So many disorder guides written for relatives. What about us???

I know that a hell of a lot of us are already familiar with this annoyance... but god damn it, why are so many informational articles and "Gides To Living With X" written for family/s.o.s/friends? (That is a rhetoricsl question.)

I want to read up on what splitting is like, in the head and emotions of the person who is doing it. Both BPD and NPD varieties preferred. I have been very full of doubts and worries and resentment the last week or so. Frustrated certainties that I will only let people down if I commit to anything. Seething anger at people telling me that I can't do X, but not giving me the resources to do Y, so I'm stuck doing nothing, or demanding more help (and giving them the power to retuse/neglect me), or doing X anyway and feeling my head fill with anticipation of their anger---and maybe dealing with their anger in reality too.

I am probably not diagnosable as anything because I am not very impulsive and I keep a decent rein on my temper, but it's starting to feel more like a reign, and I'm the unpopular monarch the people (my uncomfortably erratic feelings) are trying to overthrow.

I'm working on mindfulness shit with my therapist, but I don't understand my emotions when I'm not presently feeling them. I find it hard to predict what I'll want to do in other moods. And I have trouble keeping a record of major awful mood fluxes because I don't have a routine for what to record that I can adhere to regardless of what I'm feeling.

In the past, I would find someone on some game or comm, under a sockpuppet name, and harass them into showing how stupid they are until I felt better, and then I would deign to help them until I felt better about myself. But I know know know that's not great to do. But my annoyanfe threshold keeps dropping and I'm getting pissed off by almost everything and

Please, advice. Does any of this sound familiar to you? What do you do to get past this emotion buildup when it happens to you?

 

More signs I am Not Fine: hitting refresh three times in ten minutes in hope of a reply. A lot of timezones are asleep but my brain doesn't care, it wants answers and it wants them now.

I should try to sleep.

 

Mood today somewhat improved. Not sure if due to sleeping in late, or masturbating before I went to sleep, or a confrontational thrill from keeping my fan and computer on all night for the white noise/vibrations, or from tangling with a couple of people who put their feet in their mouths pretty damn hard and thus getting to enjoy some sweet superiority vibes without even needing to put them down. Unfortunately, a lot of the places I could go to for errands are closed today, so I have fewer possible destinations for a walk til I'm tired trip.

 

Should have tired myself out walking. 4:30 am and my brain is very active with thoughts and understandings. Also, some needlessly downer trains of thought.

Housemates and I had a lazy nerd Sunday. Hung around the living room a fair bit, reading on tablets or playing with magnetic sand or making bead art. A lot of dog petting, and friendly banter. It's been a while. Incompatible schedules and all.

I felt better, and just realized why. It was relaxing socialization. I felt comfortable, and not lonely. I am so used to feeling lonely. So used to feeling like I need to act and lie, meeting eyes and maintaining a demeanor, that visiting other people doesn't make me feel better.

I felt a lack of sadness and it was almost joy, that contentment.

Then I chatted with one old friend who's even lonelier and more miserable, and heard he hates himself.

Realized I don't think I want to get in touch with my ex and old friends about the soleplaying game they invited me to.

Realized my lessened sadness must be what it's like for a dog to get all the attention they want. Realized how sad the dog must normally be, with how hermity we tend to be. Realized how completely miserable the family dog must have been til year before last when she got adopted and I finally moved out. Realized I havent seen her in over a year. Realized she might be dead and i wouldnt know... my moms boyfriend of fhe time took her in and I'm barely texting mom "merry christmas"- i am not in touch. She didn't tell me my cat died til a week after.

I want to feel less like the tide. Less like Izanami or Yunalesca, looking down with pitying disgust at people ruining themselves. Less like the disbelief when those dimissed people pull her down. Less fingers curling jealous resentment when others have the confidence to say how they want the world to be.

 

Today's stupid emotions are all about fearing that people want more from me than I can give, and that I don't know myself well enough to say when. So if I say yes to anything, I might be saying yes to EVERYTHING. That I'll exhaust myself, pouring myself out into trying to make them happy, and hardly asking anything in return.

