Splitting as a Symptom of Internal Considering

[Buddy]

You may want to start reading from the beginning again.

what? noooo !! I got it all wrong, for god's sake. Thanks.

Pretty much explains my doubts when I was reading the part of the peptides description and the hamsters, I really wanted to know how to relate it.

Maybe not all wrong (at least in a black and white sense). You can associatively link spitting and splitting via the process pointed to in the idea of "projective." Projective identificative, projective saliva, spitting as metaphorical act of insulting or disrespecting another...

Your input is associatively useful to me as one way of reducing self-importance. Preattentively sensing a reptilian or mamallian urge to spit or hiss at someone creates an image of myself I can't help laughing at. Thanks for that! :D

 

[Turgon]

I agree too much with the information. I've noticed I spit only, and only when i'm full angry with a person, only when all my compassion and mercy has gone, and just before getting into a fist fight or verbally attacking that person. Apart of that, I see it kinda nasty and like, some trait of the typical macho guy.

But i know I only do it rarely.

I forgot to mention another example of this little kid I used to see, because my friend was put in charge of him. This kid was always spiting, he was always throwing saliva, but my friend told me that the kid used to work for the drug dealers, and he saw lots of people being killed and tortured, I guess he was like 12 or 13 years old. Poor boy seriously.

Please notice that the term is SPLITTING not SPITTING. It is a psychological term, not a description of projectile saliva.

You may want to start reading from the beginning again.

what? noooo !! I got it all wrong, for god's sake. Thanks.

Pretty much explains my doubts when I was reading the part of the peptides description and the hamsters, I really wanted to know how to relate it.

That's hilarious!

 

[Muxel]

ikr?

(I'm not trying to be mean, Prometeo, but it's just funny when you think about it)

 

[cubbex]

no problem, I had my laughs too after feeling silly. Now I get it better, and the funny thing is that I had an experience where I think I can apply it.

My family was eating cake, and I was feeling a little down and defensive (what triggered internal consideration I guess), and when they asked me if I wanted cake I said it tasted horrible instead of just answering that simple question. Then I said, no thanks.

 

[Laura]

no problem, I had my laughs too after feeling silly. Now I get it better, and the funny thing is that I had an experience where I think I can apply it.

It should also be a lesson to you about how your brain selectively edits things... and how often it may be doing that?

My family was eating cake, and I was feeling a little down and defensive (what triggered internal consideration I guess), and when they asked me if I wanted cake I said it tasted horrible instead of just answering that simple question. Then I said, no thanks.

Why say it "tasted horrible"? Just say "no thanks".

 

[doublea1535]

Since I'm sort of collecting examples here (and hope that ya'll will contribute other possible examples), there's a particular type of personality that works this way when splitting/internal considering takes hold:

First, they have rapid and overwhelming emotional reactions to whatever the trigger is, and start out from a state of being emotionally worked up. Then, the more this type thinks while in that state, the more s/he freaks out the self, so to say. And the more convinced s/he is that s/he is RIGHT about whatever.

The sad thing is that the more this person continues to "think", the more inaccurate, outlandish, irrational, out of proportion and out of context the thoughts become. This sort of person can drive themselves to do many things that are damaging to others but, in the long run, mostly to themselves.

The bolded part above definitely applies to me. Sometimes there is a frustration that builds, one annoying thing upon another, like with a inconsiderate co-worker. But there are times where I feel myself go from at-rest to full-bore emotional to certain things at the drop of a hat. The theme I have noticed is these things that anger me that way I perceive to be inaccurate or unjust. I am not so sure about the part I underlined. Some part of it applies, but I am not sure how much. It could be a matter of degree of difference. Going from 70F to 110F is very noticeable, but once your at 110F, going up to 115F doesn't (wouldn't) seem that different, so it's hard to really gauge if there is a further "working oneself up" or just a positive feedback loop with negative consequences that maintains that state. Another thing is that there must be some physiological/emotional limit to how angry one can get - I'm reminded of G (I think it was) saying basically that if a person stayed angry forever they would kill themselves. So it's possible that people like that top off quickly, so they can't work themselves up anymore (higher), just further (in time).

