coming back for control

If you have bpd you may have heard of ‘splitting’. Splitting is dichotomic thinking, a term used to describe the inability to find a grey area in thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. A description of a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing, good or bad. Splitting is a defence mechanism that allows sufferers to easily discard things they consider “bad” and enjoy things considered “good”. It is one of the nine criteria used to diagnosed BPD.

It’s as though one can only be a best friend or an enemy and anything they do considered as bad will permanently taint the memories and experiences with that person. It’s a reaction to the fear of abandonment, the idea of being abandonded seems so abhorrent, that it’s easier to just tell ourselves that person was evil, and everything nice they ever did was all a joke or part of an act. The problem is that we apply that same structure to ourselves. We need constant reassurance that we are a good person, because it is so easy to turn everything around as another reason to hate ourselves if we think we have done something wrong.

It isn’t unheard of that splitting can interfere with relationships, and events or arguments end in an absolute finish with no middle ground open for discussion. People who split are often seen as overly dramatic, of which such behavior can be exhausting and draining. Below is a list of the most common classic splitting signs.

Immediate thinking: (either-one-or-the-other style of thinking with no middle area)

Passive aggression (an indirect expression of hostility)

Emotional hypochondriasis (trying to get others to understand how severe your emotional pain is)

Projective identification (projecting emotions onto someone else, and then behaving towards that person in a way that results in them to responding to you with the emotions you projected onto them)

And non-sufferers, here are some things you can do to reassure your loved one.

FKA TWIGS

If I walk out the door, it starts our last goodbye

If you don't pull me back it wakes a thousand eyes

If I walk out the door, it starts our last goodbye

the repetition of “cause you were never mine” and the part where she says “remember when i pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” 

and then in Betty, from James’s perspective, there’s “if i told you it was just a summer thing” and “she said ‘james get in, let’s drive’”