After all, I know my feelings are irrational. So why should I respect them? Why should I ask anyone else to respect them?

And then people express sympathies, and offer reassurances, and I fucking panicked. If people worry about my feelings, then I won't want them to ever stop. I'll make everything about me and what I feel and what I want. And then I'll snarl or seethe when they move on to something else. It's simpler and easier to just not, to not pay any more attention to the tide than is absolutely necessary, then get out of its reach.

...Except I wouldn't want a friend to treat themselves like this.
And with the tide, if you live on the coast you can't run inland with every high tide, only the big storms. So I need to do less running away, and more... something. Bolstering? Support? Designing something for being in the midst of emotions and still behaving in a way that is not significantly and unnecessarily harmful.

Because that's where I am right now. Just hissing at people and airing my grievances sounds great, but I know better because I know I don't cope well with the results of them.

Or is that a lie I'm telling myself, too?

 

I'm an IDIOT.

I'm feeling like this because my mom and my ex are both trying to get in touch. Both of them used words like "if you want," but I have too many fleas to, emotionally, parse that as genuine. So I feel like I have to say yes to the opportunity, even if I don't want to, unless I have a real good reason to say no.

Thank god for my housemate's habit of saying "you can say no" when they think of it. It's built just enough of a habitual sound that I at least wonder, a few days later, if it is. Deep breaths. Everything can be terrible all it likes. I can still refuse. I can be determined.

 

though people might want more than you than you can give, that doesn't mean they're entitled to get it. and if they are even vaguely decent people, i think they will understand that or at least try to. (and that if they try to get things when you're unequipped to provide them, those things won't even turn out as good as they want to them to be, so it is in their self-interest too to avoid pushing you too hard. you know, if you want the cynical perspective on it, haha.)

and while i can't guarantee that the same people will always maintain their emotional connections with you, i can say that you'll likely always have somebody that cares about you, that is genuinely invested in your feelings. who that person or people is might change, but that role wouldn't disappear. let people worry about your feelings. your feelings matter.

and yeah, creating something to support you would be probably help, though i have no idea what that kind of thing would be.

and just yeah, you can say no and anybody you can't say no to is bad news, i figure. and at least some people really mean it when they say "if you want."

and i honestly don't know if this will even help, but yeah... i just figured i'd say something.

and you're not an idiot.

 

Sorry I have been checking in on this thread but Ihavn't been giving input because I don't know what to say.

See... the thing for me is when I'm at that point, nothing good can really come out of it, so they key is trying to release to pressure valves before it reaches the exploding point. I can express myself a lot better in writing than I can with anything else, so that's what works for me. It doesn't stop me from feeling bad, but it stops me from feeling completely overwhelmed.

Because everyone deserves a baseline level of respect? Sometimes emotions go up to 11 and they get irrational, and you can acknowledge that they are irrational. But that doesn't mean you or other people should be totally dismissive of them. Feelings can be a warning sign, and they can be really informative, even if they are irrational.

See, that's a good thing! You know that you are holding yourself to a standard that you wouldn't let someone else hold themselves too. Why not? Would it hurt your friends if they did that?

It sounds like you are bottling things up because you are worried it'll hurt people, and you dismiss those feelings as irrational and not worthy of respect, and then because you don't have any kind of (helthy) outlet you blow up and possibly end up hurting people anyways. But the people who do make it all about themselves generally do that because they don't care whether or not they are doing that.

You don't cope well with tearing people down to make yourself feel better because you care enough about other people and their feelings.

"I don't want to" is a good enough reason to say no.

(bluh bluh you probably hear about this a lot in mindfulness therapy since that's what I've been doing lately but I hope that helps somehow?)

