By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic 

If you want to be able to see and hear the splitting phenomenon all around you and in your own thinking you are going to need to put aside, temporarily at least, the 'them and us' mentality and learn how to HEAR what has always been there. Then you will need a refresher course in personal boundaries and for some of you, it may well be the first time you have even really learned about boundaries at all. The most common mode of relating these days seem to be in emotional enmeshment and because there is so MUCH of it, it has come to be accepted as a norm. Just because something is common though, does not make it 'normal' and these two terms have unfortunately become interchangeable.

So for this post let's use a couple of commonly heard examples; one from 'normal' everyday people and two from 'normal' psychiatrists.

I want you to really LISTEN to what is being said as though you were from some other planet trying to understand the local inhabitants and the way they think. Here are a few of the things you are hearing with your 'alien' ears.

(Yes, you can dress up like a Klingon if you really want to, and no, there is no Psychiatric Alien Convention to go to...at least, not yet. But perhaps there WILL be after their new Psy-Fi novel in the series, the DSM V comes out.)

Normal everyday person:

Now we have all heard this kind of remark stated many times by people we know, often while someone is absentmindedly muttering to him or herself. In fact, one of the characters on one of the Star Trek sagas, (and you know how us psychos like Star Trek) Counsellor Troi once asked the captain about this thing that humans do;

“When you are saying to yourself, I'd better do this, or do that, to WHOM are you speaking?”

Most often this human phenomenon is expressed in a certain way when someone 'normal' discovers that s/he has been overheard talking to him/herself and responds like this:

“Oh I had better stop talking to myself or people will think I am a mental case.”

You don't say. Well let's look at that then, shall we?

ARE you a mental case? Yes or no?

You just admitted in fact that you WERE talking to yourself.

Do only people who are 'mental cases' talk to themselves? Is it a 'sign'?

 Yes or no?

If you answer 'yes' to that, are you then ADMITTING that you are a mental case?

Are you trying to hide it by not doing it in places that people will not know about you?

Is that because mental cases always deny they are sick?

Do you think that if you kind of deny it, and then suggest that 'people' who think that about you are wrong,  because YOU are different than 'real mental cases' (like me for example) that this idea will sort of throw them off and keep them from 'helping' you?

Are you 'in denial'?

Are you just afraid, or too proud, or ashamed to ask for help with your mental illness?

Is it the ten minute diagnosis and labelling session? Does that bother you for some reason?
Is it the stigma? (not that there is one as it is just like diabetes isn't it?)

Is your hesitation about it because you have no insight into your own condition?

Is your talking about it really a disguised 'cry for help'?

Should I find a gung-ho bio psych enthusiast to answer your barely disguised cry for help?

Now let's look at the same thing and how it seems if, when you are asked the question, Do only people who are 'mental cases' talk to themselves? ..you decide to answer this time with a straightforward 'no.'

You just admitted in fact, that you WERE talking to yourself.

ARE you a mental case then? Yes or no?

If you answer 'no' to that, as well, are you then DENYING that you are a mental case, even though you admit that you are talking to yourself?

Are you trying to hide it because mental cases always deny they are sick?

Are you 'in denial”?

Are you just afraid, or too proud, or ashamed to ask for help with your mental illness?

Is that because you have no insight into your own condition?

Is your talking about it really a disguised 'cry for help'?

Should I find a gung-ho bio psych enthusiast to answer your barely disguised cry for help, despite your resistance to treatment?

Or, are you saying that calling people 'mental cases' just because they talk to themselves (like you do) is not the right thing to do then?

Who do you think is crazier?

Is it the person who thinks anyone who talks to him/herself is a mental case and admits to it, confessing the insanity to others OR is it the person who talks to him or herself but then denies it is a sign of his/her own insanity, who  is actually crazier?

Hmmmm...quite the conundrum isn't it?

Did you notice anything about this above method of thinking?

Whether the person who is talking to him/herself admits to it or not, he or she can STILL be defined as a mental case by others. The reason is because of judgements made and promoted as abstractions in absolute terms. The only way you can KEEP making judgements like that while exhibiting the same traits yourself while calling them 'just being human' for you, but insanity in 'others' is BY 'splitting.'

Splitting is used to redefine 'reality' in 'them and us' terms so that the SAME kind of thinking and behaviour, even innocuous ideas or behaviour which are hurting no one at all, can be see and heard by the splitters as two different realities, instead of the same one being presented while using a double standard.  At times it is not even subtle, yet it goes unseen and unheard by the MAJORITY of the presumed 'normal.'

Let's move on to two examples with psychiatrists.

Example one:

Never accept anything the patient says at face value.

You don't say. Is that because whomever gets called 'the patient' is always lying, hiding it, making up stories, talking in riddles, making meaningless noise etc?

If 'the patient' wanted to talk to you, just as if he or she were human, how would you recommend he or she do that without saying anything that needs to be accepted at face value? Should s/he construct a few appropriately fascinating  metaphors before arriving at the office for the 20 minute sanity check, hoping for you to find the hidden meaning in them? Or would s/he then be in danger of being diagnosed as psychotic?

Should we always then accept everything that everyone who is NOT defined as a whack job (like me) says at face value? Like for example, If you said, “this was a real roller coaster ride,” should I accept that you believe you are “literally riding on a roller coaster” and perhaps have lost your orientation to time and space?

Or is that perhaps always 'different” when it is you instead of say, one of 'them'? (me)

Which brings me to example two from psychiatry.

Example two:

If you never accept anything the patient says at face value then that means you have to look for the hidden meaning in it right? OK then; I am with you so far. However, I was told that if I find myself 'looking for hidden meaning' that was a sign I needed an anti-psychotic. So my question is:

Is looking for 'hidden meaning ALWAYS a 'sign' that the one looking for it needs an anti-psychotic?

If so, I do hope you keep that saucer of Haloperidol in the centre of the table at your DSM creation meetings to share together like hors d'oeuvres. We wouldn't want you to get totally lost on the hunt for the obscure.

One other thing...if it is not always a sign that the one looking for the hidden meaning is predisposed to go stark raving mad at the drop of a hat, does that mean that it is actually possible that the identified patient who sits before you, pouring out his or her pain and anguish, (for ten to fifteen minutes anyway) and looking for answers, may NOT need an anti psychotic? Or is that only true in your group ('us') and never in my group? (them)