Like many young men, I grew up idealizing stoicism. I admired men who could endure pain yet show nothing and never need to talk about it. I valued this not only because society deemed it manly but because it seemed so far away from my life, in which I reacted to pain by lashing out or ruminating over situations that I could not control. Today, as a therapist and coach, I’ve learned that compartmentalization, the ability to put painful feelings aside and chug on, isn’t a virtue, but a normal human response to trauma.
Of course, some level of compartmentalization is necessary. If something bad happens to us, we still need to go on. We must go to work, feed ourselves and our families, and handle our responsibilities. But the problem comes when we start to see compartmentalization as the solution to our problems, as the perfect way of dealing with psychological pain. These behaviors become a problem when they are the only responses available to a person. When there is no behavioral flexibility or conscious thought behind them.
I live in Philadelphia, and as many of you know, our beloved Eagles lost the Superbowl this past winter. I love to examine sports because they are some of the only places where men can show their feelings. Anytime there is a big loss, we can see how compartmentalization is practiced, by all sports fans, especially men, on a massive scale. The pain I saw expressed in the city after that fateful loss was immense. The friends I was watching with collapsed in on themselves. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. On my walk home, there was tension in the air. A group of men decked out in Eagles’ green walked by, one of them shouting, “I’m going to kill myself!” His friend stepped in and yelled, “Stop that!” It all seemed to be in the spirit of drunken debauchery, but to my ears, there was real pain behind those jokes.
The next day, walking around the city, it was as if nothing happened. Everyone just packed it away. The people who were crying the night before had “moved on.” And there was nothing else to say. When compartmentalization happens on a massive scale, we can see just how ubiquitous and automatic it is for us.
In Philadelphia, there was no parade. After all, no one celebrates the losers of a championship sporting event. But what I wish would happen, although it seems silly, would be a different kind of gathering. This would be a chance for sports fans to get onstage and bear their souls. To discuss their disappointment and let their feelings out. Sometimes we forget that our pain can bring us together just as much as our joy. The two are just opposite sides of the same coin.
I’d like this imaginary world in which the sports fans of Philadelphia can get together and grieve. One in which they can share the painful feelings of loss that the tragic end of this Eagles season represents for them. No matter how misplaced these emotions may be, there is still much to be learned from allowing those feelings to be there and learning from them. Who knows what could be learned if Eagles fans allowed themselves to feel that pain?
The older I get, the less I idealize compartmentalization. Because while compartmentalization is taking place, there can be no healing. When people compartmentalize as a main way of coping with their feelings, they rely on a temporary and automatic response to trauma to get them through. Real healing cannot take place until we allow ourselves to be present with our pain, to feel it, and to learn from it. It’s only then we can move out of the situation changed and be better prepared to face whatever comes next with freshness and vitality.
In my work, I help people move through the stage of compartmentalization toward a place of healing. Oftentimes my clients come in and say something like, “I know this should bother me, but instead, I felt nothing.” They have the sense that something’s missing. The only way over is through. Together we find that pain point and feel it out in session. When we revisit the things that wound us with this purpose, and allow ourselves to peer over into the abyss of our pain, then we can begin to heal.
