Splitters

By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic

This is a common dysfunctional group behaviour which is not seen, mainly because there is a rule against seeing it. Therefore, it is most often true that the individual who will be placed on the receiving end of the Splitter Phenomenon, will be the one who sees it, or who ALMOST sees it, and tries to point it out to others who do not WANT to see it.

Exposing the truth about the Splitters and their group phenomenon is like exposing the bullies' game. If EVERYONE can see it and understand it, then it's “game over” for the Splitters Social Club.

Splitters are operating on negative emotion, usually passed off as the opposite and made to appear to be amusement, fun, jokes, at their target's expense of course, but what they are NOT, is rational or logical, so to trying to appeal to them using “logic” is a waste of your time and energy. It won't work.

In fact, Splitters often use the attempt to reason with them as more material for their act and as the means of getting others to join in- while all smile and laugh together of course, directed outward as a group on the targeted “inferior.” For this MUST be perceived as “fun” as part of their excuses for it.

What WILL work on Splitters is good, in depth, very detailed mirroring, though it takes much longer than law suits, or punches in the nose, to have an effect on them. Still, doing so will be more permanently effective as far as disempowering the “game' goes. For when you sue Splitters and win, they try to make it an exceptional case so that they can keep right on behaving the same way with others.

Of course, if you haul off and punch one of them in the nose, they hold YOUR behaviour up as an example of how right they are to treat you like crap. What they don't do is admit to the provocation, so those tactics won't change anything for the better and it may even make it worse for you, as the target. Splitters hide the truth about themselves and usually do it well, since that too is part of what their domination “game” is all about.

You can't deal with Splitters as equals BECAUSE that is NOT how they see themselves. They see themselves as your superiors and the “game” they are playing with you is DESIGNED to “prove” that delusional theory about themselves, TO themselves. Your presence is all but irrelevant to them. You may well feel invisible as a human being to them because that is how they see you; like a prop in their psycho-social “play” about promoting themselves, their point of view, or their worth, as the only valid one.

To deal with them effectively, you have to know where they are really coming from, so that you don't make the mistake of using logic, or sound arguments, to change their minds. They don't WANT to change their minds.  That is the first thing you have to accept. They want to believe they are your superiors and to stay that way, so nothing you can say based on logic will alter that. Instead, you must talk about the hidden agenda of individuals, the psycho-social group dynamic itself and make it publicly visible so that those on the receiving end of it will recognize it, and those “observing the action” between aggressors with hidden agendas of domination and their victims will no longer be confused or puzzled by what they are witnessing, or by the aggressors mystification act.

So we have to stop trying to relate as equals and talk about the group dynamic on that higher level. THAT means we are going to have to spend most of our time talking about our observers, not to them, and the self serving arguments they like to present to others, designed to keep them “on top” and those they observe together “beneath them” and well pathologized.

We are going to have to point out every bloody detail including all the things that seem so obvious to us that should not need to be mentioned to other adults let alone “explained.” The fact is, those “superior” people don't even understand themselves, never mind those of us who are on the receiving end of their irrational nonsense. They cannot see us, or hear us, as we really are because their GAME blocks the reality of it from their awareness. We are often dealing with self deluded people who are CERTAIN it is not their problem for not seeing it, but rather our problem, for seeing something they cannot see.

Since “superior” people can never be wrong, in their own grandiose opinions, their “inferiors” must be wrong. You know what psychiatrists like to tell us: if you were really crazy you would not know it.

So, don't try to appeal to reason, don't ask why they are treating you that way, as they can't, or just won't, answer you, and don't try to get them to see you as the person you really are. They don't want to. This is about them and their dysfunctional neediness; not yours. They are not really all that interested in you at all, except as the object they are performing their Splitting upon.  They are only interested in the contest they think they are in, and will treat you “as if” you are the person they have to “defeat.”

I will also write some concrete specific scenarios soon to help you see how this is done and how the minds of Splitters work to preserve the superior/inferior delusion.  I will write these as Psychiatric Fiction and post them on the Psy-Fi page as examples. Don't be surprised if they seem to speak to you of your own experience since this is a very common experience with dysfunctional groups.

