A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days.”
For someone with BPD, anger can be extreme, sudden, and incredibly difficult to control. People with BPD often struggle to control their emotions, leading to intense and inappropriate anger. Even a minor inconvenience or perceived slight can trigger aggressive behavior in someone with BPD.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
A BPD relationship cycle often consists of some emotional highs and lows that may leave you confused and frustrated. You might also see your partner experience unexpected bouts of anger, anxiety, or depression. They may love you and then suddenly reject you or get upset.
For many folks with BPD, a “meltdown” will manifest as rage. For some, it might look like swinging from one intense emotion to another. For others, it might mean an instant drop into suicidal ideation. Whatever your experience is, you're not alone.
BPD splitting destroys relationships because the behaviour can be impulsive or reckless in order to alleviate the pain, often hurting loved ones in the process. It can feel like everyone abandons or hurts them, often causing them to look for evidence, and creating problems from nothing.
Their fear of abandonment and low self esteem may manifest into them convincing themselves that you no longer want to be with them – whether there is any actual evidence for this or not. To try and tackle the “divide” in the relationship, the borderline sufferer might begin to withdraw or pick fights.
Borderline personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood. The condition seems to be worse in young adulthood and may gradually get better with age.
Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPDs) become overwhelmed and incapacitated by the intensity of their emotions, whether it is joy and elation or depression, anxiety, and rage. They are unable to manage these intense emotions.
A person with borderline personality disorder is often unable to trust their own feelings or reactions. Lacking a strong sense of self leads to a sense of emptiness and sometimes a sense of being non-existent, which is another reason BPD hurts so much.
What others perceive as a simple mistake to be brushed off, people with BPD might perceive as a serious wrongdoing. You might hold onto a grudge for days, or until the person has apologized sufficiently.
Auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions seem to be the most common psychotic symptoms in patients with BPD. Much effort has been made to better distinguish between psychotic symptoms in BPD and those that occur in psychotic disorders, most notably schizophrenia.
Often, the person with BPD will react towards loved ones as if they were the abusers from their past, and take out vengeance and anger towards them. When the person with BPD feels abandoned, they can become abusive or controlling as a way to defend against feelings of abandonment or feeling unworthy.
Maintaining a relationship with a friend or family member with BPD can be difficult. However, it's important to understand that people with BPD often engage in destructive behaviors not because they intend to hurt you but because their suffering is so intense that they feel they have no other way to survive.
People with BPD may experience rage when they perceive rejection, neglect, or abandonment in a relationship. During rage, a person may say or do things that they later regret. This could lead to ending the relationship in the heat of the moment. BPD rage is often followed by significant regret and shame.
When stressed, people with borderline personality disorder may develop psychotic-like symptoms. They experience a distortion of their perceptions or beliefs rather than a distinct break with reality. Especially in close relationships, they tend to misinterpret or amplify what other people feel about them.
Instead, they see something as completely good or completely bad, and their assessment may switch back and forth rapidly. A person typically splits unconsciously or without realizing it.
A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones. A distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self. Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance misuse, reckless driving, and binge eating.
Punishment and revenge are central to the manifestation of what Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is and means when it comes to relationships. The struggle of those with BPD relationally, is rooted in a proverbial no-win situation.
Having a diagnosis of BPD not only may increase the risk of violence against others but against self. Self-harm is a common issue for many individuals living with BPD. If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor.