Splitting

[anystar]

I just remembered... .my uBPDx used to tell about when he was in a rehab facility for anorexia as a teen and one time he said: "I begged my parents to take me home because it was so horrible there, but the doctors told them 'don't bring him home, he's been splitting'".

so my first encounter with the idea of "splitting" was in context of my ex saying it's just psychobabble nonsense that kept him away from his family when he needed them. but now I realize that if he was already splitting at the age of thirteen, it only supports my hypothesis that he's BPD.

I was wondering if anyone could share concrete examples of what splitting is and what it looks like in the relationship? I assume it's related to idealization/devaluation.

[Ironmanrises]

When everything they once claimed to like about you... .

Turns into the very thing they hate about you.

They begin to forget things about you that they once remembered all the time.

Whenever i went to go see my exUBPDgf(she lives 5 hours away)... .

She would always make me scrambled eggs(my favorite food she made me) for breakfast... .

She made this constantly in idealization phase... .

When devaluation started... .

She made me eggs sunny side up for breakfast... .

I looked at her and was like,

"Why did you make them sunny side up? You know i love scrambled... ."

She looked at me puzzled... .

And was like,

"Oh... .I forgot. My mind is all over the place."

It was another sign that she was... .

In essence... .

Forgetting me.

Like the scrambled eggs.

I just want to forget this whole ordeal.

[ts919]

One instance immediately comes to mind for me; it was about a year ago and I had taken a day off with my son to go see a movie (he is young and really into superheros - prior to marrying my uBPDw - his step-mother - he and I did this all the time) and for whatever reason it got me painted black.  I was called several times that day and told I was hated, then hung up on, then called back, called names and screamed at, told I was hated... .it went on all day.  2 days later she was posting on my facebook wall about what a "good man" I was and what a wonderful father I am and how lucky she was to have me... .

I was black.  Then I was white. 

She hates me.  But she loves me.

She never wants me to leave.  She begs me for a divorce 30 minutes later.

I just got paperwork from my lawyer today - should be a very black weekend. 

[schwing]

The way that I would describe "splitting" behavior is that they alternate between idealizing you (or someone) and devaluing you (or someone).  So they might jump between hating you (devaluing) or loving you (idealizing).  And this is difficult to empathize with, because for non-disordered people (i.e., us), we can accept both positive and negative traits in other people; we might see that someone has bad qualities, but still accept that we are attached to them.

For someone who "splits", one minute they see only the good side of us, and deny that we ever had a bad side.  And the next minute they can only see the bad side of us, and not recall that they ever saw any good in us.  We might interpret this as "mixed signals" but this kind of behavior is disordered in nature.