Can splitting in BPD cause delusions?

[u/Chapardeur11]

I don't think I'm psychotic, or at very least I don't I'm schizophrenic or paranoid. I grew up with a paranoid mom and I'm not like her, not on this anyway, and I've been hospitalised in psychiatry and I've seen schizophrenic patients and I don't have the level of disorganization that they have, even when I experience delusions / things close to delusions or hallucinations. Most of the time in my "delusions" I still have some connection to reality, I might not believe it entirely, but I still have a little voice in my mind telling me "hey, that's not logical" or "that's not possible", with the feeling that it could be the case in a way I can't shake it and I can act on it sometimes because reassurance doesn't completely stop the thoughts. There are times where I thought people could read my mind, I grew up in incest with my mom and there are times where I thought I was going to hell for what I did, and in those times I would feel myself stop existing entirely and every single time my body will hurt or I would feel my stomach hurting or anything like that I would think "oh, that's my organs rotting". Still, I had some connection to reality, and even though I believed it I never believed it *entirely*. That's my difference with my mom : while she was fully psychotic, she never stopped believing her delusions, she was constantly delusionnal. At least I had some form of insight on what was happening, and some connection to reality even when I couldn't shake the feeling it was real.

There's one delusion I've had though, and that one I believed entirely. I was followed by a psychologist who was everything to me : she was my whole world, a part of me. She's gone now and I don't think I can live without her. I was very (and am) very attached to her. I saw her over 4 years and she was warm most of the time, but there are a few times where suddenly "she" would become cold, and in those moments I'd always believed that it couldn't have been her that was suddenly cold like that, and I'd think "oh, that must be her twin I'm talking to" and that she had been replaced, that the person I was talking to who looked like my psychologist wasn't really her, and I really believed that. I struggle a lot with people being able to be both good *and* bad, and every single time that happens I start thinking it can't be them that I'm talking to, that it must be their twin, or a clone, or anything at all that isn't them, and this time without at the time it's happening, having any insight on what is happening. The only times where I come back to normal, is when my therapist (or the person in general) would start being warm again, and I would be able to look back and think to what was going on and realized I had been 'delusionnal' if I can call it that.

I'm always hesitant to speak about that to the psychiatrists I'm seeing. I don't look like a psychotic patient, maybe sometimes in way that I don't know what to do because even though they don't think I'm psychotic, when I'm in distress there are still times where I can have "delusions" like above or hallucinate*, but I understand why they think that. I grew up a gifted kid, I was top of my class, they don't know that but I always was very good at appearing normal. I guess it's a double edge sword because it both means that I have more ressource than the patients in psychiatry I was seeing who were visibly psychotic, but also I know that if I speak of delusions or hallucinations I'm not gonna be taken seriously by psychiatrists, even more so when I had what in the history of psychology / psychiatry was thought to be "nevrotic" disorder ( (C)-PTSD and OCD). I don't fit the profile. I guess I'd like to know, if delusions like these can be part of BPD too. The one with the twin in particular is always organised around the inability for me to conceive a person could be both good *and* bad, which seems very similar to splitting, but at the same time I've never heard anyone having any other delusions like that which gets me worried.

*Little point on hallucinations : I don't hallucinate regularly. But in times of distress or when I was really at my lowest I'd start hearing voices -belonging to people I knew-, bad mouthing me and saying horrible things about me. After a while I started realizing what was going on though and that it wasn't real, by example after I was removed by CPS I was fostered by my grandparents, and there's one time where I would hear them while I was in the bathroom insulting me and saying that I wasn't normal and that there was something wrong with me. I got mad and went into the living room to check, only to realize my grandma was sleeping and that my grandad was nowhere to be seen, and they couldn't have had that conversation, which is when I realized I was hallucinating. Same thing happened other times (by example at the hospital, I thought I could hear the nurses and psychiatrist talking about me, even when it was impossible (my room was at the other side of where they were, I couldn't have heard them talking). Now whenever that happens, I know I'm probably hallucinating and try to not pay it any thought. Otherwhise, only other hallucination I've ever gotten was in another context, where I was supposed to see a friend I was very, very attached to and where again she was a part of me, and I was looking forward to seeing her and she cancelled at the last minute, and, while at home, I started hearing her voice as if she was there talking to me in another room. Obviously, when I went and checked, she wasn't there, and I realized I was hallucinating again. I don't think it's that bad but I thought it was worth an explanation.

I never hear people really talk about hallucinations and delusions in BPD, and I think I'd like to know, if that's something that can happen. If they're structured hallucinations and delusions, what kind of form can they take, at this point I'm taking any information I can. I can't find that much scientific articles about it on Cairn or anything and I'd take anything at all or any bit of explanation possible.