 

[cubbex]

no problem, I had my laughs too after feeling silly. Now I get it better, and the funny thing is that I had an experience where I think I can apply it.

It should also be a lesson to you about how your brain selectively edits things... and how often it may be doing that?

My family was eating cake, and I was feeling a little down and defensive (what triggered internal consideration I guess), and when they asked me if I wanted cake I said it tasted horrible instead of just answering that simple question. Then I said, no thanks.

Why say it "tasted horrible"? Just say "no thanks".

Indeed, what's curious is how the word is repeated several times and I didn't notice it. Also I've been having pretty bad grammar, I've been writing incorrectly words I'm supposed to know how to write.

And the last question, I didn't understand it.
---
Ok after thinking the question I guess I understand it now I will explain myself. Well, to be honest I really don't know, I guess it was just a mechanical reaction. That day in particular sadness hit me, and my aunt brought the cake for me because my birthday was two weeks ago, and my family sometimes like to eat cake so they took the opportunity for buying a chocolate cake, and I was put in a situation I couldn't say no when they offered a piece, and I'm tired of explaining why I don't like to eat carbs because they start criticizing me as mad or crazy. Anyways, I just ate a little portion, but as I've been avoiding this type of food the cake just tasted horrible. But then she asked me if I wanted to keep the cake lol, I don't know if my aunt lacks observational skills or what, because she noticed I was eating it very slowly. So, instead of just saying no thanks, I guess I took it as an excuse to answer "it tasted horrible", but that answer was an aggressive answer like if they were bothering me... mmm. Eventually I came to my senses and said "no thanks".

 

[Carl]

no problem, I had my laughs too after feeling silly. Now I get it better, and the funny thing is that I had an experience where I think I can apply it.

It should also be a lesson to you about how your brain selectively edits things... and how often it may be doing that?

My family was eating cake, and I was feeling a little down and defensive (what triggered internal consideration I guess), and when they asked me if I wanted cake I said it tasted horrible instead of just answering that simple question. Then I said, no thanks.

Why say it "tasted horrible"? Just say "no thanks".

Indeed, what's curious is how the word is repeated several times and I didn't notice it. Also I've been having pretty bad grammar, I've been writing incorrectly words I'm supposed to know how to write.

And the last question, I didn't understand it.
---
Ok after thinking the question I guess I understand it now I will explain myself. Well, to be honest I really don't know, I guess it was just a mechanical reaction. That day in particular sadness hit me, and my aunt brought the cake for me because my birthday was two weeks ago, and my family sometimes like to eat cake so they took the opportunity for buying a chocolate cake, and I was put in a situation I couldn't say no when they offered a piece, and I'm tired of explaining why I don't like to eat carbs because they start criticizing me as mad or crazy. Anyways, I just ate a little portion, but as I've been avoiding this type of food the cake just tasted horrible. But then she asked me if I wanted to keep the cake lol, I don't know if my aunt lacks observational skills or what, because she noticed I was eating it very slowly. So, instead of just saying no thanks, I guess I took it as an excuse to answer "it tasted horrible", but that answer was an aggressive answer like if they were bothering me... mmm. Eventually I came to my senses and said "no thanks".

I think it's important for you to set solid ground rules around your family regarding things like this, or you can end up going against what you know every time they pressure you emotionally. Maybe you could work on your communication with them a bit more, because they should know by now that you do not eat cake. A better thing to do in that situation would be to express your gratitude for the time and energy they gave to you, and just say "Sorry, but I really cannot eat cake anymore", and change the subject, FWIW.


_
Also an update on the splitting thing. I mentioned in my post (where I described my general splitting tendency in some detail) that it could be some kind of health problem, and I now think that to have been the case. After a few more rounds of detoxing, taking more bone broth, using the sauna more, and doing EE a bit more often, I am much more stable. But the biggest thing that was affecting me is the caffeine I have been using recently to get through the day, which is not even that much, however I'm particularly sensitive to it. It's only after coming off it completely that I see it was making my moods pretty crazy, almost like a mild bipolar disorder.


