Hi PapaBear100;
Yes, the combination of low skills for emotional regulation, plus challenges with object constancy, can certainly result in the one-day change that you observed in your wife.
It definitely sounds like this post in our
workshop on "Splitting":
www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.htmlKernberg believes that borderlines are distinguished from neurotics by the presence of "primitive defenses." Chief among these is splitting, in which a person or thing is seen as all good or all bad. Note that something which is all good one day can be all bad the next, which is related to another symptom: borderlines have problems with object constancy in people -- they read each action of people in their lives as if there were no prior context; they don't have a sense of continuity and consistency about people and things in their lives. They have a hard time experiencing an absent loved one as a loving presence in their minds. They also have difficulty seeing all of the actions taken by a person over a period of time as part of an integrated whole, and tend instead to analyze individual actions in an attempt to divine their individual meanings. People are defined by how they lasted interacted with the borderline.
https://bpdresourcecenter.org/what_glossary.htmSplitting: A mental mechanism in which the self or others are reviewed as all good or all bad, with failure to integrate the positive and negative qualities of self and others into cohesive images. Often the person alternately idealizes and devalues the same person. From a psychoanalytic point of view, splitting is fundamental to borderline personality disorder, and underlies the dramatic shifts in the person's experience of self and others and their difficulty in finding a stable adaptation to life.
Splitting is the alternating of idolizing someone (or something) followed by a period of detesting and villainizing the same thing. Splitting should be differentiated from manipulation. Some may act as though they really love someone (again) just to get benefits... those people may be more aspd than BPD... .Or they may have split the other so completely that they feel completely justified in manipulating and conning the particular person.
Splitting is a feature, not a bug, of the serious mental illness BPD.
Finding out more
effective and
constructive ways to cope when your W is splitting, will be crucial for making it through -- depersonalizing it (not taking it as "intended towards you") is certainly one part of the approach. To pull another post from the workshop:
My understanding is that there is a strong encouragement coming from the medical community that the behavioral response tools not be just the province of the therapy session. One of the key objectives of the NEA-BPD
Family Connections Program is to teach family members these behavioral responses for use the home. This is also the basis idea behind
SET and PUVAS, which are fundamental behavioral response tools outlined in
Stop Walking on Eggshells and
"I Hate You, Don't Leave Me".
For me, the most important aspect of dealing with splitting is
"understanding". I know I got caught on this one - I had no understanding about what she was doing when she was splitting so I assumed all the wrong things... .mostly that she was confused, or she didn't hear me, or that she was overwhelmed, or her mother was pushing her, or... .All things I tried to help her deal with. All wasted and frustrating efforts for both of us.
I'd never experienced "black and white" thinking before... .so I tumbled down into the black hole of BPD relationship confusion... .blaming myself, feeling bad, grinding my self esteem, etc.
Once you know what "Splitting" is - you can try to deal with it constructively - and most importantly, not be consumed by it personally.
Kraft Goin MD (University of Southern California) uses the words
"constant, continuing". John Gunderson MD (Harvard), in the NEABPD handout (
pdf download) uses the words "consistent, calm"... ."maintain family routines as much as possible." They encourage you to understand "Affect Dyscontrol - that a person with BPD has feelings that dramatically fluctuate in the course of each day."
Goin uses the word
"empathetic" as does Jerold Kreisman, MD in his communication tool SET (
support,
empathy,
truth), in I Hate You, Don't Leave Me in 1991 (
link).
E= Empathy. Empathy refers to communicating that the loved one understands what the BP is feeling, and focuses on "you." It is not a conveyance of pity or sympathy, but instead a true awareness and validation of the feelings of the BP: "I see you are angry, and I understand how you can get mad at me," "How frustrating this must be for you." It is important not to tell the BP how she is feeling, but instead put her demonstrated feelings into words. The goal is to convey a clear understanding of the uncomfortable feelings she is having and that they are OK.
Dr. Goin also uses the words
"boundaries". Dr Gunderson talks about
setting limits by stating the limits of your tolerance. Let your expectations be known in clear, simple language. Everyone needs to know what is expected of them. Too often, people assume that the members of their family should know their expectations automatically. It is often useful to give up such assumptions with a BP individual.
Of all the BP behaviors with a high functioning borderline, splitting is one of the toughest to understand, and the most damaging.
Skippy
...
In the past, how would you typically respond when she would split (especially in the direction of "light" to "dark"... I'm guessing it wasn't as problematic for you when she went "dark" to "light")?
