Mental Health Support Thread (NOT for giving medical advice, or debating)

Thanks, I don't know where the urge came from, but its all good now. Will have to keep an eye on it though.

 

I found this channel by a Canadian man with anxiety. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6...JioBBRSprqfezA) He offers tips and suggestions for how to cope and manage your anxiety.

 

I've been wanting to ask about this for a long time, so today is as good as any!

I came across this term in counseling. I was unfamiliar with it but understood it very well in regard to relationships.

Do you use it in writing and if so, how does it work? Would it be a good thing to do in one area and not another?

Am I trying to compartmentalizing compartmentalizing.

Honestly, what I mean is, could it be a healthy thing to do when you're writing even though it's not so healthy in relationships? Or maybe you think it's ok. Don't know! But I'd like to know what you think.

 

I am really big on compartmentalizing life.
I deal with ADHD, and boundless sometimes manic energy, and organizing things, even emotional relationships is how I've dealt with it ever since I can remember. I have a very stressful job, but when I leave the parking lot each morning that's it, I'm off work and don't think about it. No smart phone, no twitter or Facebook... I keep as few distractions as possible. You can have ADHD and still have a productive and busy life.

 

Thanks, @Iain Sparrow . So you feel like it's healthy for you. How do you feel it affects other people in your life? Is there a way to handle it so your family, partners, etc. won't be hurt?

Not being argumentative. I am seriously trying to understand how to heal from particular circumstances. I'm thinking compartmentalizing may be the answer, but I'm not sure I know how to do it in a positive fashion. I've always seen it in a more negative light, though I don't feel it has to be.

 

I've had a relationship with a woman lasting 14 years (much longer than most marriages), have a step daughter I'm close with, and had relationships that are here and done in a blink of an eye. I don't think anything we do matters all that much. In the grand scheme of things, when you're dead, your entire life was as if nothing ever happened. If the multi-universe theory is correct, and there are infinite universes, then somewhere in that cosmic dust you and I are having this exact same conversation. So you know, pretty meaningless when you think on it.
I would only recommend that you try and appreciate how amazing it all is, and how quickly it will be taken from you... or as Keats so wonderfully put it, "Here lies One whose name was writ in water". All our names are writ in water.

 

Very nice reply, very helpful! Thank you. I'm trying. Not sure how successful, but I'm experiencing an effort.

 

My five cents: I didn't know the word before but it seems as if it means simply to deal with one fucking thing at a time. And this is a normal, healthy response in an adult. If I'd continuously let every problem impinge on me every second of my time I'd have mental health issues. As it is I shut a problem out until the time comes when I need to deal with it. When it is the proper time to deal with this specific basket of kittens.
There is such a thing as thinking too much. Sometimes time is - maybe not the best healer but the next best thing. Sometimes my mind needs time to settle down, to get comfortable with all angles. Or maybe I need to let it mature until my opinion is formed. If I try to speed up this process by continuously thinking about the issue I won't get anywhere, in contrast I'll paint myself into a corner and maybe not see the solution even if it as obvious as can be.
If I misunderstood the term I apologize.

Deal with it in writing? Easy. To an extent, every scene I write is a compartmentalization of a specific problem I want to put down to paper. So I focus on one scene, but first my narrator has to make sense of everything that came before (that's the 'maturing' part). As soon as the scene has taken shape inside my brain, I write it.

 

This is the definition I was referring to, although by no means do I want to limit any discussion of the term:
Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.

Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self states.[1]


Psychoanalytic views[edit]
Psychoanalysis considers that whereas isolation separates thoughts from feeling, compartmentalization separates different (incompatible) cognitions from each other.[2] As a secondary, intellectual defense, it may be linked to rationalization.[3] It is also related to the phenomenon of neurotic typing, whereby everything must be classified into mutually exclusive and watertight categories.[4]

Otto Kernberg has used the term "bridging interventions" for the therapist's attempts to straddle and contain contradictory and compartmentalized components of the patient's mind.[5]

I'll post the link as well. Really an interesting topic, imo.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology)

 

It seems to me it can be unhealthy. Yet at the same time I wonder if it could be helpful, as well, as @Iain Sparrow points out.

