I was thinking about compartmentalisation the other day. About whether I've actually got good at it or whether I've just convinced myself I have.
The practical version is fine. Separate phone. A name I use for work that isn't my name. I meet clients nowhere near where I live or where my family lives. That logistical separation I'm good at.
The internal version is harder. After a booking I drive home and I'm fine. I make something to eat and I'm fine. Then sometimes at about eleven at night I'm watching telly and I feel something I can't name and I don't know if it's connected to work or just being tired. Probably just being tired. I tell myself that.
Six years is long enough to know that the bad days aren't as bad as I feared when I started, and the good days aren't quite as good as I imagined they'd be. It's a job. It has job-shaped qualities. Some days are fine, some are long, some you come home having had a surprising conversation with someone interesting, some you come home having sat through an hour you'd rather not have.
I also work in the NHS, which I won't be specific about, but it involves shift work and long hours and genuine care and I find it very satisfying. So I have that, and I have this. They don't always feel like the same person doing them. But I think they are.
My old therapist used to ask whether I was protecting myself or hiding. I stopped seeing her a while back. I still think about that question. I haven't got a clean answer yet. Tidy answer would be nice, as I keep saying to myself.