F is for Fragmentation

“Where do think this anxiety is coming from?” My most recent experience with my therapist consisted of me talking at length of the past few months until I paused and this one simple question popped out of her from the chair across from me. I recognized that look of “dig deep Michael”. I hate that look.

I was always intrigued with people who had multiple personality disorder growing up. It actually made a lot of sense to me even at a young age. The idea that someone could actually suffer so many traumas that they actually split parts of their psyche into separate entities in order to survive the pain makes complete sense to me.

I have found over the years I learned to fragmentize myself. Not as extreme as someone with personality syndrome. I found that when things got to be too much, I just put it in a little mental box and shut the lid. I think this manifested in my teens. It was my survival technique my brain chose to separate reality from perceived reality in order to make it through the trauma I endured on a daily basis.

I never had the “luck” to be able to forget about moments or events. I know of people who remember trauma years or sometimes never after the fact. My brain has never worked that way. Instead I would fragment pieces and put them into that box. For years this practice worked. I would be able to speak about past traumas in a disassociated way. It was always like looking at someone’s life story. The details were there but the emotional connection was light years away. That worked well until I started therapy. The first round was pretty challenging. It broke down some of the walls and helped me let go of some of the pain in a healthy way but then I stopped for a while.

This past year (2015) was one of the most challenging for me on a very personal level. Between family of origin boxes being ripped open, past abusers popping up in my life and dealing with relationship challenges in my marriage I have learned to let go of some of those boxes and approach the steps to healing. As each of these fragments slowly started to merge into parts of the whole me, I was left very raw and felt very naked and frightened. It was the first time in my adult life that dealt with or was exposed to the trauma I lived with so many years. I could no longer share as much for fear of my own reactions to this vulnerability.

The last year has been like a plane crash of UPS boxes… everything just became so scattered and it I was left walking around the wreckage and slowing adding a piece here and a piece there. Putting it back like a puzzle that is just slightly off mark. I know that it is still being pieced together and I think that is causing a sort of mental arrest in my brain.

The best part is the parts of me that have closed off for so long are forming back and less and less is buried. My mom said recently I was the Secret Breaker in my family. At first I was at a loss of what to say because all our secrets are not only mine to share. But I know that I am willing to peel back the closed boxes on me and let them release a bit one by one. I do not want a Pandora’s box of emotions running rampant.

But then it all clicks and makes sense. “Where do think this anxiety is coming from?”.

I will tell you where it comes from …. It comes from holding way to much in for way to long. It is from never sharing my true hearts thoughts and content. It is from the fear that I will not be loved unconditionally when sharing my soul. It is the notion that I will be treated different for being so open. It is the fear that when I am healed who will I become? Finally, it is from all this merging of all the fragmenting that has existed in my brain for years. But in the end instead of pieces I will be more whole and the picture will be brighter. I know that I still a journey but slowly pieces one by one are fitting together and the fragments are less.