For instance, if I have trigger issues I'm dealing with in a particular setting or group, could I compartmentalize those issues in order for me to continue successfully? Could it be a positive way to cope with a situation I can't seem to control or escape from?

Just thoughts I'm having.

AND I'm wondering if this would help me with writer's block.

 

A friend of mine, whom I've supported through him getting cancer, the death of one of his friends from cancer, and a myriad of other troubles, is no longer my friend.

In the past couple of months he is getting more and more involved with drugs, and was slowly morphing into more and more of a toxic person (I only realised this in retrospect). It has culminated in the last few days, when I told him I couldn't come and hang out with him one morning because, frankly, I despised the person he was with (I'll call him Y). This Y, was human trash. He didn't believe in depression, drove a mustang, and grew furious with me that morning when I didn't mention him by name. Eventually I get called and Y begins cursing, insulting, while I do my best to remain calm.

But that's not what hurt. What hurt was hearing my friend, my oldest, dearest friend, laugh. Also, in this entire exchange I tried to tell him how he had managed to make me feel like shit several times in the weeks before. He told me what they said (mocking, once describing how they would beat me up) as jokes, and told me to "stop being a bitch".

I blocked his number, and reached out to several people. As one, they all called my friend toxic, and all advised me to cut him out of my life once I told them of the situation. So I did, until tonight, when I had another phone call with them, except this time I let it loose, I told them why I was angry, why everything was the way it was. Y told me, among other petty, pathetic insults, not to raise my voice against him. In the midst of this, my friend laughed again. The same chuckle, the same cruel, uncaring expression of mirth.

I'm devastated, depressed, and I feel hollow. This friend was the only friend on this Earth that I would call my brother. And now, he is a memory.

 

Jesus Christ, it's one thing to lose a friend due to time and separation but this? I can't imagine what you must've gone through, seeing someone you once called a friend turning into a monster and befriending another monster.

Don't worry, we here will continue to be your friend. =)

 

Especially as we take on more and more roles, the natural response should come in the form of compartmentalization (is that a word ?) of the self in order not to lose what you started out with as a creative being.

Well, it may not look like a word (compartmentalization), but I really do believe it is necessary as things getting more and more "balled up" at/in the head office.

Compartmentalization of the adult character is in my opinion the best way not to become crazed and/or lost.

 

You might be right. I think it might help me IF I can learn to do it. If it's not a word, it should be! Thanks, Albeit.

I've received some interesting responses. Glad I asked the question/s.

 

Thank you Link, its people like you that help me realize that people like them are no good. And right now? I think I'm OK, it hurt at first, but know all I want is for him to go away, to disappear. I never wish to see or speak with him again.

 

This is so Breaking Bad (sorry can't help myself).

 

Things got overwhelming about a month ago and I went into self-preservation mode. I'm sure other anxiety sufferers know what I mean - when you stop trying to put on a face and settle for just coping until your head lets you rest?

I've only forced myself to do what's necessary: go to work and keep earning my income. Beyond that, I've let myself be completely selfish and do what I need to do. I've spent all my spare time relaxing, going to bed early, reading for pleasure, playing the time management games with cute graphics that make me feel calm and organised. I'm starting to feel better.

The problem is, the longer it goes on the longer my Things I've Been Neglecting list gets. I have a bunch of beta reads I've ignored. The guilt is starting to grate on me. I've also ignored emails and messages from friends. Over the past two weeks people have started emailing to ask where I am and what's wrong, and the longer I ignore them the harder it will be to reply. I haven't written a word, but I'm not guilty or worried about that, since it's only myself that affects.

Right now I'm just frozen like a deer in the headlights. I can't just pick up and pretend I didn't withdraw for a month, but I don't have the energy to explain and field sympathy - I find other people's sympathy and worry very, very draining and hard to deal with. So I'm withdrawing more... a negative feedback loop.

I'm just venting - no advice needed. What I need to do is set myself a date and just get shit done... but I'm not quite there yet. I'll conquer a few more time management games and see where I am.

 

I just got out of this mode myself. There's weirdly nothing better than spending a few weeks not thinking, just relaxing and enjoying time with yourself.

Just remember that you don't owe anyone an explanation about what's going on with you. Just a simple, "Hey, sorry! I've been busy. " should be fine. You don't have to tell them anything because it's your life and it's not their business what you've been going through.

