they may not respect you. But the truth is that people respect you the most if you can balance both those sides of yourself—the gentle and the tough—in all situations.       [caption id="attachment_718269" align="alignleft" width="422"] Shutterstock[/caption]

You drink a lot at family functions

Or really any function where you’re forced to interact with people with whom you have drastically different viewpoints, opinions and values. Alcohol allows you to fool yourself into thinking you have fun around these people. Heck, that you even get along. But your resentment towards them probably only grows stronger if you numb it with alcohol in their presence.           [caption id="attachment_609500" align="alignleft" width="500"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

You party during major events

If your friend’s bachelorette party happened just two days after you lost a loved one, you were there, champagne in hand, hot outfit on, acting as if nothing happened. When you fight with your significant other, you go out drinking with friends. You laugh and dance and don’t even tell them about the fight. But this is rather disrespectful to your partner. A fight should affect you.     [caption id="attachment_702582" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

You can talk chores during a fight

Even during a blow-out fight in which you and your partner are hashing out serious, complex issues, you can still bring things up like, “Who is walking the dog tomorrow morning?” and “Who is letting in the plumber on Friday?” Your partner has looked disgusted and offended that you were able to think about such pragmatic issues during such an emotional moment.           [caption id="attachment_713184" align="alignleft" width="421"] Shutterstock[/caption]

Your calmness alarms some people

People have often been frightened by how calm you can be during traumatic events. Some things are meant to shake you up, to make you cry, to make you lose it and to totally turn your world upside down. If people often say things like, “How are you not freaking out right now? How can you be so calm?” you probably compartmentalize too much.             [caption id="attachment_626809" align="alignleft" width="500"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

You’ve actually forgotten something big was happening

You’re so good at compartmentalizing that you’ve forgotten a major event. You’ve tried to call a relative who passed away last week. You had compartmentalized so well that the reality of that person’s death left your brain.       [caption id="attachment_697688" align="alignleft" width="468"] Shutterstock[/caption]

You have panic attacks

People who compartmentalize too much often have panic attacks. At any given moment, you are suppressing some part of your personality, or working very hard to ignore a part of your brain. This is bound to result in panic attacks.                   [caption id="attachment_619447" align="alignleft" width="500"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Your family isn’t good at communicating

If your family isn’t great at communicating, and you grew up in a home where a lot of things were left unsaid, there is a good chance you compartmentalize. You had to learn to do that because, as a child, you weren’t given the time to cry about something. If crying or emoting stopped you from doing your chores or homework, you got in trouble.     [caption id="attachment_619787" align="alignleft" width="500"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Other people’s emotions make you uncomfortable

People who over-compartmentalize are often very uncomfortable with people who don’t compartmentalize at all. If you run into your coworker, crying in the office bathroom, you slowly back out of the bathroom. You don’t ask her what’s wrong or comfort her.       [caption id="attachment_610523" align="alignleft" width="420"] Steve Prezant/Corbis Images[/caption]

You don’t think emotions are productive

You see emotions as unproductive. You even give yourself time limits on emotions. “Okay, I have ten minutes to cry in the bathroom and then back to work.” But suppressing your emotions only results in things like panic attacks, high blood pressure and other problems that truly aren’t productive.           [caption id="attachment_706179" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

You’re a good liar

If you’re a very good liar, then you likely compartmentalize too much. In order to compartmentalize, you have to lie a lot—to yourself and to others. And practice makes perfect.

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