Idealization/Splitting.

I think the hardest part of having BPD is the internal fuckery, and the second hardest part is coming to terms with the fact that no one else experiences this fuckery but you. (Well, other people with BPD do, but those are few and far between.)

I know two other people in real life with the same diagnosis as me. As in, they’re formally diagnosed, whereas I know many people with the potential for this diagnosis. It’s a profound experience to watch a lot of your most unsavory thoughts and behaviors—idealization and splitting, for example—reflected back at you.

It makes you wonder if you’re also that obviously unwell, or if you just have a better eye for impulsiveness, unstable relationships, identity crises, and emotional instability.

Since I’ve been diagnosed, I’m hyper-aware of when an emotion is taking up extra space where and when it shouldn’t be, whether or not I’m having an appropriate reaction, or when I get stuck in an obsessive thought loop. It’s almost like I have my logic brain as a narrator, talking to my emotional brain and attempting to regulate it.

The third worst thing is when logic, medication, and therapy still aren’t enough to combat a thought or emotion, and you have to ride the wave.

You can use all of your skills to lessen the blow, but you still choke on some of the water, lose your footing, and get soaked. But at least you didn’t get salt in your eyes.

Coping becomes a mantra of at least it wasn’t worse, at least I wasn’t as bad as before.

Since receiving my diagnosis, everything has made sense. Troubling memories got filed under the different categories of BPD behavior, and it gave me as much peace as it did guilt.

I had a reason for why I couldn’t keep my friends’ secrets, why I was always in competition, and why I was always hurting the people I loved.

However, it didn’t excuse any of these behaviors. I know I’m still alive and unwell in plenty of people’s memories of me. It hurts because I’m able to understand it now, but I’ll never have the chance to explain.

I at least have been more graceful with my friends who share this diagnosis, or who struggle with depression or anxiety. I’m able to differentiate their occasional ill intent from their pain with a level of detached mercy I’m very proud of.

They might lash out, but I can understand why, and make a choice from there to either engage or give space. Whether that’s supporting them and talking through why they’re upset, or telling them I know they’re in too bad a space for me to safely interact with them, I’m able to navigate it based on what I needed at those times.

I have been the abuser, the manipulator, the envious one, and the hypocrite.

I wish others had had more grace with me when I needed it.

So today, I’m going to talk about the BPD cornerstone that I’ve struggled the most with throughout my life.

Idealization vs. Splitting—the Nitty Gritty

A very important observation I made about a month ago was that you never truly have someone.

You are a separate person from the people and things you love. People are allowed to have their own thoughts, emotions, and reactions to stimuli.

No matter how badly you want to be a person’s everything, it will never create something sustainable. You need to learn to be okay with just you.

You are the only thing you have control over.

Logically, this makes sense, but to the BPD brain, boundaries can feel impossible. The depth of actual love or being liked is inconsistent because it’s not measured on a real scale, making it hard to separate fantasy from reality.

Any negatively perceived interaction can mean that you are hated and unworthy of love.

You begin to obsess over what you can change about yourself to impress the other person and be perceived as “likable.” And you’ll do this again and again, changing masks for different people until there’s none of the real you left.

You ask yourself:

What can I sacrifice to be loved?

And no matter what, there’s always another victim.

Living your life centered around the perception of you as seen through others is symbiotic and intense. As long as there’s a high to be gained—feeling loved, validated, interesting, and included—you will do anything to maintain the relationship, because without it, you’re alone and reminded of everything wrong with you.

The textbook definition of idealization is that when you idealize someone, they’re on a pedestal. They can do no wrong. You’re obsessed with every aspect of them.

You want to be their favorite.

This is a vulnerable position to be in if the person you’re idealizing is abusive.

However, on the flipside, you’re also a lot more likely to become abusive yourself.

This is where splitting comes in.

Splitting is when that person you idealize suddenly becomes the opposite in your mind. One second, you’re obsessed, and the next, you hate them.

They have so many flaws.

How dare they react that way to you!

They must hate you if they didn’t say good morning.

They didn’t laugh at your joke. You’re so stupid!

They’re talking more to other people. You’ve been replaced.

My cousin was my first instance of I/S.

We were seven months apart in age. She was rail-thin and tall. She played sports like her older brother; I did not. She had a boyfriend before I did, but I won a writing award.

However, we both did well academically.

She had a job before me, but I got money from my communion and confirmation, which I remember her being jealous of.

We had some similar interests: bands, psychology, a love of being outdoors. It was natural to compare us, especially since I wasn’t at all expected by the family, being adopted and all.

I often wonder if she reminisces and thinks about how damaging it was for both of us.

Every year during the summer, we would go to our aunt’s house for a week, and it was a week I can’t even begin to describe the anticipation for.

I loved my aunt.

I loved my cousins.

However, I was always jealous.

Always the tomboy. Always the strong one.

I wanted to be the one with a sibling who loved me. Feminine and dainty. I was always celebrated for being funny and talented, but that took a backseat to appearance.

I had terrible skin. I developed before she did physically, which led to major insecurity about my body because suddenly I was fat.

She got to go on trips with her family and friends, and I got to help cut wood for winter.

As much as I loved seeing her, I equally hated it, because nothing was fair.

I loved picking on her—whether it was insecurities or things she said or did. I tried to outwit her. I tried to be more eccentric, more interesting.

I wanted to replace her.

I wanted her brother to be my brother.

I couldn’t show off physically, so I would show off with my voice, my writing, and my humor.

I would get my hair cut to look like hers from the last time I saw her, and her hair would always be different by the time I did.

I would buy clothes because I wanted to dress like her, but I always looked like the discount version.

It didn’t matter how I tried to change.

She would always be better.

When our family fell apart, she blamed me.

I’m not sure on what scale—whether it was what my mom had done to protect me, resulting in the fallout, or just an encapsulation of the previous fifteen years of navigating my personality.

Either way, I lost the closest thing I had to a sister.

A person I had wanted so badly to like me, but I couldn’t let go.

She had written me a Facebook message in the early days of Facebook after the fallout, telling me how much I dishonored the family and how I was only ever included because of our shared aunt.

She hated me.

I’ve only seen her twice since that message.

Now she has five kids that I’ve never met.

Life goes on.

I’m haunted by the fact that so many of my family members don’t know me, and never will.

I can never open up this wound because I don’t think I can handle reliving it.

I don’t think I could have an army against me and survive it.

Aside from family, I’ve lost many friendships due to the “snowball” effect.

Having to navigate my insecure sense of self and stability isn’t for the faint of heart.

I think sometimes about how lucky I am to have the people I do have, because no one new would ever love me how I am.

When I’m in a “mood,” I do my best to swallow it down and not let it consume me because one of these days, I know it’ll be too much.

The damage will be done.

And the person will leave.

I/S has a huge part in the foundation of BPD: the fear of abandonment.

In my mind, it’s safest to self-sabotage and give the other person an out, because if they choose it on their own when I had done nothing wrong, that would be a fate worse than death.

This constant battle of whether or not I’m lovable, in correlation to how worthy I am of living, is possibly the hardest battle I’ll ever fight.