Terrified. Completely inept. Totally unqualified.
Those three statements are completely true about the current state of my feelings and my emotions.
I'm super excited. I'm hopeful. I'm on time.
Those three things are also true about how I'm feeling right now.
All of those things can be true at the same time. That's a dialectic. It's the ability to hold two seemingly opposing truths at the same time and recognize that they both can be true.
And when we have a hard time holding those opposing truths, or seemingly opposing truths, we can fall back into black and white thinking. That's where things start to feel like they're either one way or the other. In BPD, this kind of polarized thinking can be part of what we call splitting, and I'm super excited to dive into what splitting actually is.
But first, I'm not qualified
I wasn't kidding when I said I was not qualified. I'm not a professional. I don't have any certificates, and I'm not licensed to help you with a single issue that you may or may not have. I can't diagnose you with anything, and I don't think I'm better than you.
What I am is patterned.
It might have taken years of tumultuous relationships, painful experiences, and some pretty f*cking crazy reactions, but I'm here to tell you something. I've recognized my patterns. I've started recognizing the things I do, the ways I react, the stories my brain tells me, and the places where I tend to get stuck. And splitting just happens to be one of the most prevalent patterns I've recognized in myself.
So what the f*ck is splitting?
Yesterday, they were your whole entire world. Today, you can't stand the sound of their voice.
Yesterday, you were thinking, this is my person. F*ck, they get me. They really understand me. No one has ever made me feel this safe.
And today, this person is horrible. I can't believe I ever trusted them. I never want to see them again. They never really loved me.
What the f*ck?
Here's where it gets interesting. It doesn't necessarily mean that yesterday's feelings were fake. It doesn't mean that at all. And it doesn't mean that today's feelings are fake either. All of the feelings are real.
The problem can be what happens when the brain has difficulty holding both sides of the picture at the same time. Because maybe yesterday, they really did make you feel safe and loved. Then today, when they didn't text you back for like an hour and a half, or answer the phone when you called because you were in a crisis or whatever, you don't feel loved. You don't feel safe. You don't understand. So they disappointed you, and that hurts.
People can hurt you and still love you. You've got to not choose one or the other. Someone can be mad at you and love you. They can not have time for you right this second and still love you. That's the gray area.
And for me, that gray area used to be f*cking hard.
The black and white part
When I'm overwhelmed, I don't necessarily want gray. I want answers. Are they good or are they bad? Do they love me or do they hate me? Am I safe or am I in danger? Do I stay or do I leave? Did I completely overreact, or was everything they did unforgivable?
And suddenly there's no middle. There's only this side or that side. That's the black and white part.
Splitting can involve that kind of polarized perception, where the positive and negative parts of a person or situation become difficult to hold together as one complete picture. It's commonly discussed in connection with BPD, particularly in the context of unstable or intense relationships.
But here's something I really want to make clear. Splitting isn't being stupid. It's not being flaky or wishy-washy. It isn't you sitting there thinking, I'm going to irrationally decide this person is evil today. That's not usually how it works for me, and that's not how it feels from the inside.
From the inside, it can feel completely f*cking logical, because you're not experiencing the entire relationship at once. You're experiencing right now. You're experiencing the emotion that's happening right now. And when that emotion is enormous, it can completely dominate the entire picture.
So the person who was wonderful yesterday can look awful today. And then the emotion changes again, and you remember every good thing about them all over again. And now you're wondering, how could you have been ready to burn the entire relationship to the ground 12 hours ago?
Shame is not the same thing as understanding
If you've experienced this, you might have looked back afterward and thought, what the f*ck is wrong with me? What in the actual f*ck is wrong with me?
And I need you to stop doing that. Not because our reactions don't matter. They absolutely matter. But shame is not the same thing as understanding.
If we want to change a pattern, we have to actually look at it without defending it, without beating the sh*t out of ourselves for having it. Just look at it. Because once you can recognize the pattern as it's happening, you have something you didn't have before. You have a choice.
Where the dialectic comes back in
That's where the dialectic comes back in.
Instead of, they're horrible, try: I am incredibly angry with them right now, and I still care about them.
Instead of, they don't love me, try: I'm feeling completely unloved right now, and I don't know what they are feeling.
Instead of, I have to leave immediately, try: I'm overwhelmed right now, and I do not want to make a permanent decision during this temporary storm.
Instead of, I'm a horrible person, try: I did something that I am not proud of, and I'm still a person who can learn from it.
That's the f*cking magic of "both/and."
The next time you feel that switch happening, try to resist justifying anything to yourself. Don't tell yourself that you're right or you're wrong. Just try to exist with the feeling without naming it. I believe things don't escalate as quickly when I don't hype myself up.
Dialectical thinking is not about talking yourself into staying somewhere unsafe. It's about making sure that an intense emotion doesn't automatically become the only evidence you allow yourself to consider.
What I'm learning about my own brain
Here's what I'm learning about my own brain. My feelings are information. They're important information, but they're not always the entire f*cking story. And that's a really hard lesson when your emotions arrive at full volume.
But it's also incredibly freeing. Because if I can feel something intensely without immediately turning that feeling into a permanent conclusion or the end of the world, I have a little bit more room to breathe, a little more room to think, a little more room to choose.
And maybe that's what we're really talking about when we talk about moving from splitting toward dialectical thinking. We're not trying to become emotionless. We're not trying to stop caring. We're not trying to become some perfectly calm, enlightened human who never gets triggered and drinks herbal tea while calmly observing their thoughts.
Because who the f*ck has time for that?
We're learning to say, this is what I feel right now, and then, what else might be true? That's the space between reaction and the response. And that's what I want to get better at. Not perfect, just better.
Because yesterday might have been my whole world. Today, I might not be able to stand the sound of their voice. And maybe, just maybe, both of those experiences are telling me something.
My job isn't to pretend one of them didn't happen. My job is to learn how to hold both.
That's the work. And that's what we're going to keep figuring out together.
— Jen, BPD Unboxed