BPD BEHAVIORS: Anger and Rage

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT This board is intended for general questions about BPD and other personality disorders, trait definitions, and related therapies and diagnostics. Topics should be formatted as a question. Please do not host topics related to the specific pwBPD in your life - those discussions should be hosted on an appropraite [L1] - [L4] board. You will find indepth information provided by our senior members in our workshop board discussions (click here).

[MindfulJavaJoe]

Randi Kreger is correct to point out that this is not a diagnostic criteria.

My uBPDw is skilled at getting her needs met.

She will turn on the charm (coy, diminutive, fluttering eyelashed) and if that does not work she quickly turns into full rage.

She might say 5 minutes later why do we have to fight why can't we just be friends. Suggesting that I am to blame.

She is emotionally labile switching from calm to full volcano mode in a blink of an eye sometimes triggered by trivial mannerisms or gestures. 

[Phaedrus]

Mine is extremely passive aggressive. When she's really angry she offers to say special prayers for me. In an e-mail last week she referenced my job but put the title in quotes as if that's not really what I do for a living.

[MindfulJavaJoe]

That's funny because my uBPDw has no regard for my Job or my career.

Completely devalued and yer my colleagues holdd me in high esteem.

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT This board is intended for general questions about BPD and other personality disorders, trait definitions, and related therapies and diagnostics. Topics should be formatted as a question. Please do not host topics related to the specific pwBPD in your life - those discussions should be hosted on an appropraite [L1] - [L4] board. You will find indepth information provided by our senior members in our workshop board discussions (click here).

[Gettingthere]

Does passive agressive behaviour come under " 8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger" in bpd diagnosis, or is it a stand alone entity?

Can anyone clarify for me plse

[WhiteDoe]

Great question! Mine also displayed what my therapist has called "rage" in the form of extremely "passive aggressive" behavior? I used to wonder about "rage" because I never really saw "rage" in this personality disordered man that I loved? But, perhaps the patterns of "passive aggression" are just another "flavor" of "rage"? I would love to hear what others know about this topic?

WhiteDoe

[david]

My bpdw can't rage at me anymore since we are separated and I only communicate via email. (we have kids so NC is not possible) Her emails are full of pa stuff. I've shown some to my T and she saw the same thing. Several friends and our parent coordinator saw it too.  I read somewhere that pa is covert anger.

[larissap]

My bpdw can't rage at me anymore since we are separated and I only communicate via email. (we have kids so NC is not possible) Her emails are full of pa stuff. I've shown some to my T and she saw the same thing. Several friends and our parent coordinator saw it too.  I read somewhere that pa is covert anger.

Ditto to that.  My Xbpdh never used to rage as such.  It was all passive aggressive stuff, verbal abuse and so o while we were together.  Since I left him and have cut down all contact to emails/text he does still use the pa stuff with me. It is never actually calling of names but baiting, snide little remarks, inferring things without actually saying them specifically. His mother also showed very pa behaviour too.  So in my opinion yes, I agree that pa behaviour is just another form of rage.

[Gettingthere]

Thanks for the input everyone.
 From what i've read P.A is about unexpressed anger (or not directly expressed!) - see "living with the passive agressive man".  I think that's where i was getting confused - my husb VERY P.A but has other bpd traits without the full on verbal raging - but then my ubpd/npdm was also pa with stony silences to boot 
Sp p.a behaviour can b a part of bpd in the context of rage?

[ennie]

My DH's BPD ex is somewhere between waif and witch, in the vocabulary of the book Borderline Mothers.  She raises her voice, shakes her fists, was regularly physically abusive of my DH during their marriage, and has threatened to kill me.  But the words she uses all this time are things like, "Look what  you have done to me!  You have ruined my life!  You are trying to steal my children!"  She can be screaming, "Why can't we all just get along?"  She weeps and yells and rants and raves, and accuses all manner of people of harming her in all kinds of ways. 

This can be very confusing.  She shows up on psych evals as "honest," I think due to one of her strategies of naming her "faults," then making it others' fault.  There is always a story that makes her crazy behavior make sense.  She seems dysfunctional, a troubled person...but sympathetic.  Until you start to realize that all the stories are made up.  It makes sense to be angry at an ex who abuses the kids, neglected and abused her in marriage and then left her for another woman, treats her badly and never is willing to work with her.  PEople feel sympathy for this person, despite the fact that she is not dealing with the situation gracefully.  They assume the rage will die down when she "heals" from this bad experience.  But if people know her for longer than that crisis, they know that she was the abusive person in the relationship, that she has blamed all those around her for years, that she left her husband, that she "cheated" on him repeatedly during marriage while he never did, that she is willing to be utterly stubborn about things while he is attempting to cooperate, and then to lie to the kids about it to make him look like the stubborn one. 

