Life Compartmentalizing

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I was just talking to my friend who first told me that I am Autistic, I will call him "M," and we were talking about different ways that I act and different people in my life. One thing he said to me was that it is very important for me to compartmentalize my world. I did not know what he meant and when I asked him to explain it to me today he said that one of the reasons I have trouble with what I will call crossover friends is that my life is divided up into sections and that he has observed that this can be common on the Spectrum.

For instance, when I ski, I have specific people that I can ski with. If you are a friend of mine and we do let's say, kayaking together, you are someone that I kayak with and for you to ski with me if you are not already an avid skier, like if you wanted me to introduce you to skiing, I would have a very hard time wanting to do that and I would resist it and it might even really upset me. He said that over time I might be able to but certainly not right away. I noticed that I have done that a few times with some of our friends. Like I only want to spend time with them in certain types of context but not in others or in certain places but not others. But if someone whom I might kayak with tries to push themselves into my skiing world, I will completely reject that and will most likely get very anxious and possibly even melt down over it. If I invite them into that world it is okay because I trust them enough to invite them in. And if I invite them in it is a very pleasurable experience for me. But if they try to force their way in I get very scared.

We also talked about how even when I have my very young age moments how those are specific also. For example, when I am in very young child mode, I am only that. I can turn it off as soon as it is no longer safe or appropriate to be that, actually it turns itself on or off, I don't do it, it goes by itself and comes by itself too. But I am that way with specific people. With other people I am other ways, like a very mature adult or intellectual type of person. But M was saying that if I am in child mode I am only that and if I am in adult mode I am only that. They don't tend to cross over. It is very different from schizophrenia because with that you are a completely different person with a completely different identity and history and all that a different identity entails. With life compartmentalization I am always Skibum. I have the same identity just different modes of it. I am always the same person but in different roles of that person. And it is not a role play either, I am actually that person in that specific capacity at the time. So if I am in child mode, I am actually Skibum the child, not Skibum the adult acting like a child.

M also said that whatever mode I am in he has noticed that I have a lot of intensity in it. Other people have told me that I am very intense as well. In fact I hear that a good bit.

But I am curious if others of you have the same kind of thing and what your thoughts are on this.

skibum,howareya?

I can't really answer this question well since being around people makes me tense one way or another. I can't imagine a scenario in which it wouldn't. Well one of my bosses told me other day that I have "my people" and I'm ok around them, but nobody else. I just feel like no matter who I'm with or what i'm doing, I'm always spending most of my energy trying to translate.

I do do things that are very similar to this... I have very specific groups of friends from different points in my life and I have a hard time maintaining crossover. I got married over the summer and I had professional friends, grad school friends, undergraduate friends, high school friends, my wife's family and my family all mixed together... It was rather confusing for me (also overwhelming, but I was also getting married, so I'm sure it had just as much to do with that!).

I let this work to my advantage, though... For instance: I am a therapist and I am typically able to engage my clients in a positive way because I don't view my interactions with them to be social.

I've deliberately divided my mind/personality to compartmentalize. I've even gone so far as to name them. I'll use one for serious deliberations, one for lighthearted stuff, one for sad times, etc. It might sound strange, but the situation actually helps me function more effectively.

Always... the thought of people from different compartments meeting each other in my presence... something is coming up in a couple of days where that may happen and, well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it.

I wonder if that's common for more introverted people, in a lesser degree than the OP describes. I'm not very social IRL, but it doesn't bother me if different parts of my life intersect somewhat. It's actually preferable because it's grounding for me.

I could relate to much of what you described, skibum

That reminds me of how I used to have problems getting my homework finished at home when I was in public school, since the only time I would ever really think of my homework was when I was at school and living my "school life", and not at home living my "home life". As a result of this, I was given a lot of extra time at school (spare blocks and such) to finish my homework, and this sort of made it difficult for me to finish high school since I was missing out on a lot of opportunities to get extra credits. Of course, on the other hand, if it weren't for those spare blocks I may not have gotten as far as I have. I will admit though, in grades 11 and 12 especially, I was really prone to wasting time during these blocks surfing the internet, listening to music, or just napping.

