BPDFamily.com

Been having a few issues at the moment with my mother and another person and would be good to here some anecdotes of what exactly to expect and what actually constitutes a BPD rage (for both low and high functioning individuals) in comparison to a non getting irate (normal people can have their moments too of course).

I always viewed it as something like this:

www.youtu.be/0Rfi8ZoM5jk

But I now think this might not always be the case. Perhaps some are more subtle and sly and instead use manipulation tactics more?

I have an example from when I visited at Christmas 2 years ago.  My mother had been going through issues with her siblings and dealing with the estate due to the death of her mother.  (They are all disordered in my opinion to varying degrees).  Now, this issue does affect many families, but in mine it was on overdrive.  She was doing her usual complaining and whining about how awful they were, how she was totally right, etc.  Now, we all KNOW she was not totally right!  So, in my unenlightened state, I nicely suggested, "Well, there are two sides to every story."  (Not exactly validating, I know now).

You might as well have told her she was the worst person on earth.  In the middle of the restaurant, she burst into heaving sobs, got an "raging" look in her eyes of hate, and starting saying "you are on THEIR side! you never support me!  you are always against me!"  and so on for far too long.  She was not yelling, but definitely agitated.  I tried meekly to defend myself and get her to SHUT UP because normally rages do not happen in public (she is generally high functioning).  Finally I convinced her it was a general comment and not meant to "take anyone's side" just try and look at it from their perspective (also impossible I now know, due to her uNPD tendencies). 

As you know, it can take a while for BPDs to calm down, she probably didn't for a day or so.  We went to a movie the next day and as it was starting, she said that she realized she had been really angry at her siblings (closest to an apology I will ever get).  Of course it was inappropriate timing to discuss so I said okay, whatever.  Later at home when she got waif-like teary again about her miserable situation, I did mention later that perhaps some therapy might be helpful in working through those anger issues, but as you can guess that fell FLAT.