For avoidants to speak to please:Compartmentalization

By the way, thank you bip for the “like” on this.
It lets me know that you are out there supporting me with kindness and compassion and even your own curiosity. It feels good to know there are other people out in the ether caring about my expression here, and who are willing to be compassionate listeners while i explore this deeply personal topic, publicly.

Thank you, and thank you to all who read who are trying to gain a deeper understanding of their avoidant partners. Hopefully to learn how to love and support them, if you can, or at least to release them, with understanding and tolerance.

I really do appreciate all of that!

can’t we just try to figure out alternatives to having skin or something?!? haha.

Yasmin, you just made me realize that compartmentalization could occur across both space, and time. In the past i have definitely put time periods or events in a box that was sealed up and in my reality, i believed that they had no relevance to who or how i am now. Really big, impactful things.... i saw as That was Then, This is Now. No relationship between the two. That was me Then, This is Me Now. What happened Then has nothing to do with Who i am Now. Make sense?

I was all fractured up that way, but of course now i understand how events and myself both unfold over time and who i am now is a result of all things accumulated over time. When it was only trauma, i was a traumatized person but didn’t know it. When healing came, that stacked on to the trauma and i became a person who had experienced terrible things that shaped me and i was becomeing a healing person.... and on until i kind of became who i know myself to be, able to visit all those things over my life and feel reconciled to them, and even thankful because through it all i discovered who i am and who i am is good.


So, my timeline isn’t in little boxes anymore. Not sure if this is making sense to anyone.



however, the compartmentalization i have been reflecting on is compartmentalization in space- that is, different areas of my life not intersecting at all, no overlap of the different compartments of my life. I visit each compartment (a friendship, work, gym, activities) all by myself, show up solitary and leave solitary and then go to the next compartment, fully engage, and then go to the next, and all of this is completely comfortable to me and doesn’t mean i am not genuine in each compartment, or that i feel like i have something to hide, or anything like that.



But maybe it used to, before i had a clue who i was. I may have and probably did just find groups to try to fit into, to not be alone 24/7 because i didn’t find myself to be very good company and i wasn’t at peace.



That isn’t the case now, i feel peaceful and at ease and friendly with myself in solitude. But i still compartmentalize my life completely. I think it just is a way of maintaining some solitude even while social and engaged (which is something i like very much, i am half people person and half hermit, i think a lot of people are like that.)



There is another element of this that has to do with fear of loss and grief.

With my intimate relationships, I know that I keep all my compartments tidy and bring my partner into one or two, but maintain some just for myself. This is because if i lose that person, whom i love muchly, i feel it will cause such an impact in every facet of my life i wouldnt handle it well or have any solace.



When my ex and I talked about that, he totally felt the same way. He loved our time together and what we shared, but he expressed that he was afraid of letting it get too big because it meant so much to him and if something happened to me and ruined it, he couldn’t bear it. He was resolutely afraid of loss. so much that it triggered him into deeply avoidant behavior, he didn’t have tools out of it, at that point of his process. He is still working on all that.



I explained to him that i harbor the same feeling and it’s enough to shut me down cold. But, i found a way around it to enable me to continue building the relationship. I determined that I loved him so much I wanted to spare him the loss of me, if I could.

Of course i can’t control events or lifespans. But, in my mind i made a vow to love him really good and do everything i could to make sure I outlived him, (it was just a mindset) , making an internal vow to be willing to lose him instead of him losing me. So then the loss and grief becomes noble in the service of my love of him. I wanted to spare him and then i became more fearless.



It’s very idealistic, i understand, but it was a mindset. It helped me tremendously. In the end, i have mentioned, external circumstances separated us, but if we reconcile with an improved ability to cope with that, then i will pick up this mindset again with him because i do still love him and find this a valid way to be peaceful in the present moment and avail myself fully to the relationship without my fear of loss causing me to shut down.

And yet, living a compartmentalized life is so normal to me i don’t know how other people do it and i have to do some thinking on that.

I am a little confused about all that but i need to just reflect on it.