 

I adore the cynical perspective on it. In this mood it still sounds real. Anytbing less cynical has the building qualities of cardboard: you might, with just enough planning, build something that works. So long as no one takes a hose to it. Ha.
The cynical perspective lends weight to the idea... Healer, Heal Thyself. I can do resource management if I can just learn to (a) measure my resources, (b) refuse requests to overuse them, and (c) convince myself to continue refusing even if I feel pressured to.
One thing I should probably do is mimic Scotty from Star Trek. He's a miracle worker partly because he always gives himself wiggleroom in his estimates. I tend to give too-accurate assessments, and then any moderate setback might be the wrong block pulled from a Jenga tower.
I think more-neurotypical people assume everyone is including a buffer/wiggleroom/selfcare addition to their estimates, which may be part of why they feel okay pressuring me when it really matters to them.

The IDIOT thing was simultaneously an Undertale reference and genuine frustration with myself. I remain convinced of its accuracy, insofar as it means Person Who Is Believing And Acting Upon Stupid Thoughts.

The attempt to help is simultaneously appreciated and alarming. I continue to feel like :V (she scream at own ass)

If we need to say sorry for not knowing what to say, then golly, I sure have a lot of apologies ahead of me.
(That is a joke)
(It's cool. Do what you can do, don't feel like you need to help me if you can avoid it, because I don't want this to be contagious.)

I write so much, but the things I write are not mitigating the feelings tide. Writing is sandbags. They help, but sometimes it is too much, or I left a path open, or something.

Not sure if "totally dismissive" applies. I keep making tide analogies because I like sailing and I fear the ocean. I hold a similar fearful/fond/exasperated perspective toward my feelings. (Feelings about feelings, yo dawg.)
Feelings can bd a warning sign... if you know how to interpret them. That is what I am just starting to work on in mindfulness. Listening to my feelings. Noticing them in different situations. Noticing how I react to them.
It is a work in progress.

Alternatively, because they're sure they can cope with the consequences. If I blow up at people, people will lose patience with me, and then I will not have their support. Resource management. I'm trying to save my elixers for a boss battle, not waste them on random surges of feelings up to 11. Giving a shit about keeping my sources of emotional validation and support steady may not be the same as giving a shit about other people.

But complete agreement that I'm bottling things up for lack of familiarity with healthy methods of expressing/venting them.

Ehhhhhhhhhhh. Less-cynical me might agree. The me currently hiding behind the flowey subaccount sure doesn't.

I want to meet up with mom so I can hell at her and tell her she screwed up a lot raising me and she should be sorry. And I want to accept her offer to meet for brunch somewhere so we'll be in public. She raises her voice when she's angry, I don't. So I would be able to say these things and she would be partly handicapping herself from responding as she usually would.

I hesitate to actually do it and I'm not sure why. Maybe it is that I don't really want to hurt her, I just want to stop feeling hurt and I think passing it to her would mke me better. Or maybe because I fear her retaliation after the brunch. I don't know how to know.



I appreciate that you weighed in with perspective and thoughts. It helps to get words from someone else's pov.

 

But for real. When I'm in this mood, and optimism feels like building out of soggy cardboard, I appreciate @seebs and the sharing of perspectives like... it makes more sense to cultivate healthy, happy people, than to hurt on whims. That it is a better use of resources. Etc.

Unfortunately, I'm still young and inexperienced enough to spend a lot of time visualizing screaming into a pillow and thrashing about, and it probably shows in my face and my tone.

 

@flea-riddled you're welcome!

and that is an interesting observation about buffer zones. i think i do them quite differently than you do, but nonetheless in a rather non-neurotypical way. like, i always try to give myself a lot extra room. not just some, a lot.

and i am sorry for alarming you.

and i'm glad me being cynical helped.

 

Discovered a thing tonight: when I am angry/upset with a person who is in pain, I try to express no emotions toward them. I think of it as a kindness, that I am very carefully not pushing on anything that might hurt. But I refuse to say comforting things, or to reassure them, or to validate their feelings.

I seem to expect that an emotional person is showing emotions for the sake of manipulating others to do what they want. And that if I give them the things they seem to be wanting (reassurance, comfort, validation), that they will just do it more and more.

