- Black and white thinking. idealisation to devaluation
People with the BPD diagnoses tend to have extreme black and white thinking. Something is either really good or really bad. there is no grey area!
This type of thinking can be about anything: people, events, emotions.
With people you either put them on a pedestal or they are the devil reincarnated, no in between and this can happen with one person…..
If someone does something good or kind or makes you smile, you see them as the best thing ever, you believe they could never do any wrong and they would never do anything to hurt you or never do anything bad, even sometimes think they couldn’t make a mistake. You see them as perfect, obviously in a realistic world no-one is perfect. (white thinking)
With the realistic view in mind (which people with BPD rarely see) this person is bound to make a mistake at some point, they might hurt you, they might do something bad. this could be the smallest thing but to us it can be such a massive thing just as it is with the good things they do, you literally can go from one extreme to the other, only five minutes before you absolutely worshipped them and from one small mistake they are the worst thing ever, you hate them you don’t see that this is a good person that made a mistake, suddenly you see them as just a bad person, evil even.
I don’t know why people with BPD have these way of thinking (maybe i should research this), the way I personally see it is if you look at the emotions of people with BPD they are all in extremes, so if some does something good that makes you happy, you are REALLY happy so they are put on the pedestal. just the same if some one does something bad that makes you angry or upset or hurt you also feel all these to an extreme too. To me the black and white thinking is the reaction to the extreme emotions we feel. Extreme emotion provokes extreme reactions.
Living on the Borderline 