Borderline personality disorder (BPD) splitting is an unconscious coping mechanism to manage difficult situations or redirect blame and responsibility. Those with BPD may form a strong, irrational opinion that characterizes people, places, things, or situations as all good or all bad. Splitting can lead to intense emotional swings, amplifying conflicts, and straining relationships.
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What Is BPD Splitting?
BPD splitting involves the person with borderline personality disorder concluding that something is entirely good or bad with no middle ground. It is used to manage difficult situations by reframing the triggering person, place, or thing as unimportant to them. For example, if the person’s boyfriend broke up with them, it doesn’t matter because they “never liked him anyway.” If they fail a test, it’s OK because the class, teacher, or entire school is “wrong” or “stupid.”3
Sometimes splitting will be easily apparent. In other cases, especially with quiet BPD, the extreme framing of splitting will be almost entirely internal.1,2
Symptoms of BPD Splitting
Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder splitting can be subtle and covert. Often, the person will not be able to identify their response as inappropriate or as part of their condition. Because of this, they or their loved one should look for evidence of splitting in the form of severe and significant changes in thought, feeling, or behavior toward or about a person or subject.
Common symptoms of splitting in BPD include:
- Acting out: Behaving as if there are no consequences; lacking consideration of negative impact on others.
- Denial: Disbelief in the face of evidence of something or intentionally ignoring facts.
- Feeling omnipotent: A belief held that one is better than or superior to others or the rules.
- Passive-aggressive behaviors: Hostile behaviors and intent communicated in less overt ways.
- Projection: Portraying all of your negative emotions onto others.
- High level of self-assurance and certainty: This is related to the confidence and certainty the person has about a situation, individual, or themselves. If they see something as unable to fail and sure to go well, it could indicate BPD splitting is involved.
- Sudden behavioral changes: BPD splitting behaviors happen when a person suddenly drastically shifts their actions. If yesterday the person swore off exercising, but today is planning to run a marathon in two weeks, splitting may be a culprit.
- Substance use: Due to the dramatic highs and lows of splitting, the person may use alcohol and other substances as a way to self-medicate and balance their feelings.
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How Long Does BPD Splitting Last?
BPD splitting episodes do not have a time limit. They can last anywhere from a few hours to a few months. In some cases, the person with BPD may split on a person, situation, or item forever and never back away from their extreme view. When a person is more symptomatic, they could experience splitting that occurs quickly and without much warning.
In a relationship, if someone is loving and hating their partner multiple times in one day, it could indicate that their BPD is having a more powerful, negative influence on their life. Conversely, some people will hold onto a splitting perspective for a long period, regardless of evidence to the contrary. If they’re able to achieve stability, success, stable relationships, and fulfillment, but they still can’t accept the positives of their personality, that indicates that the splitting is strong and influential.
Common BPD Splitting Examples
BPD splitting creates a roller coaster effect, because when the person likes something, they love it, and when they dislike something, they despise it. It’s important to emphasize that the person doing the splitting will not have a lot of conscious awareness of it. They will only think that their feelings are justified and based in fact, logic, and rational thinking. In actuality, their feelings are based on the typical motivations of BPD, including fear of abandonment, unstable relationships, and inconsistent self-image.2
Examples of BPD splitting behavior include:
- Perceiving everything in black and white: Splitting forces the person into a position of thinking that everything is either perfect or awful, and since life is full of struggles and disappointments, they will usually see things as awful.
- A break-up and make-up cycle: BPD relationship cycles will be more frequent and dramatic than typical. One day, they may not be dating anyone, and the next, they are deeply in love with a new partner. Another few days go by and they’re broken up, only to make up and break up again.
- Sudden mood changes: Due to black and white thinking, something quite innocuous could trigger a major mood swing.
- Unstable relationships: Beyond romantic relationships, most people interacting with the person with BPD may have to “walk on thin ice” around them due to their quick behavior shifts.
- Seeing people as all good or all bad: Even if someone who did something wrong apologizes for their behavior and shows sincere remorse, the person with BPD still sees them as bad because of the one thing they did wrong.
- Rapidly altering their opinions of others: Splitting often involves rapidly shifting between loving and despising someone depending on their mood.
What Triggers BPD Splitting?
Triggers of BPD splitting are varied and endless. At times, they will be obvious and plain to see, and other times they will seem imperceivable with the person having no awareness of them. Triggers of splitting can be anything or anyone linked to emotional reactions.
Common triggers of BPD splitting include:1,4
- Meeting a new person: New people tend to be polarizing for people with BPD. Any new acquaintance could be the greatest or most terrible person. There could be very little evidence to support either notion, but splitting occurs regardless.
- Receiving a compliment or criticism: The fragile self-image of someone with BPD can swing in either direction, so when a compliment is received, the person could fully buy into the praise. Similarly, when critique is offered, the person could overgeneralize it into a complete lack of self-worth.
- Noteworthy people from the past: Parents, siblings, former teachers, coworkers, friends, and other people could trigger significant splitting. The trigger could be seeing the person in the community, having a memory of them, or seeing their picture.
- Anniversaries or seasons: The time of year, temperature, and anniversaries of significant events can be triggers. People with BPD may consciously or unconsciously experience these, but either way, BPD splitting may commence.
- Experiencing trauma: Trauma survivors live and react to the world differently than those who don’t go through trauma, however that means they may be more sensitive to environmental triggers.