I am also aware that sometimes my ideas of other peoples' feelings and intentions are wrong. So while it occurs to me as a nearly instantaneous assumption, I don't assume that it's the only possibility. I also consider that they might just be hurting and flailing about.

So I compromise between the want to soothe their hurts, and the want to not get trapped into being a validation supply, by withdrawing my emotions from the equation and only offering solutions to the problems described.

My mom hasn't answered the message I sent her about getting in touch. I said what I need and why I need it, in a disorganized 3am impulse sort of way, and she hasn't answered. At all. It says she read it, but that's it.

And some of the time I think, was I out of line? Did I say something terribly cruel? Was she distracted by worries for her sick mom, and just wanting a pleasant light-hearted time to get in touch? Do I owe her that?

And some of the time I think, oh, I see how it is. She just wanted an experience from me, a validation of Being A Good And Wanted Mother, and she doesn't actually give a shit about my emotional needs (despite years of telling me that I'll never know how much she loves me, and that she'd do anything for me.)

Seething resentment. Maybe I should send her the lyrics of that song, and ask her if she meant it when she said she'd do anything. Because I asked for her to answer my questions, and she hasn't.

No, I shouldn't do that. That's way too ultimatum-y, and manipulative, and bitchy, and terrible.

...But I want to. But I don't want the negative consequences of doing so.

:(

 

if you are still interested in this, I can give you a rundown of what I experience when I split. I have bpd.

 

I am still interested! Thank you.

 

well, what better time to discuss this than when I am actually splitting, right? here goes nothing.
so, for what's running through my head in terms of thoughts and emotions, I'll give some general, and then you can ask questions if you want, I guess? I'm not sure how to go about this but I'll do my best. this is focused specifically on splitting on a person, because I don't often split on things or places or anything like that and can't really describe what that's like. also, keep in mind this is just my experience, not everyone's.
emotions:
- upset
- betrayal
- anger
- hurt
thoughts:
- the other person doesn't care about me
- the other person doesn't care how I feel
- the other person deserves to pay
- I want to hurt the other person
- the other person is wrong
- the other person is being deliberately harmful to me
- the other person did/said that on purpose to hurt me
things that trigger it:
- the other person hurt me (even a small hurt)
- the other person upset me (even a small upset)
- the other person is being cruel
- the other person disagreed with me
- perceived betrayal
splitting can be caused, for me, by something as simple as a disagreement of "I'm right and you're wrong" and it turns out that they actually are right and I am actually wrong, or something like "you repeatedly make jokes about you dying when you know I care about you and you know that upsets me", or something more serious, though I can't think of examples for that right now.
sometimes I can be rational and recognize "nothing they've done is as awful or deliberately harmful as I'm making it out to be and I need to take a step back" and other times I just lash out blindly because I am so upset and hurt that I don't stop myself. I always feel bad immediately after, but it still happens.
it's almost always accompanied by "this person doesn't care about me, so in exchange, I'm not going to care about them." basically, I feel that whatever action the person's taken proves that they don't care about me or how I feel, and so I get upset or mad or hurt, and decide that in return, I'm going to just say "well fuck you too" and not care about them anymore.

 

When it's fresh in your mind does seem like the best time to get at least a draft written out. Most immediate, and thus accurate.


Summary of what I'm seeing in what you said:

Splitting starts as a reaction to another person's actions.

They say something that you are hurt by.
Something that contradicts what you know/feel, or something that confirms what you fear.

You feel hurt, upset, angry, betrayed.
What they said is wrong.
What they said or did, hurt you.

Possibly they're indifferent, and just didn't care about your feelings, or your wellbeing. And it proves they don't care about you.
Possibly they knew it would hurt you, and did it anyway. That hurting you was worth it, to them. That maybe that was the point.

You want them to stop.
You want to hurt them, like you perceive they wanted to hurt you.
Or maybe you want to hurt them so they won't hurt you again.​

That mental they're hurting me I need them to stop, where everything gets sharp and stark and them against you, that's splitting?