Splitters are in a state of self delusion but it is so COMMON that it has come to be perceived as “normal” to be that way. “Proving” their superior understanding and/or worth is both the premise of their thinking, and their goal. So nothing logic based or evidential will penetrate that; it is firmly entrenched in their current way of being. THAT is what they are going to “defend” in the contest they believe they are in with you, and which they MUST “win” to preserve the dysfunctional status quo and their belief that they are “normal” for being the way they are, while those who are not like them are “abnormal.”

Changing this is NOT going to be easy to say the least. What they need to wake up to reality is -self consciousness; intellectually, spiritually and emotionally, all at the same instant. They need to be shocked, or surprised, into self awareness    but it must be done in a non violent way. If you become what they claim you are, not only will they not hear you, they will have their beliefs about you reinforced.  So we, who are their targeted “inferiors” must work together to make them as conscious as we are about what they do to us and their motivation for it. If we work together we also will find support in each other that we often do not have when isolated as individuals, by many of those others around us. Being our own support group will keep us stable and connected and create a new healthy community.

The Splitters want others to focus on them and see them as “superiors” so instead of fighting that with “logic” or trying to generate “empathy” we need to GIVE them exactly what they believe they want, until they are overwhelmed by self consciousness.

Don't argue, reason or ask questions.

Don't appeal to their humanity. It is not in play in this.

Don't look for empathy; the mental state they are in precludes empathy. They are purging their OWN suppressed emotions on someone who is socially sanctioned as a target. The fault will be found in you and NOT in any of the group members who are defining your point of view FOR you.

Just hold up a nice BIG observation mirror so they can get a nice clear “reflection” of their own image which will help to show them just how they look TO YOU. Just observe all of your observers, and announce all that you see, preferably in the presence of at least one other person who would be considered to be a credible witness.

Creating a state of self consciousness in your “superiors” can work wonders on those who are splitting their own consciousness, and then projecting their OWN lack of awareness onto you.  Nothing stops those who are projecting and disowning their own fears and inadequacies like having their own fears and inadequacies exposed by their own actions. The same thing that motivates them to unload them on you will also motivates them to stop the act once it is understood they are being watched and understood by their targets and many OTHERS also.

As the “identified patients” who break under group pressure, non stop invalidation and the denial of all of it, we may NEVER be able to “explain” this to psychiatry since they cannot hear anything other than their own “reality substitution,” but if we deal with it differently, we may be able to put a stop to it BEFORE more of us ever get psychiatrized in the first place, for telling truths our “superiors” don't like, and don't want to hear.

Splitters, like all bullies of all degrees, work very hard at making sure they see NO connection between what they do and the predictable, destructive results of what they do. They manage to maintain that through near continuous projection. If one of them decides you are “stupid”, then you will BE “stupid” for them, no matter what you say, or what you do, as they will simply “spin” or “interpret” everything to suit their own needs. Rather than trying to convince them you are not stupid, SAY that, as stated above to indicate your awareness. Otherwise, they will see and hear you only in terms of the “reality” they have created for you, and about you, in their own minds.

Dysfunctional relating is long established and is a lifestyle for many. It can be fairly mild to extremely serious and dangerous. Still though, it is a lifestyle learned by example of the generation before and the current followers, which model “normal,” and “reality,” as seen, heard and understood by THEM. Since there are rules in dysfunction against questioning “authority” or seeing “too much” or being “too sensitive”, dysfunction tends to perpetuate itself.

So we must state that there are rules in dysfunction against questioning authority etc. That however, does not prove that our brains control our minds, any more than computer hardware controls the software. It has an effect certainly, since they work together, but one is not synonymous with, or identical to, the other. It may even prove that our minds change our brains and that what we REALLY need most is to change our minds about many of the things we are so certain we already know. That means that it may well be that metaphysics is the controlling force and not the physical world. If that is the case, then so much for all the medical style reductionism of our current belief system.