We covered The Childhood Years in a lecture/workshop on Tuesday. The word "fragmentation" stuck in my head, because whenever the lecturer said it, I could imagine someone in glass pieces. Like someone who was already fragile had been broken. It's probably the best way I can describe how I felt for a while.


Frag·men·ta·tion (frăg'mən-tā'shən, -mĕn-) pronunciation

n.

1. The act or process of breaking into fragments.
2. The scattering of the fragments of an exploding bomb or other projectile.
3. Computer Science. The scattering of parts of a file throughout a disk, as when t
he operating system breaks up the file and fits it into the spaces left vacant by previously deleted files.

All well and good, but I'd like to introduce you to this version of fragmentation - fragmentation of self.

"Fragmentation describes a state of the self that is the opposite of cohesion.

A sign of the narcissistic personality, as compared with the neuroses, fragmentation triggers disintegration anxiety, a counterpart of castration anxiety. The fragmentation corresponding to the auto-erotic stage is total in psychosis, in contrast to the narcissistic personality, in which the self is cohesive. In narcissism, transient fragmentation is seen during analysis and during certain periods when the self is vulnerable, such as adolescence.

To Kohut, narcissistic pathology tends to be progressively reduced to variations in the state of the self, which is fragmented at the preoedipal and oedipal levels. Fragmentation of the self triggers an intensification of the drives, which are redefined as products of the disintegration of the self in the service of its restoration."

I love how my behaviour can be broken down like that. For a long time, I felt like I had to be different things to different people. Say, with a group of friends, I'd be all studious and serious, then with another group of friends, I'd be a complete and utter goofball, and I'd be completely terrified if the two worlds collided, because it meant that I couldn't compartmentalise. I called it that. Compartmentalisation. Dividing my different interests and characteristics into their own little box.

I'm grudgingly accepting that it was fragmentation. Grudgingly realising that maybe I shouldn't have done so.

Hi, my name is Mona, and I'm an oxymoron. Prepare to be baffled.