Splitting for non's - you have to stop doing it to get better

[love4meNOTu]

Wanted to share this item on splitting and how we do it as nons.

Splitting

Splitting: Making Breakups Harder To Get Over

August 7, 2011 By Susan J. Elliott


What is “splitting” and why is it harmful to your recovery from a breakup?

In short, it means mentally and emotionally splitting the good from the bad.

It was something I had done with my abusive husband and something victims tend to do.

But it’s not just for abuse victims. Many people do this and it makes it downright IMPOSSIBLE to truly get over someone.

It’s the mental magician trick of chopping people up into good and bad and being so in love with the good and just wishing that the bad is an aberration and was a phase or just go away or be something unusual.

When the person you loved and who loved you is starting to engage in unloving behavior toward you, you can’t make sense of it. This person compared to the other person does not make sense. At all. It does not compute.

In your mind you hold onto what you HAD while ignoring what you HAVE. You tell yourself this is not the real person, the one you fell in love with is. But the person you fell in love with has not been around in a long time and the person who fell in love with you and treated you so well (as loving partners are supposed to do) is GONE. And gone for good. Even if he or she appears for a time, that’s not okay for the way they are treating you now is unacceptable. So stop holding out hope. The present person you are seeing is an ass and that is not okay.

It’s hard to stop splitting. But it’s a necessary step (stop splitting) if you want to get better.

The splitting is tough but when you’re doing it…holding onto the loving person…remember to concentrate on the person who hurt you and know they are the same person.

If you’re splitting, work on grieving the good person but keep acknowledging the hurtful person. They are one and the same.

And be glad that neither are still in your life.


But you still are.


Be good to yourself and put the two haves together…and then dump them both.

You can do it!

[Ironmanrises]

I struggle with this as I keep my exUBPDgf split as 2 separate entities in my mind.

[ucmeicu2]

Wanted to share this item on splitting and how we do it as nons.

<snip>

Be good to yourself and put the two haves together…and then dump them both.

thanx so much, love4menotu ~ great article.  i realize that i do this ~ i struggle with it... . and see many other Nons here do, too... . and it always strikes me as curious that we b*itch and complain about the pwBPD doing it to us but gloss over the fact that we also do it to them. 

ya can't have it both ways!  i've cried about it (b/c it's so danged painful) but right now it's making me chuckle... . the absurdity of it all.   guess i really am slowly healing.   

[love4meNOTu]

Healing is painful.

We are both doing some heavy lifting... gettin better every day. 

[seeking balance]

Fantastic post love4 - thanks for sharing

If you’re splitting, work on grieving the good person but keep acknowledging the hurtful person. They are one and the same.

This was critical to my recovery - I literally went through the exact same grief that my good friend whose husband died about the same time my last separation and subsequent divorce occurred.   It is so important to grieve the good so you can let it go.  When romanticizing too much - remember the other side that was hurtful.  Both sides are so important for letting go.

Peace,

SB

[myself]

It's only been as I've looked at everything all at once, weighing the good and bad together, that I've been able to see things for what they were. That was when detachment began to take place for real. I had to admit that as good as the good was, there was more bad, and the bad was doing too much damage. Before that, I helped make excuses for the bad by focusing mostly on the good. Hers and mine. Neither one of us was satisfied. Neither one of us was whole, because we weren't seeing the whole picture. I am grateful for the good, and will take some of it with me. Leaving the bad behind me as much as possible. Accepting all of it.

[loz1982]

Im still a long way from moving on and I think that has a lot to do with me splitting all the time. I think of our cuddles on the couch, the way he made me laugh, how comfortable I felt in the good times and just our general things we love doing the same. In fact the bad stuff rarely enters my head and when it does, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I do speak to friends when I feel like this and the common response is I dodged a bullet but I don't feel the same. I heard on the grapevine he had a bit of a meltdown after I moved my stuff out of the house, was just devastated and it haunts me. I could solve his unhappiness by going back, I hate to feel the cause for someone elses misery!

