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Anger is often one of the most obvious traits of borderline personality disorder (BPD), as so often the anger seems explode without warning and can be extremely intense.
The anger of the BP is hard to miss, as it is often an attack, meant to hurt back, and meant to defend. It seems to come from nowhere, a suddenly explosive rage. The BP may not even understand why she feels so angry, just that she feels this way.
For those with BPD, anger often develops from other unexpressed and uncomfortable feelings, such as frustration, sadness, disappointment, and anxiety that the BP is unable to experience or express. The life of the BP, like anyone, is full of frustrations, disappointments, and stresses, but the BP can be unable to process them effectively, inadvertently storing them.
Anger tends to be an emotion that can be easier to recognize and express. The BP may be able to respond, or react, to the anger, but not other emotions.
Anger can be an omnipresent feeling for those with borderline personality disorder. It may be that it is always there, sleeping and not noticed, but easily awakened. Once awakened, the anger makes its presence known, loudly and ferociously, almost like a hibernating bear.
The angry outburst is experienced by the BP as a reasonable reaction to threat, attack, or hurt by the target of the rage. The target, or recipient, of the anger attack may be completely caught off-guard, unaware of what they did to trigger this reaction. The BP’s anger can have a hair trigger; little is required to set it off.
Often the BP feels raw, hyperaware of every potential negative be it a slight, danger, or disappointment. Everything feels much stronger: a slight from a coworker can feel like a stabbing pain, overwhelming in its intensity, blocking out all other thoughts. Anger then seems a natural reaction, something to be expected, perhaps even something understandable.
It is important to remember that anger, even the explosive anger often so evident in borderline personality disorder, is nothing more than an expression of feelings. Although the anger can seem out of synch to an observer, for the BP the anger is an honest reaction to hurts and fears. It is real.
For the BP, feelings of anger are very strong and often have a lot of old “baggage” behind them. It is not always clear to the BP, or those witnessing the anger, how the “baggage” is tied to the current target or event that triggered to interaction. However, for the BP, the old feelings, or baggage, were triggered and the current reaction is an honest display of her feelings. A display meant to protect, or defend, and to communicate.
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