Splitting

I’m Good -- I’m Bad One of the key diagnostic traits of borderline personality disorder is the second one in the DSM that speaks of "unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation." Those are some big words. For practicality, we simply refer to this behavior as "splitting."

Most people with borderline traits see the world in purely black and white terms. Those who aren’t for them are against them. Since most of the world is truly grey (or colorful if you wish), the borderline is caught with a serious cognitive difficulty in a close relationship. If you do some little thing they don’t like then you can’t remain "all good", with the black and white filter applied, you must therefore now be "all bad". This is what leads to the shifting into the raging states that many borderlines experience. Some borderlines shift into a silent rage, where you get ignored comletely for a time. Once the feeling of betrayal has passed, they go back to seeing you as "all good" again, because, hey, you are actually mostly good. At this point the bad is forgotten (at least until the next "all bad" phase) and you are your wonderful worshipped self again. (Note that some people that also have NPD traits never quite get fully to the "you’re great" stage, but just to the "you’re sort of ok" stage.)

At any given moment, you as the Non are viewed by your borderline significant other as either all good, or all bad. They don’t usually spend much time thinking, "Hey, you do bad things sometimes, but mostly you are a good person." This is beyond the ability of most people with borderline traits. Thus, if you disagree with something they say, then merely by disagreeing you become a bad person. The splitting behavior is what makes borderlines so addictive to Nons. We figure that if we can only be good, then things will be good all the time as they are some of the time. Our partners may even tell us, "if you could only be this way all the time, things would be so good for us." Which sinks us deeper into the delusion that it’s all the Non’s fault. Because it is artificially so good at some points in the relationship, we constantly seek to recreate that "high" in the relationship. Because it is sometimes attained, we seek it again, like the addict to crack seeks the high from his relationship with the drug.

Sometimes a split can become permanent. If you are permanently split bad, then they can no longer see any good coming out of you. This is why it’s so easy for them to engage in tactics such as the distortion campaign. After all, you are Hitler, Stalin and Satan rolled into one, and you get what you deserve.

It is impossible to be permanently split good, because we are all human, and eventually we will do something that will cause us to be split bad, at least for a while. Sometimes, like at the beginning of a relationship or a whirlwind marriage, you can be split good for months. But it doesn’t last.

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