People who live with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have a hard time regulating their emotions, which can be very intense, and handling stress. This can lead them to lash out at the people in their lives.
They may be driven by a desire to be connected to others, yet loss of emotional control frequently drives others away. In some cases, the level of rage can lead to violence. Rage in an individual with BPD can occur suddenly and unpredictably. BPD anger triggers can include an intense fear of being alone.
Ultimately, it is up to the other person to control their anger. If someone is experiencing BPD rage, stay calm, let them express their feelings, and give them some space. If necessary, leave the situation until they are able to calm down.
An individual developing borderline personality disorder begins to have difficulty managing their emotions, which impacts their relationships, their self-image, and their behaviors. Their emotions are extremely intense, which can lead to episodes of depression, anxiety or anger that may persist for days or even weeks.
Many individuals with BPD lash out at others frequently and those around them come to expect the aggression and are guarded and eventually become guarded and defensive towards the BPD sufferers.
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.
Identifying Episodes
Intense angry outbursts. Suicidal thoughts and self-harm behavior. Going to great lengths to feel something, then becoming increasingly avoidant and withdrawn. Paranoia, feeling as if there is someone out to get you.
It is important to remember that while having a relationship with a person with BPD can be challenging, they are not intentionally trying to hurt you. Rather, they lack the ability to understand and cope with their emotional pain, which causes them to act in ways that hurt others.
Things like “splitting,” experiencing intense emotions or mood swings and dissociation are mainstays for many folks with BPD — but they aren't the only ways it can manifest. Sometimes BPD can make people do things that are often described (and misunderstood) as being “impolite.”
Because of their overall pessimistic demeanor, they can easily feel slighted and may express this aggressively or hold it in and build resentment. Those with this type of BPD tend to view people in “black and white” terms (known as BPD splitting), so they are likely to hold onto a grudge after feeling insulted.
It's a technique often used by those with narcissistic and/or borderline personality disorders to deflect any responsibility from themselves.
People with BPD tend to lash out and attack the person who doesn't have it, Lobel says. “So people who are with people who have BPD end up feeling bad about themselves.” Learning about how BPD causes this helps people who don't have it understand that it isn't them.
However, those positive attributes are not without the proverbial strings attached; when the BPD explodes with vindictive rage, all they said or gave to their loved one may be taken away in one fell swoop of aggression. BPDs experience the world in extremes: black-and-white or all-or-nothing.
Listen actively and be sympathetic and focus on emotions rather than the words. Ensure that you demonstrate that the person with BPD feels heard. When someone is upset or angry, it's easy and understandable to reciprocate, but it is not helpful.
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.
There may well be some individuals with BPD who are genuinely manipulative or sadistic, especially those who are very strong narcissistic traits. BPDs have very complex needs, as well as very complex maladaptive coping strategies — and manipulation is one of them.
Remember that splitting is a symptom of borderline personality disorder - while it can be difficult not to take their words and actions personally, remember that the person is not intentionally trying to hurt you.
Show confidence and respect.
It is important that support people approach the relationship in a way that promotes trust and respect, which can be helpful and healing to a person with BPD. Although you may feel you know what is best, provide the person with BPD the opportunity to make decisions for themselves.
Listen as our host speaks candidly with experts, celebrities, and others! If this describes your relationship, you are not alone. Something that is important to remember is that people with BPD generally do not mean to be abusive. They are reacting in response to emotional pain that they cannot tolerate.
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.
Some of the signature behaviors of borderline personality disorder—self-cutting, sexual promiscuity, drug use, bingeing and purging, suicidal gestures—are attempts to escape from the intense negative emotions that overwhelm them. As a result, they often court chaos.
The actions of people who have BPD can indeed feel manipulative. However, the word 'manipulative', with its pejorative suggestions of malicious scheming, does not capture the true nature of BPD-spurred behavior.
Psychosis. Psychosis refers to a severe disconnection from reality. Psychotic episodes include hallucinations or delusions. Psychosis can occur in both schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, but psychotic episodes in BPD are, by definition, short, fleeting, and related to stress.
BPD makes people more likely to engage in impulsive or risky behaviors, such as: Speeding or other unsafe driving. Unprotected sex or sex with strangers. Binge eating.