hey everybody happy Thursday no today's
question is all about borderline
personality disorder and splitting now
if you don't know what BPD is I would
encourage you to watch some of my older
videos about it so that you get an idea
about what I'm talking about because
today's video is specific to splitting
and the question is I'm just gonna read
you what they asked they said what is
splitting in BPD and how can I stop it
can you please do more videos on
splitting and BPD how to figure out when
I'm splitting and when the person in
question is actually toxic but this was
a wonderful question because I hadn't
really thought about it that way now
when someone has borderline personality
disorder they tend to see people as all
good or all bad meaning that someone who
is good can't make a mistake and someone
who is bad cannot be kind or thoughtful
relationships are seen kind of in a
black or white or all-or-nothing we kind
of get caught up in that feeling and
thinking that people are either gonna
hurt us or they're only going to help us
and there's no in-between now what I
find interesting and kind of ironic is
that people who are in relationships
with people who use splitting as a
defense mechanism tend to see the BPD
person as horrible hurtful and just bad
it's almost like splitting causes a
self-fulfilling prophecy or is
self-sabotage from the BPD person and
honestly that just really sucks because
by separating people out like this
making people all good or all bad
those with BPD could think that they're
protecting themselves we know I've
talked to many of you and even patients
in my practice when we're doing this
we're doing it because we want to
protect ourselves from getting hurt or
feeling abandoned
if you don't remember one of the main
like I don't know I guess like a pillar
of BPD one of the main symptoms is fear
of abandonment and so if when someone
does something that we find hurtful we
are they're all bad and we get rid of
them we're protecting ourselves right
we're preventing them from abandoning us
or hurting us further and so if someone
shows us some of those bad signs we get
rid of
we in that relationship right away but
what this actually ends up doing is
pushing everyone in our life away and
leaving us isolated and alone and it can
be really really hard to notice when
we're doing it and even harder to stop
and this is really important to
understand because in my experience my
patients always talk about how splitting
you know once we put a name to it ends
up causing more self-harm urges and
hatred for themselves because if you
remember much of BPD is anger in even
though a lot of people tend to only want
to talk about the anger outside of it
but it really goes both ways so the
sooner we can recognize our urge to
split and manage it the better it'll be
for everyone now aside from learning
some emotion regulation techniques such
as check the facts or using halt hungry
angry lonely tired to reduce our
vulnerability to our emotion mind and we
could do impulse logs to slow our
responses to any upset the real trick to
beating this is just to know when you're
doing it get better at recognizing when
you're triggered and when you want to
split someone into all good or all bad
so now to really dig into this specific
question how do we know when we are
splitting and when someone is actually
toxic and a terrible friend the answer
be a detective
notice if you're using words like always
or never and then look for evidence to
argue against the thought have they
really never been there for you are they
always hurtful and rude actually think
about it and see if you can come up with
some evidence to support another way of
thinking if you can find that evidence
then it's quite possible that you're
splitting if you do see a pattern of
them harming you treating you poorly
line etc then they may just be toxic but
to dig into what I was talking about
before recognize when you were triggered
and work on becoming more aware of the
things that hurt you and trigger
this defense mechanism because that's
what splittin really is so is it when
you feel put down maybe when you feel
ignored overlooked start paying
attention so that you can get better at
recognizing what it is that upsets you
most and causes these black and white
thoughts that way if we find ourselves
wanting to end a relationship we can
check in to see if we were just
triggered or if they really aren't worth
having in our lives anymore I hope this
helps but as always feel free to share
what has helped you in those comments
down below
do you have BPD and you're able to
manage the urges to split people let us
know in those comments down below and I
will see you next time
bye
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