[santa]

This is a major problem I have.

I've got to stop doing it.

The girl that tormented me on so many occasions is also the same girl that gave me some of the best memories of my life. Same person. I've got to stop thinking about the girl I love and remember she's also the girl I hate. They're the same.

[myself]

and remember she's also the girl I hate.

It's more that we were hurt by them, not that we hate them.

[santa]

and remember she's also the girl I hate.

It's more that we were hurt by them, not that we hate them.

Point taken. I guess "person I am sometimes terrified of" would better describe it.  

[Tincanmike]

Who wants to think about bad things? Nobody. We hang on to the good memories because it is more comfortable.  It is the part of us that is struggling to let go of our dreams that we had created in our inner minds to be happy with our partners.  If we think about the bad things it means to us that we are giving up on the relationship and dreams surrounding it we once had.  We put up with so much, that we think that we could put up with anything from these people we love(d).  It is the thought that "love" prevails and can survive anything.  We want to prove to ourselves and all the naysayers that we can make it work no matter what.  

Thinking about the bad things is difficult and painful in the moment and it shatters our illusion what could have been.  (And here's the "but".  But, if we let the good memories overshadow the bad, we are doing ourselves a disservice. The good memories we have come with the loaded bond that is a relationship with someone with BPD.  Remember the "conditions" that came with these good memories.  And never, ever forget the pain that this mental illness brought into our lives.  

My soon to be ex always said that I deserved better than her.  And I am finally starting to realize that maybe she was right.  We nons put up with all we could, did all we could humanly do. And we didn't fail in our endeavors. Facing the bad memories head on, despite the pain it might cause, is the key to moving on to our own inner peace.  Learning to "file" the memories, all of them (good, bad, sad, angry) in their separate and appropriate places is not easy, but it is critical to our own well-being.  Life's too short to do otherwise.

[Changingman]

Am I doing something wrong, I can only see her as an abusive spirit now, from day one of meeting her. All the idealisation stage seems like the worst part of the abuse. It wasn't good in ANY way. I can feel the 'dark passanger' from the beginning. Am I splitting her black or just radical acceptance?

Think it's accepting the reality, still kind of scared that I have just seen the dark side of humanity, lots of sickness of history/news/society now seems very close to my understanding.

I google every dark twisted news item with BPD.

Scary

[Free2Bee]

I'm struggling with this because my ex's behaviour was divided into such extremes, she was like two different people. I even wondered sometimes if she had a split personality or something. Even her voice was different during her 'highs' and 'lows'. Her voice was so different when she was at work (she hated her job, so that was a 'low' that I never recognised her when she answered the phone. But when she was tender with me, her voice was incredibly gentle. I have a tough time reconciling these two 'sides' of her.

Like Tincanmike's ex, mine frequently told me that I deserved better than her. It makes me sad to realise that she's right, I do deserve more. I loved her so much, but love isn't always strong enough. :-(

[Soulsisters]

I think that I have to look at who I was when I was with him.  The person that I was with him felt crazy, worthless, and useless.  I didn't have goals, I lost my vision of myself, and I cried myself to sleep at night.

I now have goals and I can look at myself and like what I see. 

He took the good away from me for so long.  I stopped growing and I almost stopped living. 

This will be the last chapter of my life and I welcome tomorrow again. 

[santa]

This is the most important thing I've ever read on this site.

[Changingman]

Tonight was the first time I felt the no contact was working, I felt the connection to her drifting off properly, forever. Just a glimpse of it and I felt a pull in me of... . no!

I think this is a good sign

[brokenbutalive]

I think that I have to look at who I was when I was with him.  The person that I was with him felt crazy, worthless, and useless.  I didn't have goals, I lost my vision of myself, and I cried myself to sleep at night.

I now have goals and I can look at myself and like what I see. 

He took the good away from me for so long.  I stopped growing and I almost stopped living. 

This will be the last chapter of my life and I welcome tomorrow again. 