I do not really see this as "passive aggressive."  She is aggressive, but she is terribly blaming and unwilling to be accountable for any amount of fault or discomfort.  When she lets in even a little it the possibility that she has made an error, she is devastated, sees herself as a monster, a terrible mother.  Even that she immediately projects on others, "You must think I am a monster.  You hate me." 

[deelee]

Married 35 years and my H's rages were almost always over nothing significant. He even forwarned me during courtship that he could have a scary temper, but I rarely saw it until after we were married. Years of this anger and rages toward me... then after having children, he refused to believe that our 2 young chidren were seeing his rages for what they were and instead accused me of turning them against him by "making him lose his temper." When the kids became teens and fought like teen siblings do, he couldn't take it and left the house for the bar/club we belonged to for years. Several years of this leaving behavior and he was in an emotional affair with the bartender and raging at us even more. We just found out about the affair 7 months ago. Don't know what to think ... the rages came before when they were toddlers and the rages came after when they were older teens. This BPD is so confusing when looking at and comparring to bi-polar, male depression, ocd, adhd ... Other than rage, what would be some identifying symptoms cause rage plays a part in several mental illness dx. His therapist identified male depresison, ocd and adult adhd but not bpd. Any help on this one?

[sotiredtoonice]

Chewie,
 
you sound like me, i rarely get mad. My H can scream, yell, throw things, and it can have very little effect on my anger level. However the last time I tried to leave, the rage came out and I was already so stressed and angry and at my wits end, that out of the blue I found myself acting just like him. To this day he hasnt forgotten how I acted and most of all the things I said. He said he had never been hurt like that. He would get so mad when he would yell and I would sit there with a blank stare on my face. I would love to hear more about your story and learning to show how you really feel when you are angry. I am sometimes too afraid of hurting someone no matter what they have done to me so I just let it go.

[jaleo2000]

Re passive agression, the two major NPDs in my life, my UBPD/NPD mom oscilated between waif/witch/queen and when i got older and was too big to hit (and left home so she couldn't verbally abuse me 24-7) she switched to passive agression - sending laden emails.  The other person in my life my uNPD half aunt is the queen of emotional manipulation via passive agression "Everyone excludes me! I feel so left out" (when I have ceded the whole family to her without saying anything to them just so I can have OUT).  This keeps the whole family coming to "Poor Lindsay's side". 

so yes, perhaps not a bpd trait as much as it involves a bit saavier level of awareness? but yes i'd say if your subject is comorbid NPD learn how to deal with emotional blackmail/passive aggression.  I've picked up a fair bit myself over the years, sadly, but also unfortunately most of my anger is too easily accessed as I never stopped fighting that crazy witch. Never give up. Never. Never. Never.

[Randi Kreger]

What do you mean by passive agressive behavior?

[Phaedrus]

What do you mean by passive agressive behavior?

What I mean by it is that she says things that mean one thing on the surface but the subtext means something else, like above where I mention she says she'll say special prayers for me. She doesn't mean that she's going to be saying a prayer on my behalf but more likely one that I'll drop dead.  In an e-mail she put my job title in quotes as if to suggest that I just claim that's my job. She once wrote on her Facebook, where the kids could see it, "I'm going to go to sleep now where I can dream of a place where children respect their parents." The implication of course that the kids were disobeying her when in fact they had been at my house all day. So all her dumb ass friends from high school who have never even met the kids chimed in to tell her what a great mom she is and to say that "those kids" will learn to appreciate her one day. Another time she posted about how hard it was teaching one of them to drive and wished her brother was around because she thought a man would do a better job. The implication in front of many of our mutual friends being that I was nowhere in the picture when in fact I was the one doing 90% of the driving instruction. Other examples include scheduling doctors appointments without consulting my schedule then at the last minute having an "emergency" and telling me I need to get off work to take them. Or simply not showing up to pick them up for two hours if she thinks my wife and I might have plans for the evening.

[larissap]

Randi, the same sort of stuff as Phaedrus.  Not being able to tell me when he can pick the kids up because of 'traffic' or other 'problems' knowing full well that the children have arrangements.  Doing it just to annoy.  Making 'jokes' that are not jokes but because he means what he says and then says it is a joke. 

Eating at a family members for dinner and saying 'Larissa, you should get a copy of the recipe for this meal, it is fantastic' - a meal I make at home often - thereby implying my cooking is not as good as the SIL.

I have a great one from his mother, my kids are quite fussy with their food and don't eat everything their grandmother serves to them.  She knows they don't like rice pudding with custard but gives it to them anyway (her PA way of implying I don't feed my children properly!).  My son took one mouthful and wouldn't eat the rest.  My dessert served half an hour later was watery and horrible - she would have kept my son's leftovers and given them to me with a bit added on top - custard with a bit of saliva in goes watery and horrible.  That was her pa way of getting back at me for my son not liking her food!

Whenever we sat down to dinner, she would ask everyone except me if they wanted seconds.  I had to ask if I wanted it.  her PA way of saying I am fat maybe?  Or that I don't deserve seconds because I eat too much. Whatever her reason it was done on purpose to annoy without actually telling me she thinks I am fat and greedy! (well I think that was why she did it!)

