The 6 Year Old

Compartmentalization gets a bad rap.

People hear the word and picture emotional repression — trauma boxed up, feelings duct-taped shut, a backlog of unprocessed pain that will eventually explode. But for me, it’s the opposite. It’s not suppression. It’s strategy. It’s control.

It lets me focus when I need to focus. It’s the mental discipline to say: I’ll feel this later. Right now, I have a job to do.

And most of the time, it works.

This one started like any other pediatric seizure call. We pulled up to a quiet apartment. Everything was tidy. Calm. A father met us at the door. Two grandparents hovered in the background. No panic. Just tension and weariness.

Inside, the girl was lying on the floor. Nonverbal. Postictal. She moaned softly, eyes unfocused. Limp in the way only a child coming out of a seizure can be.

I went into motion — fast, objective, clinical. Vitals. Duration. Medical history. Standard protocol. We chose a hospital with a pediatric ER, about 30 minutes out.

I bent down and scooped her into my arms — not out of emotion, but efficiency. Or that’s what I told myself.

But as I adjusted her head against my shoulder, I noticed something: she was six.

Exactly the same age as my daughter.

It was a crack. Not a break — just a hairline fracture in the shield I always wear. I kept going. We loaded her into the rig, secured the stretcher. Her grandfather rode in back with us. He looked tired in a permanent way.

I sat beside her. One hand on the cot rail. One hand scribbling notes. I asked about her seizure history.

And then he told me the story.

She’d had a caretaker as a baby — under a year old. One day, the caretaker got frustrated. Lost control. Slammed her head against the crib.

The seizures started soon after. They never stopped.

He told it like someone who’s had to repeat it too many times — to doctors, caseworkers, therapists. Just the facts. But underneath the flat delivery was something bottomless. Rage, maybe. Grief. Helpless love.

And somewhere in the middle of that story, the shield broke.

I saw my own daughter in this child’s place. I imagined someone hurting her. Changing her forever in one second of violence. The thought sat in my throat like a fist.

I nodded. I comforted him. I monitored her. We arrived at the hospital and transferred care.

The grandfather thanked me.

I thanked him back, without really knowing why.

We cleared the call and kept moving. Another few hours. Another few patients. Then the shift ended.

I got in my car.

And I broke.

I didn’t just cry — I sobbed. Loud, uncontrollable, full-body grief. It wasn’t just sadness. It was fury. Despair. And the terrifying, intimate realization that it could have been my little girl. That any of us — at any time — are one bad decision away from ruin.

But eventually, the tears slowed. I wiped my face. And I drove home.

It was 7:15 a.m. My kids were waking up. I walked in, kissed them, made breakfast, poured coffee.

And I compartmentalized again.

Because that’s what this tool is really for — not just to protect me from my own pain, but to protect the people I love from it. So they don’t have to carry what I’ve seen. So they don’t feel the ripple of someone else’s tragedy during pancakes and morning cartoons.

That’s why I compartmentalize.

Not to avoid the pain.

But to decide where it belongs.

Most of the time, it works.