Nowadays, I still have some credits to catch up on, and the only way that I can really finish them is through correspondence courses. When I moved to my current town and tried going to the high school there, things didn't really work out and I ended up becoming really really dysfunctional. Now that I'm 20, going back to a public high school isn't really a good idea, so I basically have to balance a home life with finishing school, finding a job, etc, all on the same turf. I need to learn how to just work with things without compartmentalizing.

Sure thing, skibum!

Although there are times when I like the idea of my friends all mingled together at parties, I rather value keeping different cliques separated. I may need a social bolthole to escape into, and I don't want all my friends to know all my friends. It is safer somehow, and has served me well when I have been forced to burn my bridges.

Also, you talked about social modes, like kid mode, adult mode. I have different modes for different people (or for the same people in different contexts). I can't entirely help it sometimes.

Being described as "intense" comes up a lot. I think it shows in the eyes, animated body language, passionate vocal delivery. My counsellor and close friends have told me that I do indeed compartmentalise different aspects of my life. I mean, punkmetalheads, ravers, geeks, artists, street people and little old ladies are not always going to be a successful social mix.

I have a lot of special interests, and it is only inevitable that a social group gathered around a particular interest may not be compatible with another social group gathered around some other interest. So naturally my social life is a little compartmentalised. It stresses me a little when a person from one group meets a person from a different group, and I am always relieved when these two different people can get along and become friends.

I can really relate to that, especially to your first example. I have people that I do different things with, and it's very weird for me when members of the groups have to mix. I think it's partly because I adjust my personality when I'm around different people, and then I'm just not sure how to act when they are all together (and I usually hear afterwards how "different" I seem around the other people, from several different people ). I can't really do anything to help that though, as there are 3 people on this Earth that I am simply able to be "myself" around, and the rest I have to put on a bit of an act to seem less weird and more normal, for lack of a better way of putting it. I also have different levels of trust for different people, and I tell them different things sometimes, so I often worry that one of them will accidentally talk about something that another of them doesn't know or has heard a less personal version of. I always feel a bit secretive or weird/bad about doing this, but there are some things that I want to keep to myself and the person/people I trust to tell or need help from. I wish I new how to handle this better.

Reading that back, it sounds like I have a ton of friends or something, but actually I don't and many of the people mentioned are family rather than actual friends.

I have been told many times that I compartmentalize my life, and it is true. In terms of people crossing over into different parts of my life I can definitely relate. Just recently a friend from uni came to my home (which has never happened before) and the confusion (?) that it caused me while she was there led to a massive meltdown the second that she left. I can't really explain why, the whole time I was thinking "this isn't right, you don't belong here". It felt very similar to how I feel with any change-- that I am somehow in danger, too much to process, chaos.

In my mind it also created a completely different situation to communicate with my friend, and I couldn't seem to carry the skills from our normal socialising (at uni, in the same cafe) into this different situation. That was very stressful and made me feel like this was a total stranger that I was trying to socialise with for the first time.

Who I am around people is also very different depending on who I am with, but also how I am coping. Most people would say that they never know which 'me' they are going to get on a different day. But even though I do seem to be different, it is largely specific to who I am around. I very much have the 'me around my mother' and the 'me around my doctor' etc. It is part of what makes the moments when relationships do cross over even more stressful, because I don't know which 'me' I am. And have been told that my behaviour appears strange in these situations.

The way I see my compartmentalizing (and it really is quite extreme) is as a coping mechanism. It seems to be an important way of how I can be involved in different things. For example last year I started attending an ASD social group once a fortnight. I got along ok with a couple of people but when they contacted me outside of those set times I couldn't handle it and got very stressed out. After a month I stopped going to the group completely just to stop them entering my 'other' life. I felt so confused and overwhelmed by the intrusion. After a year I went back to the group, but I've had to be very clear that I just want to have contact at the meetings. And it seems to be working because I am still enjoying going this time round.

When I can't compartmentalize a sphere of my life it feels so BIG and overwhelming. It is definetly a tool for me (even though it is not conscious at all) that my brain uses to cope. It feels like it helps to keep chaos in order and lets me participate in things (like uni) without swallowing me whole.

