I was thinking about this 'internal object' concept that I was reading about recently. I find it terribly confusing. But in a nutshell, what I got out of it was this, as an example: Your Mom neglects you and you do not get your needs met by her as an infant or very young child. So you start to hate her, but inwardly. But you're dependent on her for your survival. So outwardly, you idealize her, you 'love' her. You look up to her. Because you have to for survival. You have to think well of her or you're toast - because you'd be completely alone then. But back to this inward hating thing. It's not conscious. You don't realize you hate her. But you grow up with a rage inside of you, you become 'difficult'. You can't connect with her, because inside you really hate her. She also does not connect with you and it gets worse over time. When you act up, she overreacts, or she does something awful like put you down the back stairs to scream your head off for two hours. She doesn't try to understand. Just 'Stop whining'. You're left with the feeling that she just wants you to get the he** away from her, get lost. She ends up hating you too, so doesn't set up any playdates for you, what's the point you're not worth the effort. So you never learn anything different. You never learn to connect with anybody else. You are completely cut off from all human contact. And you are just left with this huge, empty black hole in your heart that you are desperate to fill but you can't. Because you are broken. There is no spirit, no life, you are like the grim reaper - everybody runs away.

But back to your Mom: You think you love her, so when she gets angry or is mean to you or ignores you she must be right, and you must have deserved the treatment you got so now you hate yourself.

So - to my title 'Positive Images'. When I hold the image of my Mom in my mind, it is with a deep sadness. I do not want to hold it in my mind. It is not soothing, it is not comfortable, in fact it is quite the opposite, it actually raises my anxiety levels. But I don't have ANY image that helps. For a while my T got into my head in a positive way and it felt like I was on a drug. I was high for three weeks. But that slowly faded away and now it also causes me anxiety to hold his image in my head.

I was wondering if this is one of the things that sets borderlines apart from everybody else. I think this must relate in some way to 'splitting' which seems to be exclusively mentioned in reference to BPD.

Does anybody here have an image that they can hold in their mind that is comforting?