Today is my 4th day off it, and I feel really alive like I've not felt in months, with a steady, calm mood. It is becoming much easier to observe myself and deal with stress, combined with the knowledge of splitting that helps me not fall into black and white thinking. When something goes wrong I still don't feel good about it, but it's much easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and appreciate the lesson I'm learning in that moment.

 

[Oxajil]

Ok after thinking the question I guess I understand it now I will explain myself. Well, to be honest I really don't know, I guess it was just a mechanical reaction. That day in particular sadness hit me, and my aunt brought the cake for me because my birthday was two weeks ago, and my family sometimes like to eat cake so they took the opportunity for buying a chocolate cake, and I was put in a situation I couldn't say no when they offered a piece, and I'm tired of explaining why I don't like to eat carbs because they start criticizing me as mad or crazy.

My family members would often offer me food too, like cookies etc. but after saying ''No thank you'' for a couple of times, they have accepted it, and don't offer me such things as much as they did before (they also have become more understanding, even though they disagree). I also often change the subject, as Carlise also mentioned, which seems to work too.

 

[Rich]

Ok after thinking the question I guess I understand it now I will explain myself. Well, to be honest I really don't know, I guess it was just a mechanical reaction. That day in particular sadness hit me, and my aunt brought the cake for me because my birthday was two weeks ago, and my family sometimes like to eat cake so they took the opportunity for buying a chocolate cake, and I was put in a situation I couldn't say no when they offered a piece, and I'm tired of explaining why I don't like to eat carbs because they start criticizing me as mad or crazy.

Tough one! :( You're not alone there. Cake and carbs are a religion to my extended family and they constantly nag me over my eating habits they consider madness. I've been in a position visiting them where I've been presented a cake by the children who have decorated it and then gazed up at me in excited anticipation waiting for my approval. It's awful! I think then I accepted gracefully, then just put it down and left it untouched. In that environment with children and dogs there were enough distractions to let it go unnoticed.

My family members would often offer me food too, like cookies etc. but after saying ''No thank you'' for a couple of times, they have accepted it, and don't offer me such things as much as they did before (they also have become more understanding, even though they disagree). I also often change the subject, as Carlise also mentioned, which seems to work too.

I mostly take that approach too, refusing politely and after a while it does sink in. I must confess I did reach a point with them recently where I did lose my normal calm composure: I was grabbing a meat snack when no other adults were eating and was criticized for not having pasta or potatoes with it! I actually reacted quite angrily and was deliberately over-dramatic pointing out how ridiculous it was to criticize me for having 'nothing with my something' when they were eating 'nothing with their nothing'! I then laboured the point when one of them had a biscuit by telling them they needed to have vegetables with it because a biscuit wasn't a balanced meal! Granted, not the most mature response but I think sometimes it doesn't do any harm saying how you really feel, standing your ground and in this case, - they haven't suggested it again.

 

[Gaby]

Cake and carbs are a religion to my extended family and they constantly nag me over my eating habits they consider madness.

I would say that I have celiac disease, it works in birthdays and celebrations where people joyfully share their traditional recipes with delight and expectations. I would just say, "it looks so good and delicious!" "Unfortunately I have celiac disease, what a bummer!" And that I hope to recreate the same recipe with non-gluten products or something of the line. Then they will say "I'm sorry!". Followed, by me saying "oh, don't worry, I'm used to it!" "It's not your fault!" and so forth.

These are not family members though, still... celiac disease is so widespread nowadays that one could just announce one day: "I was diagnosed with celiac disease". One could even say, "since you are related to me, perhaps you should get tested..." I bet more than one would test positive, at least in antibodies.

There was a mainstream news report a few months ago in Spain which said "everybody has celiac disease until evidence of the contrary." It included a report from a woman who was diagnosed at 99 years old. A little bit to late, eh?

The article spoke only of celiac disease, not gluten intolerance which pretty much everyone has.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Also an update on the splitting thing. I mentioned in my post (where I described my general splitting tendency in some detail) that it could be some kind of health problem, and I now think that to have been the case. After a few more rounds of detoxing, taking more bone broth, using the sauna more, and doing EE a bit more often, I am much more stable. But the biggest thing that was affecting me is the caffeine I have been using recently to get through the day, which is not even that much, however I'm particularly sensitive to it. It's only after coming off it completely that I see it was making my moods pretty crazy, almost like a mild bipolar disorder.

My thoughts on the bold part are pretty similar. I started gaining control of my diet again recently, I noticed that my programs were more under my control. They stopped having the hold they used to have on my feelings, they didn't feel so inevitable and a part of "me". Once the varieties of food that I used to take were removed, I sensed more clearly the tendency to use food to suppress unwanted feelings such as pain and anger, that probably reappeared in my interactions as the Splitting behaviour.

After changing my diet and noting a marked improvement, I had the assumption that I could keep this improvement in mood without any work on my part. It was not true, I noticed the Splitting creep back as I continued on meeting people, dealing with life. So I resolved to continue working on myself through reading (Into the Abyss is a brilliant book, and so succinct, thanks!) and self-observation, simultaneously keeping track of what I eat and how it affects me. This was not easy at the start, keeping track of these multiple threads of self-knowledge. I quickly got the hang of it as I went through the initial feeling of overwhelm and kept building on what I knew about myself. It's a work in progress, of course.

Cake and carbs are a religion to my extended family and they constantly nag me over my eating habits they consider madness.

It really depends on how open your relatives and friends are about things. If they have learned some lessons in life (maybe even through your own efforts and actions) they can come to see the sense and truth in the diet. If they can move past the ridicule they tend to show towards you (this is their Splitting, I guess), and understand some fundamentals about carbohydrate consumption and its connections with modern disease it can be quite a heartening thing. I have some family members who've actually made gluten-free treats (it was a really nice almond flour cake), talked with me about the diet and how they'd like to reduce their carbs, things like that. I'm sure others have had the same experience. But I think I first had to observe and get a handle on my own Splitting tendency to paint them as the ignorant fools consuming trash (I have a few intermittent vegetarians in my family to project on, as well!). It all flowed a lot better after I learned to get a hold of my rabid emotions. I think they are still uneasy about the high-fat, no-fiber diet though.

 

[EmeraldHope]

The way I have been able to avoid cake, cookies, etc without much issue is to explain that sugar and gluten bind to opiate receptors like opiates do and that I am an addict and can't have just one. Its like offering an alcoholic a drink. They seem to get that since I did lose so much weight.

I have been around an alcoholic a lot this year before I switched jobs and seeing a constant exaggerated display of splitting really brought home the realazation how pathological it is. I was able to see the idolize, devalue and discard process play out numerous times which was a good reminder not to take such things to heart and to be very careful not to inflict the same on others.

Splitting is a large symptom of NPD and other cluster b disorders. Most addicts are comorbid with a cluster b, so it makes sense to me that diet is huge since many thing affect the same opiate receptors. I know for me personally, the clarity of thought and emotional stability before and after giving up sugar gluten and dairy is night and day.

 

[cubbex]

Thank you for the ideas, I'm certainly gonna apply them. My aunt has been dealing with some of the nastiest people (richs and famous), being angry with her won't be too much of help.

And I don't like to eat carbs, because if you eat things like boiled potatoes or some veggies that has carbs, is not too much of a problem, I actually need them because I'm recently working out with weights and cardio, but when you eat something that tastes so good and has sugar, it really seems like someone that snorts cocaine for the first time, you become addicted faster than light. I'm actually surprised of that addiction, because my mom seems to adore things like potatoes, rice, pastas and bread, and she takes her coffee with 3 splenda sachets like every 4 hours.

 

[Mike]

This is such a great threat with so many descriptions and explanations that apply that I’ll have to read the whole thread again I think to really have it all sink in. The posts below seemed to apply to what I have gone through and go through.

One of the most difficult environments for me, is my home environment. Reading this thread for a couple of days now, I can recount some episodes with my parents, some conflicts we had, and the thoughts I had and the feelings I felt. I very often would fall into the: poor me, they don't acknowledge me etc. I would see things, and especially them, in a very dim light. And being in such a thinking and feeling mode, I would become very depressed. But I realized that me feeling this way won't be helpful to anybody or the situation, I was being very inconsiderate: it was all about what I wanted and what I needed. I totally discounted all the good things they have done for me and still do for me. My actions reminded me of Salzmann's quote:

You will see that in life you receive exactly what you give. Your life is the mirror of what you are. It is in your image. You are passive, blind, demanding. You take all, you accept all, without feeling any obligation. Your attitude toward the world and toward life is the attitude of one who has the right to make demands and to take, who has no need to pay or to earn. You believe that all things are your due, simply because it is you! All your blindness is there! None of this strikes your attention. And yet this is what keeps one world separate from another world.

I wanted my parents to treat me as I would think normal parents should, but this is a totally unfair request of me when I take a look at objective reality: they have their own kind of programs, their own upbringing that shaped them in a way they are. Constantly trying to come back to the poisoned well and somehow thinking that this time they might say or do things differently is not only hurtful to myself, but to them as well. I would constantly fall back into black and white thinking (me good, them bad) then get a little bit hopeful again, try to make them understand in a way, see it doesn't work, then go back into black and white thinking etc etc. It's a really tiring and very internally considerate loop.

Reading the big 5 psychology books has helped a lot with dealing with similar feelings and actions when dealing with my parents and other family members. I know what to expect with my parents now and have pretty good understanding of why they act the way they do from observing and thinking about how their parents treated them and reacted to various situations. And this has helped me to see why I act and think the way I do and not to react by splitting when my parents say or do certain things, mostly my father’s default reaction of anger or degrading another person if a mistake is made even if it is a small honest mistake and then later apologizing after realized that he acted the way he did. It is amazing how much is passed on through the generations as in traits or damage that is carried and passed along.

My system 1 tried to hijack system 2 in "my" defence, maybe see them as all-bad, etc., but it consistently kept getting pushed back by all the reasoning that developed about why I was just internally considering. I don't know, but the whole episode gave me the idea that I almost habitually turn on myself when I split, as to prevent me from doing anything rash or defensive. So instead of seeing the landowners as "all-bad", I turned that on myself and said I was all-bad for my feeling hurt in system 1 trying to mobilize system 2 to help protect me (in its limited understanding).

The problem with this though is that system 1 is still the one in control; it's just exploiting the negative introject to insult my indignation and feeling of being robbed. So the only recourse my split-off feelings had was to manifest in my body. So I've been bouncing off the walls, punching the air, listening to heavy metal, etc.

Thanks for describing this whitecoat. I find that I do a lot more turning on myself with black and white thinking, which is mostly I’m bad or feelings of my having done something wrong in reaction to the actions of another person, than I do splitting and labeling another person as all bad or all good.

During the time when reading this thread I had a reaction to small matter and tried the talk, act and exaggerate the situation as has been described. It is pretty interesting that I could hardly even get a few words out when trying to do this. Probably has to do with the mental fog and not being able to think, but I think it is also due to in my life when I have a situation that I react to rarely really verbalizing my feelings, just clamming up, and trying to just ride the situation out without confrontation. Then system 2 takes the energy of system 1 negative emotions and just runs with why I’m bad, etc in my internal dialogue until the energy dissipates.

I mentioned this to a therapist and she recommended getting a white board and using that to help the process along. I had another small matter that ‘stirred me up’ and I used the white board to write and at the same time also speak aloud what I was feeling, experiencing, thinking about, including thoughts of the source of my reaction. I also drew some pictures being creative while I just let it out. I didn’t get to the ‘play’ aspect of it that much besides the drawing, etc, but it was much better than being stuck barely able to speak that I was dealing with before and the whole process of spinning my system 2 narrative in my head until it wound down with no real progress on addressing my reaction.