People with BPD don’t “use” splitting.
Splitting is something that happens. It’s a loss of executive function.
This means the rational part of your brain is not in control.
Splitting is a defense that begins in early Yankees Hawaiian Shirt among children who experience a very specific cascade of trauma and have at least one caregiver that is sometimes loving and sometimes threatening. This “threat” can be distracted, neglectful, or abusive. Because all three will be perceived by the child’s nervous system as an impediment to their survival.
This is not something that happens once.
So, it’s not like your usually attentive mother is distracted one afternoon by her favorite soap opera and you develop a personality disorder. What’s more likely is that you’re born into a family with a generational history of trauma—
Which means your nervous Yankees Hawaiian Shirt is already dysregulated when you're born.
Then your primary caregiver is not attuned. This means they interact with you in a way that fails to meet your attachment needs. Maybe they don’t pick you up when you cry. Maybe they’re stony-faced and don’t smile or seem happy to see you. Maybe they’re depressed and don’t soothe you when you’re in distress.
But whatever it is, you’re left with the Yankees Hawaiian Shirt that you’re on your own. Alone in the world with no one to take care of you.
And then.
Something else happens.
Something blatant. Either overt abuse or overt neglect or—
Something.
That causes this child that already thinks it’s alone and on its own to be terrified. With no one to protect it.
And that’s when the splitting starts.
So, someone can have attachment issues. Which are caused by a misattunement with the primary caregiver. But it takes the—
Something blatant.
To cause the personality disorder.
The blatant abuse or the blatant neglect or the blatant—
Something.
To cause the mind to split.
To cause the mind, when reminded of the—
Something.
To go straight to fight or flight.
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