If you have a big problem in one sphere of your life, can you keep it separate from the rest of your life? 

Yes.

I stole a pack of chicken stock cubes from the shop when I was 7 thinking they were lollies, and after eating one I vomited all the way home. I learnt my lesson.

I've never told anyone until now, but thankfully it hasn't affected the rest of my life.

12 minutes ago, sipi said:

Yes.

I stole a pack of chicken stock cubes from the shop when I was 7 thinking they were lollies, and after eating one I vomited all the way home. I learnt my lesson.

I've never told anyone until now, but thankfully it hasn't affected the rest of my life.

Apart from the feathers growing under your arms!!????

easy when you arrive in swampy

 Yes but keep forgetting the damn password !

If you mean compartmentalise my thoughts yes. I do so with problem solving, shut down stuff that I can't do anything about and concentrate on the things I can. But primarily I need it for work, as a consultant I often have several very different projects running concurrently, so in switching from one to another, I need to mentally box one up, and unbox another.

Isn't this what we do when dealing with bereavement?  We throw ourselves into our work or something else to distract us from our grief and sense of loss.

With a question like that I wonder what you use your brain for, if anything!

6 minutes ago, fangless said:

With a question like that I wonder what you use your brain for, if anything!

many things - but you are surely not the type who would want to know... 

Does this have relation with drinking excessively? 

40 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Does this have relation with drinking excessively? 

no... someone close dealing w/illness

On 1/4/2022 at 5:12 PM, 1FinickyOne said:

If you have a big problem in one sphere of your life, can you keep it separate from the rest of your life? 

I think mostly I can.

 

I learned something about problem solving a long time ago. I am sure there is a name for this procedure:

- What is the problem?

- Is it important?

- Can it be solved? If not, then there is nothing to think about.

- If it can be solved: What can I do? 

- Do it!

 

I think the most distracting thoughts are about things where we see a problem somewhere and we have not really defined the problem. What is the problem? Like: It's cold and dark outside. No that is likely not the problem. The problem might be that I feel uncomfortable because it is cold and dark. It's important to really define that problem.

 

And if we know the problem and there is no solution then we should accept that we could think about that for weeks or month but there is no solution. If we accept that then we can still see that there is a problem, but we can leave it alone.

And coming back to your question: We can separate things a lot better if we know what to separate and if we know if there is a way to make it better.

 

 

Compartmentalise your brain?

Lobotomy is not something for which self-medication is recommended, but I would be interested to know how it went.

 

Edit: Did you work with a mirror, or purely by sense of touch?  You would want to do some checking to make sure you didn’t accidentally anesthatise yourself half-way through. 
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