I want to talk about the specific relational pattern of oscillating between pedestaling someone and hating them, with nothing in between.
You know the pattern. You meet someone. You feel connection. Quickly they become special to you — extraordinary, in fact. You put them on a small internal pedestal. They are wiser than you. Kinder than you. More together. More worth listening to. Everything they do seems admirable. Everything they say lands as insight.
Then, inevitably, they do something disappointing. They say the wrong thing. They fail to show up. They reveal a flaw. And in a specific moment, the pedestal collapses. They fall from being extraordinary to being contemptible. The same person you admired last week becomes someone whose flaws are all you can see. The connection you felt curdles into aversion.
Then, maybe weeks or months later, you pedestal them again. Or you pedestal someone else. The cycle repeats.
I want to share what I see in this work.
This is called splitting. It is a specific defensive mechanism where the mind protects itself from the anxiety of holding contradictions by dividing people into all-good or all-bad. It is well-documented in attachment research and clinical psychology. It develops in specific childhood conditions. It is not a moral failing. It is a survival mechanism that has outlived its usefulness and is now hurting your relationships.
The alternative is called integrated object relations — the capacity to see people as gray, as both-and, as flawed and good simultaneously without needing to collapse the tension. Building this capacity is one of the most transformative psychological developments an adult can undertake. It changes every relationship in your life.
Why Splitting Develops
Splitting develops in specific childhood conditions.
A parent who was inconsistent. When one caregiver was sometimes warm, sometimes rejecting, sometimes attentive, sometimes cruel — the child mind cannot integrate these into one person. It protects itself by seeing “good mommy” and “bad mommy” as separate. The pattern generalizes to how you see all people.
A family that could not tolerate complexity. If everyone in your family was rigidly cast as hero or villain, if disagreements led to permanent estrangements, if people got “canceled” from family conversations for one wrong move — you were trained in black-and-white.
Religious or moral environments that demanded binary judgment. Some Christian communities teach that people are either saved or lost, good or evil, righteous or fallen. In a susceptible mind, this becomes the template for how to see everyone.
Early relationships that flipped suddenly. If a childhood friend, teacher, or coach turned on you without warning, you may have learned that people are safe until they suddenly are not, and internalized a defensive readiness to categorize them.
Chronic authoritarian environments. When you were required to know what was right and what was wrong, without gray, you developed the muscle of splitting as your primary way of processing people.
Whatever the origin, the pattern is now yours. And it is likely destroying relationships that would otherwise be good for you.
How Splitting Shows Up in Adult Life
Splitting has recognizable signatures.
New friendships or romantic relationships are intense from the start. You feel unusual connection quickly. You believe you have found someone special. The intensity is your nervous system pedestaling them, not usually a sign of real chemistry.
You have a history of dramatic falling-outs. People you were once very close to are now people you cannot speak to. The relationships did not slowly drift — they cracked and shattered at a specific moment.
You cannot hold a friend’s disappointment lightly. When a close person fails you, the failure feels total. You cannot experience it as one moment of them being flawed. It feels like they are all flaws.
You struggle to see former friends charitably. People who are no longer in your life are usually cast as villains. You cannot access the memories of what was good about them.
You go to extremes about celebrities, teachers, authors, pastors, therapists. You either love them completely or you cannot stand them. The middle ground is not available.
Your inner narrative about people rewrites itself dramatically. The same person can be “my hero” and “the worst person I know” within a week, and the past tense of the previous framing gets edited retroactively.
You feel exhausted by relationships. Because holding people in extremes takes enormous emotional energy, your relational life is more taxing than it should be.
If these patterns are familiar, splitting is likely a major factor in your relational life.
The Work of Learning to Hold Gray
Building the capacity to see people in gray is specific, learnable work.
One: name the pattern when it happens. “I am pedestaling this person right now.” “I am about to hate this person completely because they did one disappointing thing.” Naming disrupts the automaticity.
Two: hold both truths at once, deliberately. When someone disappoints you, force yourself to list both the disappointing quality AND the good qualities that are still true. Not to minimize the disappointment. To keep the whole person in view.
Three: notice the discomfort of gray. Splitting is a defense against a specific discomfort — the anxiety of not having someone be one clear thing. Learning to tolerate that discomfort is central to the work. Sit with it. It does not kill you.
Four: grieve, in advance, that no one will be all-good. The pedestal you build for someone is a fantasy. It is always going to collapse. Learning to expect and welcome the moment when a person shows their humanity is part of the practice.
Five: revisit former friends and enemies. With a therapist, look at people you split into hero or villain. Try to reconstruct the whole person. What was good about the villain? What was flawed about the hero? Integration is often possible retroactively.
Six: work with the underlying attachment wounds. Splitting almost always traces to specific attachment injuries. Trauma therapy — particularly IFS, EMDR, or attachment-focused therapy — accelerates the integration work.
Seven: practice with low-stakes people first. It is easier to hold gray with a coworker you barely know than with a best friend or parent. Practice on the low-stakes people. The muscle transfers.
What Life Looks Like With Integrated View
The person who has built substantial capacity to hold people in gray describes a specific change.
Their relationships get longer. Friendships do not shatter at the first serious disappointment. The middle ground is available.
Their intensity levels normalize. New relationships develop at a natural pace instead of exploding into instant fireworks that inevitably crash.
Their view of the past changes. People they had cast as villains get more complex. People they had idealized get more human. The old rewrites relax.
Their nervous system rests. The exhausting work of holding people at extremes stops. Relationships feel lighter.
Their capacity to forgive and be forgiven deepens. Forgiveness requires being able to see the whole person. Splitting makes real forgiveness impossible.
Their spiritual life gets more honest. God can be met as He is — mysterious, complex, holy, present — rather than as a projection screen for splitting.
They become people others can be real with. Because they can hold the whole of another person, others feel safe letting the whole of themselves be seen.
What This Is Not
This is not permission to tolerate abusive people. Splitting and clear-eyed recognition of harm are different. Learning to hold gray does not mean staying in destructive relationships. It means seeing accurately, then deciding wisely.
This is not fast. Splitting is a deep defense. Building integrated view takes months to years of consistent practice.
This is not solo work. Please get support. A trauma-informed therapist, especially one trained in attachment work or IFS, accelerates the healing significantly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is splitting the same as borderline personality disorder? Splitting is a hallmark of borderline personality disorder, but many people who split do not have BPD. Splitting can develop from any of the childhood conditions described above. A therapist can help you assess.
Can I integrate someone I have already split into villain? Often yes, over time. Working through it with a therapist can reveal that the former hero or villain was actually a whole person, and you can update your view retroactively.
What if a friend has actually done something bad? Real wrongs exist. Learning to hold gray does not mean minimizing real harm. It means seeing that even people who did wrong things have other qualities, and that the wrong thing does not need to become the whole of who they are in your view.
A Gentle Invitation
If something here met you and you’d like to talk it through, I offer a free 15-minute consultation. No pressure to begin anything — just a quiet conversation to see if this is the kind of support that fits.
[Book a free 15-minute consultation.]
You don’t have to do this alone.
Therapy in Toronto and online
I’m Tracey Nguyen, RN, MN, a registered nurse and psychotherapist in Toronto (Ontario licence #12492206), practising since 2015. If this article speaks to you, I offer narcissistic abuse recovery in person in Toronto and online across Ontario, Canada and internationally.
Book a free consult or 60-minute session →
Can’t find a time that works, or want to reach Tracey directly? Send a message or email truehealthcounselling@gmail.com.