It often amazes me how other people's way of experiencing life matches my own here on WP.

Skibum, I do compartmentalise a lot of things and I remember clearly in my late teens realising it is not always useful as it can add to the feeling that other people are 1 dimensional (and stereotyping them). For example, if I file someone under "shopping friend" and then they go to the cinema with someone else it affects me in a bad way. I don't expect them to be doing this other thing (and in this example something I really like - why didn't I think to ask them to the cinema....? etc).

In other ways it helps to organise my life because I am prepared with my social script, though I did not realise I had one/many until it was pointed out to me that I actually use language differently with different people. I think it is a kind of mimicry in my case, to fit in with them. The downside of this is my own self has become kind of lost and in the face of conflicting social demands I kind of lose it.

The thought of a big party or wedding with everyone I know scares me enough to not do those things. I have often wondered how I would behave if these parts of my life were combined. There are some "safe" matches though that I am comfortable with in the main, but I know I try to control these situations by being louder than normal and putting on my "fun" performance to prevent too much conversational sharing of "me"/my information amongst the other people.

Thank you for all your responses. This is great.

I just realized something today about this life compartmentalizing and it kind of blew me away. I was wondering why this works the way it does and what I figured out was this. As we have mentioned on some other threads as well, I actually have at least two very different and very distinct personalities and they actually function at very different emotional, mental and psychological and even intellectual levels. It's different from schizophrenia in the sense that I am split in personality not in identity. But each personality perceives her environment differently. Also each block of space or of individuals who are "assigned" to those blocks are perceived differently as well. Each separate block has a safety measure assigned to it and that measure has specific parameters. If the parameters in that particular block change, the safety factor is gone. I think it works that way because my brain processes and perceives and understands environments differently according to what block they are compartmentalized into. And when a major crossover happens, it cannot make sense of or negotiate the change in the environment. I don't know if this is the reason or not but in the movie Rainman, he freaked out when Charlie moved his book. This could be a similar thing like that.

I also figured out that when I am in a certain environment or situation, depending on what it is, I find that I am able to receive very differently. And some places or "blocks" or situations, or certain people that I am with make me able to receive less and give more. So for example, if I am in a block where I am able to receive, like in a block where the child Skibum thrives, and someone from another block, like where the adult Skibum resides and gives and nurtures, enters the child block, the child will cease to be able to exist at that moment and the adult will take over. So that block which provided a place for the child to be free and safe, since it has been infiltrated with a factor that has made it impossible for the child to be there, is no longer a safe block. It has now become a place of danger because it has pushed out it's intended occupant causing her to leave and redefine the block.

And sometimes if a physical space or item or concept or idea is used in a way that is different from its intended use or from the the way my brain understands, especially if the change is sudden and unexpected, it can be very traumatic. My brain is not always able to make sense of the change. I remember we had a meeting in our house once and I had served some snacks. One of the women put a plate on the floor next to her and it freaked me out. Sometimes I freak out if people put things on my food prep tables and counters too or move certain objects without asking first. It changes the environment and processing the change can be overwhelming. Sometimes seeing so many people in the room can be a lot to handle too. If it's someone else's house it's not as bad but seeing all these unfamiliar patterns and movements and hearing extra speech and seeing things out of place in my own home can be very difficult. If people come over sometimes it can take me days or even weeks to recover.

For instance, I only ski with very specific people. Skiing is one place where my the child Skibum is able to exist freely. The people I ski with understand the child Skibum and that is their relationship with me. If someone who normally does not ski with me comes to ski with me, the child Skibum will not come out. The adult Skibum will and the adult Skibum will continue to be there during the whole time giving and being attentive to the other person's needs. Having to do this constantly is very draining and exhausting since it involves complicated processing that takes a lot of effort. When the child Skibum gets to be free and play for awhile, the entire Skibum gets to reset and then the adult Skibum is more able to process what she needs to process. She still can't process as well as an NT and she still perceives and process differently and still deals with sensory challenges and overloads, but if she had to do this without ever having the relief of the child side it would be too much to bear. So when cross over happens and pushes out the child side and makes the block unsafe, it makes things very bad.

Hopefully this makes sense.