Splitting on Yourself

When people talk about “splitting” in BPD or trauma recovery, they usually mean seeing other people in extremes like all good or all bad, safe or unsafe. But what doesn’t get talked about enough is how often we turn that same harsh lens inward.

Splitting on yourself can feel like whiplash. One moment you’re proud of your progress: “I’m healing, I’m strong, I’m doing better.” The next moment, the script flips: “I’m worthless. I ruin everything. I’ll never change.”

It’s painful and exhausting. And it can make you feel like you’re at war with yourself.

What Splitting on Yourself Can Look Like

• Believing your mistakes erase all the progress you’ve made.

• Feeling like one bad day means you’ve failed entirely.

• Telling yourself you’re either “all good” or “all bad,” with no middle ground.

• Feeling proud of yourself in the morning and full of shame by night.

• Struggling to hold onto a balanced view of who you are.

Why It Happens

Splitting on yourself doesn’t mean you’re broken. It’s a survival habit.

• Trauma wires the brain for extremes. It’s easier to label something “good” or “bad” than to sit in the messy, uncertain grey areas.

• Self-criticism feels like control. If you punish yourself hard enough, maybe you can stop yourself from ever being hurt again.

• Compassion can feel unsafe. For many survivors, being kind to yourself feels dangerous or undeserved, so the mind defaults to blame.

The Cost of Splitting on Yourself

But living this way comes with a price:

• Constant emotional whiplash between pride and shame.

• Exhaustion from never feeling “good enough.”

• Struggling to trust your own growth.

• Pushing yourself harder than is sustainable.

Splitting may have once protected you, but it can also trap you in cycles of pain that keep you from feeling whole.

Finding Balance

You don’t have to live in extremes forever. Healing is about learning to hold both truths at once:

• “I made a mistake, and I’m still worthy.”

• “I had a hard day, and that doesn’t erase my progress.”

• “I am both healing and learning. Both are true.”

Self-compassion doesn’t mean ignoring accountability. It means approaching yourself with enough kindness that growth becomes possible.

Splitting on yourself is not weakness. It’s a habit your brain learned to survive. But you are allowed to see yourself as more than “all good” or “all bad.”

You are whole, even in your contradictions.