You can think of yourself as an essence that projects itself forth into an idea. That idea is the idea of a person. With enough focus on that idea of a person, a person manifests in the physical dimension. You then call that person me or I. You think that is who you really are. You forget the essence behind your persona because you become so heavily identified with the persona. But that persona, when it meets with trauma in the world, copes by dividing into fragments. So the essence is now feeding several different personas. This means you are not a singularity. You are a multiplicity.