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Is there anyone who can explain the term "splitting" to me? My partner has been seeing a therapist to help her through all of this bpd stuff and at times she tells me I am splitting. It is never said in a nasty or negative way, I just don't want to appear dumb and say...um what's that? lol! :drool

I believe "splitting" is related to the tendency to see EITHER all the "black" (everything bad) about a person/situation OR all the "white" (everything good). One or the other - all bad or all good - no in-between.

I've heard "splitting" used to describe what happens when we reverse that image. I can think someone is a living saint, absolutely perfect, 100% GOOD - until something happens and I see a flaw. Then I flip my perception (usually in 0.72 seconds!) and instead of "perfect" I see them as 100% BAD, worthless or dangerous, some miserable excuse for a human.

OK, I might be exaggerating, but not by much. There isn't a lot of grey in my universe, so if it isn't GOOD then it HAS to be BAD!

Minx described the concept very well. I just want to mention another context of the term splitting. I have gone as far as "splitting" my father into two separate people, with an accompanying belief that one of them was not my "real" father but rather some "alien" clone who only looked like my father but was not really him! LOL I attributed those traits I liked about my father to my father and then those traits that caused problems for me were attributed to the "other" one. In that way there can be black and white at the same time but they are split apart from each other because it is too hard to accept such extremes in the same person. I think that children can sometimes create amazing stories to explain things that don't make sense, even to adults. It can be difficult to approach things in more adult ways when our childish ways worked for us for so long, though.

OK - now I understand. My therapist refers to it as the child and adult sides of me. The point is to see things in the grey I think??

I tell you what, I am so over borderline! I have only been diagnosed since September last year, but I keep wishing sometimes that I had never had the diagnosis because I was quite happily going along without it. And then the reality hits - happy isn't cutting yourself or all the other stuff I have done....guess I just sometimes feel like I wish I could have a break from it all. Just 24 hours would be nice. Go and live in some fantasy land where everything is good and I dont have to do any work on getting better and all that!

But where would that get me? Sorry for rambling and thanks for the help!

Jacqui, I felt the same way last night. I thought "things were better BEFORE I got my diagnosis. Maybe ignorance is bliss? I mean, I'm sort of glad I know why I do the things I do, but sometimes it seems I'm getting worse, not better. I don't know. I guess in the long run by having the diagnosis we can learn how to fix the problems. But I agree with you - it would be nice to have a break once in a while!!!!

just a thought - things were better for us before our diagnoses, but what about for those we love?

forgot to add - I don't think life was better before at all. I hated my life and now I like it. I was miserable and angry and sad. Now I'm not.

It is worth all the pain.

If I remember how truly BAD it was before, that's how I help myself through the inevitable times of getting tired of how much work recovery takes. We all get tired of it sometimes, oh yeah!

You are right OH. I know things are better now - just knowing what is wrong makes things better. I think though that things are just DIFFERENT now. I'm not totally recovered, so I get frustrated at times and get angry sometimes. It takes a lot of work to do recovery work, and sometimes I resent that. In the long run, if you work on your recovery, it has to get better. I was mainly speaking out of tiredness and also from having had a bad week.

I remember the lightbulb :light going on over my head after I got my diagnosis and learned what BPD was. I said, "So NOW I know why I do those things." It was certainly a definitive moment. Then I was able to work to try to make things better.

(((BG))) for your stressful week, it can really sneak up on a person and wear you down, can't it? We can't be superwomen 24/7 :biggrin I hear you about getting frustrated sometimes, too. I like to look back at some of my earlier posts about the same time last year and see how far I've truly come... we'll get "there", wherever it may be.

Jacqui, sorry for hijacking! Please don't split me black because of it, haha.