Same as Pheadrus, little aside comments implying my mothering is suspect.  In an email asking if I had got a 'proper' diagnoses for some excma, implying it is my fault my son had difficult to get rid of nits.  The list goes on.  Always those little digs and asides that add nothing to the communication but are designed to annoy me. 

My ex doesn't call my home 'home' for the kids even though they live there 44 weeks of the year.  He always says the kids are coming back to 'your house' or something like that.  We exchange texts when the kids board flights and arrive at their destination safely as they visit him across the other side of the country every school holiday.  He will always text that they have arrived and are very happy to see him.  just another little dig.  I of course just say they have arrived.  I must admit I once did the pa bit just for a laugh and texted him 'kids arrived ok, very happy to be home again'.  Just once, to annoy him.  that would have really annoyed him because I used the word 'home' to mean my place and on top of it said they were happy about it! 

Enough examples?  I have plenty more.

L

[grayday1]

Is the raging consistent?  What I'm trying to say is, if they rage once will it continue?

[MindfulJavaJoe]

What do you mean by passive agressive behavior?

My uBPD+uNPDw is triggered to rage by me. It is not anything I am doing or have ever done. It isn't even about me from what I can tell. During lucid moments during therapy when I asked he to stop seeing me as a monster (when we had a joint therapist) she would say I think I can see what happened to me as a child.  This would last for no more that a few minuted before she would rage at me again.

I am the target for all her rage now. Something I do not deserve. I was the glue that held our relationship and family together. I would have done things differently if i had know about BPD.

So one minute she hates me, blames me, and has said she wished she had killed me.  She has made false accusations about DV and threatened to accuse me of child abuse. "I will destroy you" was her threat.

The I receive texts and emails saying it is a pity I act so pathetically and that we cannot just be friend for the sake of our children.

This is the extreme push and pull I am faced with.  An abuser who plays the role of a victim and repeatedly state she wants to be my friend.

"what is you problem". 

I know this is a mental health problem. I try to keep LC.
All contact with her is at a price. Just sharing information on what I am going to do with the children when thay are with me cost me as she will do all she can to upset my plans and throw a spanner in the works to frustrate what should be quality time for me and the children.

I now share very little.

And yet this is not my fault. She had a horrendous childhood. Sadly this is not her fault either.

Her rage and anger keeps her connected to me. This connecting is still clearly important to her. Trying to stay off the radar and not to respond or engage is the only hope of of pausing this dysfunctional dance until the next time I am forced to interact with her regarding the children.

Some day I suspect this will all catch up with her. Some day she will be forced to look at her past.
I wish her well and hope she finds a therapist who can help her. I hope she find peace and happiness.
She has lived a tormented life, her demons liew within her. Given the childhoos she had she deserves better but this is all she knows.

Her rage and anger for me is all projection.



 

[Phaedrus]

Another example I thought of. A couple years ago we found out that the son she treats as the "all good child" was dealing with severe depression and suicidal thoughts. So we got him into therapy. She took him to his first therapy session and afterwards told me that the therapist said he was "kind of" depressed but that she really thought he was just bored and needed to be involved in more activities. X said that "especially when he's at your house, you really need to do things with him."  I thought to myself surely he didn't tell the therapist I never do anything with him. We do all kinds of things together - backpack, kayak, rock climb, fly fish, go to gym together, we build things together, go to concerts together. His mom doesn't do any of this.  

So I called the therapist the next morning and asked her how it went. She said, "Well I'm sure X has already told you most of what I said." And I said she had but I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything (because I discovered long ago that her account of anything that someone else said was never accurate, whether they be doctors, teachers, relatives, etc). So the therapist tells me, "Well I believe he is severely clinically depressed. But it was instantly obvious how much he loves you and respects you and really loves spending time with you. He especially likes that you hike and camp with him. So if you can talk X into letting him spend more time with you, that would be good for him."

Kind of the same story but yet totally different, huh?

[Willy]

I find this an excellent article which describes p.a. behavior coupled with insidious emotional abuse. The wording is at times 'not scientific', but it hits the nail on the head again and again.

http://www.heartless-b___es.com/rants/manipulator/emotional_abuse.shtml

[Kentucky1]

My exBPDGF and I were together for only a year. Keep in mind, I have issues where I am emotionally unavailable and can be distant as well. She raged one time and I stood up ( I am tall and built-I am sure that does not matter) and stated that I will not tolerate that behavior. The behavior did not occur again. She stated, you sound like my father when you said that. Was she looking at me as the father? I also did not let her move in with me after 7 months, therefore, she moved home with her mother (the main problem from my perspective). We dated only 5 months longer. I did not experience what others have experienced. Her ex finance said she was crazy and would go off all the time. He lived with her. I am thinking due to my issues, I did not activate the closeness issue with BPD or abandonment. You're thoughts?