Hope you enjoy your "you" time.

 

In other news, yesterday was the quarterly management review at work. I was not nice. And now I feel insanely guilty.

Don't get me wrong, I was very honest. My GM is two-faced, my ASM is harsh, rude, and sometimes very unprofessional, my CAL is worthless, and my MOL is stuck up my ASM's ass. (She calls him her "spirit human." )

But my GM is also a very hard worker. My ASM is super supportive when he needs to be. My CAL is very friendly and accepting. My MOL is.. Well, she's there. But did I say any of that? Nope. Just talked about the negatives. And now I'm worried that 1) the worse could happen and they'll get fired or 2) they'll figure out I wrote it (it's anonymous) and my work place friendship with them is over.

I just can't stop picturing them, sitting in the office, reading the reviews, complaining about how mean and wrong people are. And I'm one of the people they're talking about.

Ugh. I feel like a horrible, if not honest, person.

 

"Spirit human" dear lord

I've been in the same boat, Lea, on both ends. The negatives might have hurt but they were FAR more useful for my professional development than having people telling me I was doing everything fine when I wasn't. I'm glad I learned those lessons young rather than turning into one of those useless middle managers who everyone bitches about in the canteen. So really, you're doing them a favour.

But it also softens the blow if there's a positive along with the negative. I feel the same as you--honesty is better than kind lies, but the guilt kills me--so I compromise by being honest, but making sure I say something nice too.

...Unless they're 100% shit.

 

Thanks @zoupskim . Tks for the reminder!

I tried this with a particular problem I'm having. I can't do it. I guess it depends on the person & the issue at hand. AND I think it's really important not to use compartmentalizing as an excuse or rationalization for doing something you know is not right - just trying to find cognitive dissonance between two behaviors, one positive and the other negative. I think that was the original idea. As always, I could be wrong! I'm searching for the correct use of compartmentalizing, in other words.

 

This election season has really managed to mess me up.

LONG RANT AHOY!
-------------------------
As I follow through this election and both would-be presidents...as I see that Trump wants to drag us back to the 1950s, and Hillary wants to maintain status quo...

I find myself wishing more and more that I were born anywhere else, maybe Canada, Australia, or somewhere in Europe. But I'm here, in America. A country so damned stubborn, so damned unwilling to change that I fear we can't change. Period. I want to move, but I can't. I don't have the money, and I'd have to find a job in the country I move in before I do so. But all that aside, I have family in America and...I can't just abandon them because I disagree with who is running the country. Family comes first, of course, and if I just run away, I'd be betraying that notion. It's like either America wants to go back to how we were in the 1950s, or continue to stay stagnant. And we're too damned stubborn/scared to change. Meanwhile the rest of the world moves on...

If there was a God, I curse Him. I curse him for making me born here and not in Canada, Australia, or any country in Europe!! I never thought I'd find myself saying this either. Ten years ago I would have been offended by this kind of talk. I grew up believing America was one of the greatest nations on Earth, but...

Well let me put it to you this way, I'm consoling myself with, “Well, at least we're not North Korea.”

North. FUCKING. KOREA!!!

I can either drink myself to death, or put a bullet in my brain but what would that do? How would that help? NOTHING! Nothing would help! Yet yelling to Congress about it is like yelling at a dog to solve quantam physics.

Now I'm wishing World War 3 will just break out already...

 

My anxiety about this situation is becoming so high, I unintentionally imagined WW3 starting within the next few months. I imagined riots in the streets overnight, waking up to find Trump supporters have starting hanging and shooting people. It's truly terrifying for me.

But it won't be this way forever. Millennials are starting to pay attention to politics. They're going to grow up and raise children who think like them. And I feel like this election is going to be a huge wakeup call to a lot of people. This is what their inactivity produced. This is what happens when less than 20% of Americans vote in the primary. Only 9% of people voted for Trump and Clinton. It's absurd. So hopefully this will drive it home for them. THIS is what happens when you don't vote. THIS is who we end up with. We're letting our parents, those who are stuck in their ways, run the country. We need to step up. We need to take accountability. We need to take control. This is OUR future, and we need to start fighting for it.

So whoever wins, I'm hopeful it's short-lived. In four years, we'll find a new candidate who can take America in the right direction.