TW: Suicidal desires, ideations
There is rage, and then there is BPD rage. I suspect this is why emergency rooms have a reputation for turning away borderlines, or at the very least, treating them differently. It is a common thing for a borderline to be told, “For the love of Heaven, never tell an ER doctor that you’re a borderline.”
It’s not that borderline rage is any louder (though it often is) or more boisterous (though it often is) that makes it distinct. I have seen plenty of people lose their proverbial shit that also don’t fit a borderline diagnosis. Rage is scary; it is anger elevated and accelerated to the point that it might actually appear psychotic. When I know that someone is angry with me, I’m sad. When I know that someone is enraged with my, I am frightened. Rage is the assembly line for my worst excuses. I believe that most people are capable of garden variety rage like this.
What makes BPD rage distinct is:
~A tendency for the rage to feel heavy and almost woeful. Many years ago, I was in the presence of someone very close to me who exhibited some verbal BPD rage at a stranger in public. On paper the incident might have seemed of little importance to anyone looking on at us, but for me, hearing it absolutely shook me. That was the kind of anger that came from somewhere deep. I was not used to this. When I began to suspect that I had these same heavy emotions, this incident populated in my mind daily.
~A tendency for the rage to enter the scene much quicker and more explosively. A borderline can seem absolutely fine one minute, only to be wailing with apocalyptic proportions the next. This is almost certainly terrifying for everyone who is within earshot of it.
~A tendency for the rage to keep going and going and going. Duracell and Energizer are facsimile batteries compared to the staying power of an angry “borderline episode.” When the rage gets going, those in its presence can count on the playwright to finish the story, plus a sequel and a spinoff. Angry borderlines are strangely desirous to show those around them just how angry they can be. The rage eventually dies down and provides some relief for the victim, leaving the borderline for hours, if not a day or so, in shame.
When I experience BPD rage, I imagine myself standing behind a train car that is pulling away from me. I can see the train car. I know what the train car is. It I know what it is doing, as it has gotten away from me many times. As it escapes, I know what I must do, but I cannot do it. I watch the anger disconnect and then speed away. With enough acceleration it will soon be rage. I can bet on that.
BPD rage is also so stressful that it brings on severe states of dissociation. As this topic is, like shame, another topic for another post, the short version is this: dissociation is a defense mechanism in which you feel somewhat or completely disconnected from your own body and person. In many ways, it is your body’s final way of saying, “Oh Hell no!” when unbearable stress and trauma are detected.
BPD rage often means that the borderline finds difficulty forming short term memories during the fight. I have found myself screaming, stomping, and raging during a verbal conflict, only to realize that my mind had drifted in one out of the incident; the fights thus become more like a piece of Swiss cheese than a realistic portrait. Often, I simply don’t know what I am arguing about as I am arguing about it.
BPD rage leaves me feeling as if I have gone all the way back to square one with my therapy. If something is a full blown BPD rage, the heaviness is the same as always; it disables my thinking, quickens my heart rate, breaks me out into a sweat, and puts me on a first class, round trip luxury extravaganza on the despair express. When I am in the height of BPD rage, fully aware that I want it to stop but can’t restrain my pot committed emotions, I am much more likely to imagine and desire my own death.
There is a reason why, when the fires die down, people with BPD become apology artists. If you have ever been angry with someone who was just in a BPD rage, you can bet that their self-loathing matches yours, and probably more.
Borderlines are simply better at the loathing business. Your anger towards them will often be justified, but just don’t be under any illusion that they love their anger, or that you will be able to out-loathe them.
As the old saying goes: Try me.
Yours Mentally,
Nathan
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