Resilient People Compartmentalise their Emotions

Kensi slid her sunglasses off her hair and onto her face. She tilted her head up towards the sun and took a deep breath. Sessions with her psychiatrist always left her drained and hungry. She reckoned the hunger was a stress reaction to the emotional hour with Dr Nguyen. She sent Deeks a text message to let him know her appointment was finished. It would take about 20 minutes to walk from the doctor's office to Westwood Village where was waiting for her. The walk gave her time to settle her emotions after the appointment.

She reflected on her session with Dr Nguyen. Dr Nguyen prescribed meditation and yoga as positive coping strategies to help her deal with the stress of her past and her job. To help her proactively deal with problems before they arose. But she stopped meditating and the yoga sessions dropped off from once a day to once a week. As a consequence she'd fell back in to her old coping habits.

Before she began treatment with Dr Nguyen, Kensi would treat the problem by ignoring it. She was the Queen of Compartmentalisation. Nothing touched her because she wouldn't let it. Locked it down and buried it away. Compartmentalisation is a useful short term strategy to cope with stress. It can get you through the workday or the work week but it wasn't going to work over several months or years. Eventually the stress and anger caught up and you exploded like a volcano.

Following her return to from deployment in Afghanistan, she carried on with her life as if she never left. As if she hadn't chased Jack across Afghanistan on an accusation of treason; hadn't being held prisoner by the Taliban; and been rescued by her family and team. How do people bounce back from those things? She did it the only way she knew how. Bury it and carry on. Tomorrow was another day.

Her interview with Chief Investigator Wallace, DOJ, shook her up. The tower she had built to store all of the pain cracked. She only needed time to shore her defences back up again. But Deeks waiting for her when the interview finished. She couldn't keep it together and cried on his shoulder. He suggested she make peace with her past and the deployment. Burying it wasn't going to make the pain easier to deal with. He spoke from experience.

It was a tiring day when she pulled down the brick wall. She and Dr Nguyen discussed her father's death, the estrangement from her mother, Jack and so many other things. She must've cried out 30 years' worth of repressed pain during that afternoon. After the session she sat in her car for 30 minutes to regain her strength again before she could trust herself to drive. She'd slept for 10 hours that night. She was drained. The next morning she visited the beach to stare at the waves crashing into the sand for an hour before she felt like herself again.

Kensi met Deeks at the coffee shop. He stood up to kiss her on the cheek and pointed the table 'Got you a fresh cup and a toasted cheese sandwich.' God, he really was a sweetie. She bent down to give Monty a pat before sipping her coffee.

'How was your appointment?' he asked.

She took a deep breath before she replied. 'Good, good.'

He nodded. They kept an unspoken agreement not pry too much into each other. They knew when the other one was having a bad day. Sometimes the bad day worked itself out on its own. But if it dragged on for a few days they spoke up.

'Nguyen suggested I make time for meditation and yoga again. I told her that with work and everything,' Kensi waved her hand in the air, 'I haven't had time for it. Life has been busy.'

Deeks nodded again. 'You know, I can help you with that. If you need time or space for yourself, I can help you with that. I could even join you for yoga. I wouldn't even try to make any sex jokes.'

She smiled. His sex jokes were her favourite kind of jokes. The support and trust Deeks willingly gave to her was something she hadn't felt before. He'd shown her that he could be trusted with the uglier part of her.

'Thanks. We can go home for yoga after I finish my coffee. A little exercise will revive me after today's session.'

'What about the beach? The waves are too flat for surfing but perfect for swimming. The beach will chill you out and the cold water will wake you up.' He suggested.

'I like it. We'll take Monty home and grab our swimming costumes,' Kensi leaned over the table kiss him, 'Thanks for being you. You make a difference. I couldn't do it without you'.

THE END

Author's Note - Resilient people take a pragmatic stance and learn to maintain emotional equanimity in the face of disappointment.