- Living in an unhealthy environment: An unstable environment may lead someone with BPD to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms like splitting.
Effects of BPD Splitting
BPD splitting creates chaos, instability, and insecurity for the person. When splitting happens with regularity, they will struggle to find balance and happiness in their life and relationships. Instead, frustration and disappointment will be common. People with BPD will often have difficulties forming relationships, and those who are in relationships may find them filled with difficulty and inconsistency.2 BPD splitting in relationships may look like becoming the “BPD favorite person” for a while, only to have your BPD partner end the relationship or drop you when they start to feel threatened.
BPD splitting will often result in negative effects on the person, including unstable mood and self-esteem, instability, and impulsivity. In turn, they may experience inconsistency at work, increased risky behaviors, and poor judgment.
How Is Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosed?
BPD is diagnosed by a psychiatrist. They often work with therapists and counselors to get an understanding of the person’s pathology and background as well as symptoms and effectiveness of treatment interventions. They work with the individual and the therapist to identify possible diagnoses before coming to a final diagnosis.
How Is BPD Splitting Treated?
While there are no treatment options specifically for BPD splitting, there are borderline personality treatments. It can be helpful to discuss treatment plans with your doctor or a mental health professional.
Consider finding a therapist who specializes in BPD by asking your primary care physician, or through an online therapist directory where you can search by specialty and insurance coverage. Therapy is a safe place where you can process your strong feelings. With the help of a mental health professional, you can also learn how to reframe thoughts that trigger splitting and find adaptive ways to cope.
Types of treatment for BPD include:
- Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT): Helps people make sense of and manage their emotions.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Helps people make sense of how their thoughts lead to actions and redirect those thoughts so better actions can occur.
- Schema-focused therapy: Focuses on changing our automatic thoughts and behaviors by challenging the status quo.
- Mentalization-based therapy: Considers both thoughts and feelings and how they impact actions.
- Transference-focused psychotherapy: Leans into the emotions someone is dealing with when experiencing BPD splitting.
Find a supportive therapist that can help with BPD.
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How to Stop & Cope With BPD Splitting
Coping with splitting is a challenging and intricate ordeal. Even though the process is difficult, it is the only way the person can achieve the wanted level of stability and peace.
Here are nine ways to cope with BPD splitting:5,6
- Detect the BPD splitting: A person must begin by improving their self-monitoring abilities to notice when the splitting occurs. Noticing it makes a huge difference.
- Manage your responses: Once the split is detected, the person should review their thoughts and feelings to weigh their options. Is this feeling or thought accurate and true, or are there some issues here?
- Focus on your breathing: BPD splitting can trigger intense distress. Focusing on deep breathing allows you to self-soothe, so you can think more clearly instead of simply reacting emotionally.
- Tap into your senses: Focusing on your five senses (what do I see, hear, smell, touch, and taste?) can stabilize your emotions by grounding you and giving you a chance to gain a different perspective.
- Take a step back to gain perspective: Taking a step away is a good way to clear your mind and look at the situation with a fresh lens.
- Practice empathy with yourself: Self-compassion is critical when dealing with these issues as they are challenging and you need to be able to support yourself through it.
- Try keeping a journal: Writing is a great way to express yourself and easier to get out on paper than store in your mind and heart.
- Focus on maintaining relationships: Having a supportive network of friends and family is important and keeping them is important for your overall well being.
- Don’t forget to take care of yourself: Taking care of yourself may look different each day, but it is important to take the time to do so.
How to Help Someone Experiencing BPD Splitting
Loving and helping someone with BPD can feel like a trying experience where improvement seems impossible or unlikely. Work to maintain hope and positivity by using effective, positive skills.
Here are several ways to help someone with BPD splitting:
- Remind yourself of their condition: Reflect on their borderline personality disorder, not to make excuses for them, but to better understand their situation and struggles.
- Stay calm: When people split, it can suck you into strong and powerful reactions as well. Stay calm and even, rather than responding in dramatic ways yourself.
- Maintain boundaries: Boundaries are meant to safeguard your wellbeing and the relationship with the BPD person. It’s crucial to stick to these, and if lines are continuously crossed or abusive behavior emerges, it’s best to distance yourself.7
- Take a moment to respond: When your loved one is struggling, an encouraging response can show them that you are present and that you care.
- Show them that you care: Showing someone you care can look different for everyone, so learning what it is that would be helpful for them to feel in hard moments and helping to meet that need is a good way to show someone you care.
- Recognize when to leave: You can love and support someone with everything you have and it can still not feel enough, or worse, they may blame you. If you are finding that your time with that person is hurting you and/or them, it may be time to leave.
- Find your own therapist: Freely expressing your emotions in therapy can benefit you. It can also help you learn ways to support your BPD person and provide you with effective tools to respond healthily during these splitting episodes.7
Final Thoughts
BPD splitting is one of many borderline personality disorder symptoms, but it does not have to dictate the individual’s life. Working to note the influence of the defense mechanism and seeking professional assistance to keep the symptom at bay will help minimize BPD’s unwanted effects.
Additional Resources
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For Further Reading
Are OCD and BPD related? Here’s what experts say
If you’re familiar with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD), you might be aware of some similarities that the conditions can share, at least on the surface: deeply-rooted doubts about oneself and one’s relationships, difficulty tolerating anxiety related to these fears, and lasting damage to relationships and self-esteem.
BPD Splitting Infographics
