It is often seen in Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) who suffer from Complex PTSD or childhood trauma. Having Trauma Splitting, or Structural Dissociation, means we are split into different parts, each with a different personality, feelings, and behaviour. As a result, we feel completely different from moment to moment.
Dr Sharp explains that although the term 'splitting' is most commonly associated with BPD, it isn't exclusive to the diagnosis and can occur in people with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, OCD and PTSD among others.
Splitting is a common defense mechanism. It involves categorizing people or beliefs as either good or bad, positive or negative. By its nature, it is a black-and-white way of thinking.
Affective splitting involves separation along the positive/negative evaluation dimension, or more generally between opposites. Dissociation refers to separation ofelements along some dimension(s), includ- ing ones other than positive/negative evaluation.
Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood may include: Negative thoughts about yourself, other people or the world. Hopelessness about the future. Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event.
Emotional Trauma Symptoms
Psychological Concerns: Anxiety and panic attacks, fear, anger, irritability, obsessions and compulsions, shock and disbelief, emotional numbing and detachment, depression, shame and guilt (especially if the person dealing with the trauma survived while others didn't)
A feeling of shame; an innate feeling that they are bad, worthless, or without importance. Suffering from chronic or ongoing depression. Practicing avoidance of people, places, or things that may be related to the traumatic event; this also can include an avoidance of unpleasant emotions.
A PTSD episode is characterized by feelings of fear and panic, along with flashbacks and sudden, vivid memories of an intense, traumatic event in your past.
Also called relationship PTSD, post traumatic relationship syndrome (with the acronym PTRS) is the occurrence of being impacted by the trauma of a relationship. It differs from standard PTSD in that avoidant coping is less common, and it's more common to cope through emotions.
Splitting is a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Some might say that a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white—all or nothing.
Splitting is a defence mechanism deployed by people with BPD and other personality disorders. Its development can be linked to experiences of early life traumas, such as abuse and abandonment.
When trauma impairs your ability to develop full emotional maturity, this is known as arrested psychological development. Trauma can “freeze” your emotional response at the age you experienced it. When you feel or act emotionally younger than your actual age, this is known as age regression.
Sudden mood swings: When someone is in a splitting episode, it can cause rapid and dramatic changes in mood, unstable emotions, and impulsive behavior. They might instantly become furious or thrilled, even if they felt the opposite way before.
When a person experiences severe trauma, their identity, including personality and emotions, goes through a process of fragmentation. This is when the body divides traits and feelings, and groups them into smaller sections, keeping some of them hidden until a safe space for expression is provided.
Splitting is seen in those with depression, anxiety, PTSD, NPD, ASPD, and other disorders. Splitting is also called all-or-nothing-thinking, dichotomous thinking, and black-and-while thinking.
Dissociative identity disorder—a type of dissociative disorder—most often develops during early childhood in kids who are experiencing long-term trauma. This typically involves emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse; neglect; and highly unpredictable interactions with caregivers.
For example, if a child is physically abused by a parent, a vertical split may emerge that is designed to cope with the juxtaposition of ongoing intense and contradictory experiences to which the child is being exposed.
Splitting is not healed by forcing someone to see your point of view or to integrate their own intolerable and/or conflicting feelings. But over time, it can be diminished in the face of a relationship that can survive in the face of these intense, distressing, and conflicted feelings.
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.
BPD splitting is a symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD). It's when a person sees everything as black or white, good or bad, or best or worst. Splitting is a defense mechanism people living with BPD use to deal with emotions (such as the fear of abandonment) that they cannot handle.
You may ask “What does trauma blocking behavior look like? Trauma blocking is excessive use of social media and compulsive mindless scrolling. Binge drinking every weekend because you are off from work. Compulsive exercising to reach a goal you are never satisfied with.