B2R,
When I think of compartmentalizing I think of dividing things up into bits that are small enough to remain unthreatening, and then sticking them away from one another so I don't have to put things together and think about what really happened and what I need to do now in order to recover.
For me the way forward has been, in the first place, to allow myself to feel again. I needed to learn that just because I FELT worthless, that didn't mean that I WAS worthless. It was difficult and painful, but by allowing ourselves to feel again we also learn how to deal with these feelings. We see that we don't have to accept what they tell us, we just need to see them as signals of various areas we need to work on.
I guess in essence what we did in the past was break up our feelings and try to live different lives. So now what we need to do is get them back together again and live and feel as one person.
All this is really complicated, and what exactly what we need to do will vary from one of us to another. I think it's really important to be working with a T, who will get us through all the mess without all the pain and trauma we would have by trying to go it alone.
But to start with I think what we all need to do is recognize and work with our feelings, but without judging ourselves on the basis of those feelings.
Hope this helps. Your question is a huge one and it really needs to be discussed with a T.
Much love,
Larry