The question of whether you act on those thoughts+feelings is not the same as splitting, but can follow it. Right?

Does that tend to mean, you try to not care about them, but despite your angry pushing away, continue to feel hurt by your perception of what they said/did?

 

to question the first: "they're hurting me and I need them to stop" is the precursor to splitting, in my experience. the actual splitting is what follows, which is "...so I'm going to hurt them back/not care about them." basically: "they are hurting me and I want them to stop" + "so I'm going to hurt them back because fuck them" = splitting. but the 'sharp and stark and them against you', that's a really good way of describing splitting. that's 100% exactly what splitting is--it's you versus them, it becomes and 'us vs. them' type of feeling, and you have to stop them hurting you, and you just can't stand them anymore because they're hurting you, and you're mad at them, and in extremes, you hate them for what they've done.
to question the second: the actions that tend to follow, those aren't splitting, but they can follow splitting. the "I want you to hurt" or "I want you to stop hurting me" is part of splitting, but the follow-up "so I'm going to lash out"/"so I'm going to not care" is the action that can follow splitting but isn't part of splitting. it's oftentimes my immediate reaction to splitting and tends to be a consequence of splitting, but it's not part of the splitting.

in essence, yes. my immediate reaction is usually "you clearly don't care about me because you've hurt me, so I'm going to do my utmost to very angrily ignore you and push you away and not care about you, because then I will stop hurting and, if you still want me to care about you, I will also hurt you" and to a person who's splitting, stopping the hurt and also hurting the person who hurt you is basically a win-win. of course, caring doesn't work like that, it's not some switch you can turn on and off (at least, it isn't for me), so I continue to care and be hurt and upset by the thing the person said or did.

 

If you retain the ability to, like decide how much you're going to hurt people back, is it still splitting? Like, if you're able to go "no, that would hurt them more than I want, and then they would feel entitled to retaliate, so I'll only hurt them this much so they probably won't escalate it." But still in a place of anger anger anger rushing words and the need to control what's going on?

Because some of what you describes resonates strongly with me, but not to the same degree, or perhaps I've got a lot of ability to clamp down on it and delay the floodgates of angry reactions. I'm spamming at somebody right now with frustration and feeling like they're an enemy who's been deliberately doing things convenient for them and inconvenient for me, and the biggest, main thing keeping me from swearing at them is the fact that I suspect, when I'm done feeling like this, I would regret burning the bridge.

 

Yesterday's talk with the therapist was not about autism, because she had a thing come up that canceled our first meeting, and she forgot to do any research/question-asking til the last minute. I am trying not to hold it against her. Or to feel like it's a sign that she's just being pleasant and validating but not fucking useful.

Instead, we talked more about my difficulties with interpersonal stress. How THINGS going wrong are stressful but doable, because I can think about it and try to fix it... but people? People are much more upsetting.

People can take offense. People can hold a grudge. People can choose to become obstacles, opponents, saboteurs, enemies. People can choose to attack because they wanted something they didn't get. And they can tell themselves it's not a choice, it's a necessary and appropriate consequence, and give little to no warning.

There's a hundred thousand little rules of what people SHOULD do, and many of them are ~obvious~. Tildes for sarcasm.

If you have a group lecture, and two people have a problem they converse about, and the conversation distracts others from the lecture... the polite thing is for those two to remove themselves (and the distraction they are causing) from the lecture. If the lecture continues while they have their conversation, they are unlikely to get much out of the lecture, because they are having the conversation. So it is equal for them if they stay or leave. But if they stay, the distraction they cause will reduce the amount that the others can get out of the lecture. No benefit to themselves to stay, and inconvenience for the others around them, equals net loss. They now owe the others in the lecture for the loss, but have gained nothing for themselves, so making it up to others will hurt themselves and will not undo hurt to others. Bad plan.

Some people don't use the math words, but use "respect."

Respect is a word that means a lot of different, but overlapping things... and some of which seem contradictory.

