Dealing with idealization and B&W thinking

With friends (don't even get me started on relationships... I'm scared of being on them for this same reason), I'm very protective because I love them, but I often forget they're human being with flaws and B&W thinking happens.
They do something (not to me) in their lives, a mistake, I get disappointed in them and I start to see them differently and, in a attempt to avoid getting more hurt and disappointed in them (this happens a lot), I stay away from them, even though I miss them, I can't help but remember ONLY their mistakes and flaws and think "how could you? I thought you better than that. You're not the same to me anymore"

That's why I avoid relationships, I can't handle their past and I'm scared of getting hurt in the future.
The thing is, what hurts me is mostly common mistakes of people, exaggerations in sex, drugs and drinking. I'm very self-destructive also, especially when I'm disappointed and sad and angry. They turn into a bad person to me.

I need to stop and accept them and realize it's not always 100% good OR bad, but I get impulses to run away from them.

Yeah, I'm back into dealing with relationships of all sorts now. Letting someone get close leads to me wanting to have them around, but at the same time I cannot handle their poor choices. That's where the *evil* me comes out. Let's just say it makes me fairly scary.

I don't approve of much of anything, even if I'm guilty of it myself. I'm actually okay with some things about myself now and I can deal with those same things in other people. There's the connection for me. If I can hold true to my logic and my own feelings, I can allow others to make mistakes. Granted, it's hard, I mean REALLY hard, dealing with those mistakes from people who are close to you. I'm always holding myself back(for the most part) and allowing people to make mistakes after I've given my single one-time opinion. I try not to go beyond that...

I would say accept your own poor choices and not beat yourself up over them. It's really, really tough to deal with. I made my peace tonight with that. Just one situation that is so damn hard to deal with, but hey, I'm dealing with it right? You can too. Just make sure you have an escape plan for such situations. Something you can go do or somewhere you can go that will help relieve the anxiety. The other routes that relieve the anxiety tend to just be projection onto that other person. That tends to get pretty ugly(at least for me anyway).

Wintered, thanks for this post. Although I've read a lot about splitting on this forum, there is something about what you wrote that really hit home for me, it was a feeling of "wow I'm not the only one that does this."

When someone makes a mistake in their personal lives or makes a bad decision, I immediately start to judge them and feel that I must cut them out of my life. I do not know how to accept that they are a human and make mistakes. I will make these harsh moral judgements about friends, however, I don't hold myself to those same standards. Then if I want to have them back in my life again, I must somehow try to forget what they have done in the past or decide that it is no longer objectionable behavior. I realize that I am not expressing myself clearly with this. I appreciate this post Wintered. It helps me to feel not so alone and crazy.