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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?
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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.
