I want to get control of my house. I want to organise it, find a place for everyting and everything finding its place. Let’s be real, the whole house is a bit much to attack all at once. I find it funny how difficult it is for me to put things into organised compartments since I seem to be pretty good at compartmentalizing when it comes to dealing with intense situations.
I guess it is important to explain what I understand by that. My loose definition is to seperate different things happening and dealing with a thing at a time. You might deal with the easy concrete stuff first and push the scary stuff aside.
I did not understand this until my daughter mentioned we were really good at it.
I also did not understand at that time compartmentilizing is my go-to response.
The first time the term was used in front of me that I remember was just a few years back. My hubby happened to have had an important seizure. This one was important because it was the first one after recuperating from his fourth or sixth brain surgery. (they tend to meld into one another in my memory.) I was unnerved enough to call for the ambulance. When it arrived, he still wasn’t fully himself but wanted to refuse transportation to the hospital. I had asked him, begged him to go actually because I no longer had access to medication to try to slow down his seizures in case they got bad. He relunctantly accepted.
Once at the ER, the doctor asked him if he had ever been hospitalised. He answered. The doctor then said he was uncomfortable to keep him at the hospital. He didn’t feel competent with a person who had such strong seizures.He also did not want to play with his medication. He decided to transfer my hubby to the hospital where he had had his surgeries. The transfert was to happen the following day.
I obviously went to work the next morning. (Sick days were reserved for brain surgeries, heart attacks, medical treatments and funerals of those close to me.) I wanted to be at work because I had concern for my intern who was being evaluated by her professor. Once the evaluation was done and the conversation was turning to pleasantries, I excused myself explaining that my husband had spent the night at emergency and was being transfered to another hospital. The poor faces of these lovely ladies.
I ended up in the city at the hospital next to the Neurological Institute where they had my hubby transfered. Our daughter joined us after orientation for a new job.
As we stood by my husband’s stretcher, we started talking about our morning. I told her about the poor ladies at work and their faces. That is when she brought up how we have been pretty good at compartmentilizing. I must admit we are…
Her comment struck a cord. My concern now is the worry of it not being so healthy. I appreciate the ability to do so in emergency situations, but worry that things might not always be dealt with so as to be able to move on…
Now my search is to see what I have done or am doing to deal with things so as not have them fester.
What are your healthy strategies to help deal with intense situations? I will be trying to verbalise my own in the next little while as I try to consider factors that support resiliency. Maybe together we could build a list of options in hopes of helping the next guy.
’till next time