One of them is, acknowledgement and appreciation of what another person has done for you. To respect your parents for protecting and raising you. To be willing concede to them without argument, as a way of paying them back for the ways they have benefitted you.

One of them is, respect like not giving insult. Not detracting from a person's self-worth by criticising them, or their kin, or their friends, or their kind. Not detracting from their reputation by criticising them or theirs to others. Respect as in not damaging another person or their social or emotional worth. And different cultures have different rules on what is compliment and what is insult amd what is just a bizarre tangent.

"Stop arguing with me amd just do what I say, I know more about this than you," is a demand for respect and obedience.

But.

"Do as I say, and who do you think you are to ask me to explain why" is a dismissive demanding disrespectful remark. It says that the subject is worth less than the speaker and the speaker's time.

It's like some kinds of respect are about not putting others below you. Common decency, like.

And other kinds of respect are about posturing to show others are above you. Hierarchy status things. And I associate this sort with people who get angry when they don't get enough of this respect, and try to fix that by TAKING it, by shoving away people who don't comply, by putting others down, by putting people in their place.

I think some people have another meaning for what it is to "put someone in their place." That it's about correcting a social misstep, when someone has the audacity to put themselves too high on the social hierarchy. To correct someone who is talking like they're an authority, or an equal to authorities, when others do not agree. That it doesn't just mean shocking someone with pain so they shut up and obey. That it's not just emotional abuse, but a necessary thing for many social groups.

Unfortunately, for me, it means bullying and abuse. It means being bewildered and angry and afraid because I don't understand why my parents are treating me a certain way. Angry because they expect something they never previously said to me. Bewildered because they are angry, instead of annoyed and explaining it calmly so I can understand it and know better next time. Afraid, because they feel like minefields and I don't know what else will anger them. They tell me to take more initiative and responsibility, then get angry out of the blue, and how csn I walk confidently and quickly through a fucking minefield???

So now I have little to no respect for people who demand respect, or who carefully avoid demanding it by "just saying" something critical of anyone who isn't paying it. And by respect, I mean confidence in them, or willingness to back them up, or wanting to help them. I don't know if that is splitting.

People who think they deserve authority respect when they have not yet demonstrated why others should be confident in them or want to help them... set my hackles up. I see them as probable enemies. And I cheer when people argue with them, reveal the inconsistencies and emotional bases of what they say. And I feel sick and angry and afraid when I see authorities take action against disobedient people they consider upstart underlings.

I really just have one way of coping with distress over an annoyed authority. To analyze the differences in the authority's expectations and the other person's, and help the other person to understand what the authority is too incompetent to communicate. (And I make sure to frame it as the authority's incompetence to avoid being overwhelmed by self-critical thoughts of shame for my failure to live up to expectations.)

And... the people who get angry, who put their indignation at the violated social protocols over communicating the nature of the misstep, aren't likely to give time for that analysis. Are likely to interrupt the analysis to say useless "you should have X isn't it obvious" statements without identifying the gaps in the person's expectations framework or filling them in.

There's some image about how bosses sit artt desks and pointing underlings onward... and it's a bunch of people hauling the desk forward with ropes while the boss sits pointing. Contrasted with an image of people hauling the desk forward, amd the person at the front is drawn in the same style the boss was, and has a label of "leader." A boss who gives directions, who delegates rather than making sure it's done. Vs a leader who is involved in the process, who makes sure people know where to go by showing them the way by walking it themselves.

I want to scream and cry. I can't be torn between characters who boss, and other characters who are craving validation. I don't have enough to give. I want to shut down and ignore them all so no one expects anything of me.

But Iknow with my head that isolating is a good way to be lonely and sad. And a bad way to feel accomplished.

How to maintain boundaries.

How to figure out what boundaries I can expect to maintain, and what boundaries people will feel entitled to tear down for mysterious reasons like getting me to show respect.

How to identify what I have control over, so I know whether to manage my emotions or just tolerate my distress.

How to do this without stepping away from the situation and stimming for thirty minutes?

Ugggh.