I am sure i have more to share but that’s all i can do right now. I will hit “create post” and go back to read and edit for typos and see if i made any sense. typing on my phone and autocorrect is so ridiculous.

I am a little nervous to post this because i don’t know what i look like to anyone reading but that’s just how it came out of my head.

I will take a stab at this. I compartmentalize a lot of things and I have been aware of it for some time. It is my ultimate survival tactic. I have described my brain as a warehouse full of closed boxes. Every trauma in my life has been packed away in a box and they are not opened very often. I know this is how I have survived to be a happy person and not miserable. I'm sure a psychiatrist would say this isn't healthy, but I am happy this way and I don't want to change it.

Regarding different areas of my life not intersecting. I don't think my life is actually compartmentalized, but I have often "felt" what you are describing. Like I will go to work, then run an errand, then lunch with a friend, then home. It's all part of my life, but each thing feels so separate. I don't know why and I haven't thought much about it. It hasn't effected my life any, it's just how I think about it. Hopefully someone will post something that will make it more clear.

Mary, I am going to go read the compartmentalization thread in the DA q&a forum, because i know its upsetting to partners who have a different need concerning this.  They have a perspective that will probably help us understand what compartmentalization means to them, and how it affects them.  I started reading it with interest but got totally distracted by my own thought process around it and started this thread.  

Ok, so i am going to be looking at that soon and seeing what else it brings up for me.  

I really really appreciate you other avoidants participating with me here, and to anyone reading I really also appreciate your patience while we explore something that might be totally obvious or maddening to an outsider.  You are doing a public service by just letting us just mull around in here.  haha!

tgat, I love that story. I have a similar one as I have done lots of volunteer work. I don't think it's contrary to being avoidant as there is much more to you and everyone than attachment style.

I also don't think it's necessary to adjust everything for a partner. I think it's healthy to do things separate from a partner and have things you like to do alone. Some couples perhaps like being joined at the hip and do everything together and I don't think that's healthy either. I also do lots of things by myself and I like my alone time. I think this too, relates to my childhood as you said. I was neglected quite a bit, so I spent a lot of time alone outside. I wandered around at a very young age, ate flowers and had a lot of time to think. Perhaps my brain got used to that and now it's comforting to be alone. I don't know. The similarities are interesting.

This subject of compartmentalizing in this way is new to me, but I know what you are feeling. I feel very similar, but I don't know that it's a problem? It has never been brought to my attention from a partner, except perhaps that I need too much alone time. Maybe I am not getting the whole question.

Yes, as a kid I ate flowers too haha! I spent hours barefoot in the woods and by the pond fishing, visiting with the animals, climbing trees and whatnot. It would have been idyllic if not for the horrible reality of an extremely troubled home life.

I think that partners feel left out or not important or as though the relationship isn't taken seriously by the avoidant who compartmentalizes everything. There is something about the public acknowledgement of the relationship that is valid, as a hidden relationship is often associated with an affair or something.
So if a partner is not included or familiar with the different compartments, they might feel alienated and as if their partner is secretive or elusive. My own words. I haven't delved into that thread yet and am going to try tomorrow. I have had a partner get very upset due to jealousy of my time and not feeling prioritized enough. One reason I am more able to have friendships and relationships with secure or avoidantly inclined is for these kinds of things, there isn't friction around what feels natural to me. So, lets explore it. I don't want to change it in me and love that my ex lived his life the same way. I thought he was keeping me a secret from everyone at one point but that wasn't the case. That would have bothered me. Anyway, off to bed, and thanks again everyone!

Ok, I also just read that narcissists compartmentalize their lives to keep their victims from running into each other, its a diabolical plot to maintain control and power over every situation they enter. But that's not what we're talking about here of course.

And, the thread was very short and just contained that reference to time accountability, or however one sees that.

But, I have seen couples share much more time and activity together than I would be able to tolerate, and I would go so far as to say that my ideal living arrangement is separate, close and convenient but separate for sure. So thats a compartment of sorts right there. Ok, not going to chew on this any more tonight I promise.