Absolutely spot on. I felt exactly the same way with mine. Not anymore. I'm reborn.

[RecycledNoMore]

changingman, I can relate, I seam to be splitting in the opposite direction?

75% di** head 25% sad lilttle peter pan...

[thisyoungdad]

So helpful to understand what I have struggled with so much! Thank you.

[24/7/30]

I think that I have to look at who I was when I was with him.  The person that I was with him felt crazy, worthless, and useless.  I didn't have goals, I lost my vision of myself, and I cried myself to sleep at night.

I now have goals and I can look at myself and like what I see. 

He took the good away from me for so long.  I stopped growing and I almost stopped living. 

This will be the last chapter of my life and I welcome tomorrow again. 

This is one of the most helpful posts I have read in the 3 years I have been involved with this website.  I am copying it and putting in my daily review reading. Thank you so much Soulsisters.

[Ironmanrises]

I'm struggling with this because my ex's behaviour was divided into such extremes, she was like two different people. I even wondered sometimes if she had a split personality or something. Even her voice was different during her 'highs' and 'lows'. Her voice was so different when she was at work (she hated her job, so that was a 'low' that I never recognised her when she answered the phone. But when she was tender with me, her voice was incredibly gentle. I have a tough time reconciling these two 'sides' of her.

Like Tincanmike's ex, mine frequently told me that I deserved better than her. It makes me sad to realise that she's right, I do deserve more. I loved her so much, but love isn't always strong enough. :-(

They are 2 different people; 2 different personalities, expressed via different masks they wear. A fragmented personality. It is what I experienced with mine. Mine told me the same thing right before the trigger point was reached in round 2, and hinted at this in round 1 and as she got close to me in friendship. As such, she remains split as those 2 different persona's exhibited in my mind. I do not recognize the person when spliced together.

[EdR]

I'm struggling with this because my ex's behaviour was divided into such extremes, she was like two different people. I even wondered sometimes if she had a split personality or something. Even her voice was different during her 'highs' and 'lows'. Her voice was so different when she was at work (she hated her job, so that was a 'low' that I never recognised her when she answered the phone. But when she was tender with me, her voice was incredibly gentle. I have a tough time reconciling these two 'sides' of her.

Like Tincanmike's ex, mine frequently told me that I deserved better than her. It makes me sad to realise that she's right, I do deserve more. I loved her so much, but love isn't always strong enough. :-(

They are 2 different people; 2 different personalities, expressed via different masks they wear. A fragmented personality. It is what I experienced with mine. Mine told me the same thing right before the trigger point was reached in round 2, and hinted at this in round 1 and as she got close to me in friendship. As such, she remains split as those 2 different persona's exhibited in my mind. I do not recognize the person when spliced together.

Same here. Two different people.

[thisyoungdad]

I just posted about going through this very thing tonight, for the first time in a good while, and how painful it was for me because I at least know now that it was never going to work out even when I am being flooded by the memories of when it was at least still pleasant enough that I could be in the dark to myself and things "appeared" good, happy etc.

[TristanPDX]

I'm struggling with this because my ex's behaviour was divided into such extremes, she was like two different people. I even wondered sometimes if she had a split personality or something. Even her voice was different during her 'highs' and 'lows'. Her voice was so different when she was at work (she hated her job, so that was a 'low' that I never recognised her when she answered the phone. But when she was tender with me, her voice was incredibly gentle. I have a tough time reconciling these two 'sides' of her.

Like Tincanmike's ex, mine frequently told me that I deserved better than her. It makes me sad to realise that she's right, I do deserve more. I loved her so much, but love isn't always strong enough. :-(

Ugh... . reading this brought back such vivid memories. I learned to recognize when a really bad storm had arrived because her voice changed, gone deep and emotionless. Then I would look at her and her expression was flat and cold. "Oh hit" I would think... . here we go. Normally she had this beautiful, musical voice. And when this happened I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do or say to alter the course of the storm. I just had to ride it out, until I couldn't do it anymore.