Mercy Strategy 55The mental fragment which is active is determined, then, by the
environment. Any external object or experience which relates to one of the
defining experiences causes that mental fragment to be triggered and to
become active. For example, perhaps there was an unusual chair in the
room when the abuse occurred. The sight of a similar chair would cause
the related mental fragment to emerge. As this internal switching occurred,
others would notice that the person had changed his personality. The
person himself would feel as if he had been asleep and had now awakened
many hours later in a different place and time.A
When a split occurs at a relatively early age, then there is nothing in the
rest of the mind which can reintegrate the fragments. Therefore, mental
development moves along parallel paths. Any fragment which is active
will grow and mature. It will acquire memories—it may study math tables,
or learn how to drive a car. Fragments which remain suppressed will stay
unchanged. If suppressed fragments are accidentally triggered many years
later, then the person will appear to have regressed to an earlier age. He
may lose his knowledge of arithmetic or driving.
Psychologists have found that multiple personalities can be cured by
accessing and „reliving‟ the defining experiences of abuse, thus building
mental connections. This process of mental integration is very painful
because it goes beyond normal feeling to mental „life‟ and „death.‟
Let us digress for a moment to examine this new concept of „death,‟ the
counterpart to „life.‟ Once a mental fragment starts „living,‟ it wants to stay
alive. Anything which tries to tear apart an operating network makes a
person feel as if something inside of him is about to die. I suggest that the
agony of mental annihilation is much stronger than the normal emotion of
pain and pleasure. People will invariably choose emotional or physical
pain over the discomfort of mental fragmentation.
The practice of female circumcision, for instance, shows the emotional
force which can be associated with mental integration. Many people in
African countries currently feel threatened by the incursion of Western
thinking and culture: The mental fragment of Mercy experiences
associated with their own culture is facing a sentence of „death.‟ Therefore,
A I suggest that each of these fragments still has the same cognitive style.
What happens is that the Mercy person with multiples finds himself
„yanked‟ from one partition of his conscious room to another. Each section
of this room contains its own mental „furniture‟; therefore, memories, skills
and knowledge will vary from one mental fragment to another. Each part
of the room will also be connected to a different set of memories from the
rest of the „house.‟ The size of each partition can vary—some of the
multiple personalities may appear very single-minded, others may be
capable of more varied emotional response. Yet, each retains the original
cognitive style.