Splitting
In my life, the phenomenon I have observed to be the most common cause of emotional instability and damaged relationships is "Splitting".
As per definition from the blog priorygroup.com, Splitting is a psychological mechanism which allows the person to tolerate difficult and overwhelming emotions by seeing someone as either good or bad, idealised or devalued. This makes it easier to manage the emotions that they are feeling, which on the surface seem to be contradictory.
I first came across the term 'splitting' in the book titled 'How to overcome your childhood' published by The School of Life. The author described Splitting as one of the emotional disabilities that originate initially as a coping mechanism to simplify the world which otherwise is overwhelmingly complex to make sense of, that we unfortunately and unconsciously carry on into our adulthood much longer after we have developed enough psychological capacities to see and understand the reality in more of its hues and dimensions.
Before knowing the term splitting, I used terms such as bipolarity, emotional swings, etc. to classify and understand such behaviour among people. Now, I understand splitting as a scientific term, which has been vigorously studied in psychological researches.
Basically, splitting means dividing people, feelings, ideas, into good or bad, desirable or undesirable, while skipping the shades between these extremes.
As per psychological studies, splitting starts in childhood. When a young child feels ignored or hurt by his mother, he is not able to understand "is this the same person who made me feel warm and pleasurable just moments ago?". He creates two mental images of the same person "good mommy" and "bad mommy". When he identifies the mommy as good, his behaviour is entirely different - happy, laughing, than when he identifies mommy as bad - angry outbursts, crying, throwing objects, snatching hair, biting hands.
I have observed splitting in people in my life, and in myself too. Effects of splitting are more visible and more harsh in people with hyperactivity in their behaviour. Men being social animals, splitting becomes extreme when there is social pressure of any form. People with ADHS (attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome) or BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) may take splitting to next level, causing humiliation and abuse to people they will sing praises of the next day.
People with splitting exhibit these universal characteristics:
- they praise you too much for your good qualities
- they are very disgusted at anything they don't like
What cures splitting?
I have observed that self-awareness and parenting cures splitting. When the child sees mother as bad and shouts at her, instead of being annoyed and walking away, the bad mother may give him the same care that the good mother used to provide, inciting the child to realise that if bad mother can give the good mother's love, they are not two different people. This causes the two images to merge and the child too develops integrity in the process.
I believe that childhood is a process and it is not often complete by the age at which we are supposed to. We can receive tender care and love at any point in our life and relive the childhood and compensate for the lack of care in our earliest years even when we are older.
In my relationships, I try to give my friends and family the same care irrespective of whether they are annoyed at me over something, or they are happy with me. When their splits end, their ability to see shades increases, their self-acceptance and confidence grows, their other relationships benefit from this increased stability of theirs. My actions become similar to parenting, and we all get a chance to heal the child within us.
I have received such parenting from parents, my sisters, and significantly from my friends. Though they don't realise how they have contributed to me, the effects of their love are visible in my increased self-acceptance, calmness, emotional stability. It is their love which casts the the light on what's lovable in my farthest corners, helping grow my self-love, and it is on the foundation of that self-love that I stand with a reasonable confidence, fearlessness, and purpose.
Splitting kills conversations, makes people shallow, causes religious bigotry and hatred in society, and even wars between nations. Let us end it and create a world of truth and authenticity, by just being kind to people and treating their small wrongs akin to follies of a child.
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P.S.: 13.01.2022: I had a realisation that splitting is a natural response of our psyche to an input which cannot be processed by its preexisting programs. Splitting marks the beginning of learning and formation of a new concept. Every split is therefore an opportunity of growth. We should see splitting with more optimism and capitalise upon it to build our internal system. I have observed that people tend to learn to be at ease with their splits and the integration of splits happens when social environment become conducive for such processing. We should actively seek to address our splits and enhance conversation between them so that we grow in terms of unique human capabilities and increase our probability of survival and irreplaceability in the coming future of robotics wherein repetitive tasks and jobs would increasingly shift to machines and humans would be required to do work that machines can't do. Our jobs thus would increasingly shift from logical-rational to emotional realm. Thus, having a robust framework for processing experiences and inputs is needed to be resilient throughout.