Compartmentalizing

[Puzzledpieces]

Looking back, I remember my ex tell me that he compartmentalizes, he also said all men do it.  I never really thought much about it at the time. But reading about it now, some websites say it IS normal and many people do it, then some sites  say NOT normal at all.
What's your take?

[fromheeltoheal]

I compartmentalize with work; when I'm working on multiple projects, which is usually, I have a "compartment" in my brain for each one, it's where everything for that project is kept, and I can bounce among them but when I'm in one, that's all I'm thinking about.  I think of it as a filing cabinet full of manila folders.

And it's also common to compartmentalize among the roles we play in our lives, family man, career professional, golfer, baseball fan, neighbor, American, drinking buddy with the pals, husband, and on and on... .
Handy really, quite a drag when the father has a crappy day at work and brings it home and screws up family dinner, better to be able to leave that stuff at the office, or no?

And my experience women are better multi taskers; there are no compartments, it's all going all the time, which would drive men crazy, but women handle it well, to run the risk of overgeneralizing, but possibly useful?

And borderlines, that's a compartment with a steel door and a padlock; if it's meant to be gone from the consciousness, it is, to the point a borderline can absolutely believe it never existed.  Handy that, I'd buy one if they were for sale, but having no choice because it hurts too much elsewise wouldn't be good. 

[Turkish]

My T, who only saw my ex twice for individual sessions before she quit,  but afterwards heard the narrative from my side, commented that my ex was a dis-integrated personality. Sure,  we may put on different hats professionally and personally,  but a person who has a fragmented sense of self may literally act like a different person given the situation.  Many of us have experienced this,  with those who may be normally "high functioning" but who are different people behind closed doors.  My ex could switch within minutes. 

[fromheeltoheal]

Sure,  we may put on different hats professionally and personally,  but a person who has a fragmented sense of self may literally act like a different person given the situation.  Many of us have experienced this,  with those who may be normally "high functioning" but who are different people behind closed doors.   

Yes, compartmentalization to the extreme, when someone is in one compartment and not even aware there are others.  Seems that qualifies as mental illness.

I've been thinking about the concept in terms of BPD, a borderline being someone without a fully formed self of their own, and seems to me there's a relationship between compartments and attachments.  A borderline mirrors to attach, and also to take the good they see in someone as their own, so it follows that with different people, different compartments, different attachments, they would seem like different people, to the exclusion of all the others.  When my ex would be around her teenage daughter she'd revert to a teenage girl, and when I was there, with our relationship being not that, I could see the confusion, like who's she supposed to be right now?  So we usually entered a triangulation nightmare with me getting ganged up on by teenage girls, wondering where the hell did my girlfriend go?