Developing BPD: Part VII – Rage

The current nine criteria, in no particular order, are as follows:

1. Unclear and/or unstable shifting self-image/identity.
2. Unstable interpersonal relationships; marked by patterns of alternating between idolization and devaluation of others.
3. Mood swings that can elevate to feelings of euphoria rather than happiness and despair rather than sadness.
4. Chronic impulsive and self-destructive behaviours (not including suicidal tendencies or self-harm as indicated as its own criterion) including, but not limited to: spending, sex, reckless driving or stunts, binge eating.
5. Intense fear of rejection and/or abandonment, whether real or perceived.
6. Recurrent or patterns of self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicidal tendencies.
7. Explosive anger.
8. Feelings of emptiness.
9. Loss of touch with reality; patterns of dissociation.

The seventh criterion: Explosive anger

Okay, so this one I may need some outside help with because I don’t actually have issues with rage.

Wait, let me rephrase that. I, personally, do not rage.

I actually have many issues with rage, but it’s mostly with other people’s rage, not mine.

In fact, I rarely get angry, let alone rage. And usually when I do get angry, I cry.

My experience with rage is mostly from my mom and my brother (and later an ex-boyfriend), but mostly, and in my developing years, it was my mom and my brother.

My mom and my brother did not get angry, they raged. They raged with an expertise that made me cry without even trying. I fear rage more that I fear death because of them.

They made me so in tune to rage, that even on a packed subway or on a crowded street (pretty much anywhere), I can see someone flinch the wrong way, or hear the tone in someone’s voice start to peak, and I will automatically go on alert. It’s not exactly a skill, but it is highly tuned, thanks to my family.

So I can’t speak to how explosive rage feels as a part of BPD. It is the single criterion that I do not have.

Yay me.

Because I don’t personally rage, I don’t want to speculate on what it feels like for someone who does experience it. Or why they may have developed it. I can guess why rage would develop, but really I don’t know.

I can tell you that part of why I don’t rage is because of what I saw and experienced with my mom and my brother. The way they would rage instilled a fear in me of rage, and even anger, that I still hold to this day. It is considerably less with some of the recovery I’ve done but I can still feel a twinge of fear in my chest when anyone arounds me starts to exhibit anger.

For those who may be looking here for how explosive rage might develop I am sorry to disappoint you.

The Absence of Alarm

Anger scares me. A lot. In fact, it terrifies me. It has for years. Thanks to my mom and my brother who both turned to anger when, and if, they showed an emotion. And it scared me.

Actually, to be honest, they didn’t show anger as much as they showed rage. Things would always get very yell-y and confrontational and on more than one occasion, things would get physical. And yes, I mean abuse.

For years whenever I would be around anger, whether my family or total strangers, I would automatically freeze and put myself on alert. I could be at the grocery store, at a restaurant, on the bus, it doesn’t matter if I hear that lilt that the voice makes when things are starting to get heated, my anger antenna has already zeroed in on the pending confrontation and as duly notified my fight-flight-freeze system.

Since I have had more than thirty years of practice with this radar, it has become very finely tuned. I could probably tell you things are getting heated between any two people even before they realize it.

In some ways, this sensitivity has been a blessing because it has kept me away, and relatively safe (most of the time) from my family and even some strangers when things are starting to get heated. Avoiding any conflict and some physical danger. It’s not 100% foolproof but it’s helped more times than I can count.

It has also been a curse because it has significantly contributed to my chronic anxiety and my vagus nerve dysfunction. That’s what being around angry, yelling people on a daily basis for almost thirty years does to a person.

The other downside is that it has made me terrified anger. Anyone’s anger, including my own. I’m pretty sure I do get angry but I couldn’t tell you for sure because I shut it down as fast as I can. Without fail. I may not be able to shut down my brother, or my mom (when she was here), or anyone else’s, but I can sure as hell make sure I shit down mine.

I’m glad that this means I don’t get enraged very easily (CRA is an exception to this because nothing induces rage in me like CRA does), but I digress.

I’m working on accepting my own anger, thanks to DBT. And as I learn what anger looks like, as opposed to rage, and even managing my reaction to it better, it has led to a surprising byproduct that I hadn’t expected.

My radar, while still on and checking things out, does not automatically switch to high alert the moment a hint of anger is detected. I have been on the bus a few times when someone got angry, with someone else, and for the first time in more than thirty years, I did not automatically freeze.

For a moment I was shocked. Was my radar broken? Had it finally reached its peak and couldn’t detect anymore? Maybe. I consciously scanned the environment and myself, looking for the telltale signs that I was freezing-the teeth grinding, the tense jaw muscles and shoulders, the flutter in my chest that I may need to evacuate the area at a moment’s notice, and yet things were mostly okay.

Muscles were tense but not the sharp tension I feel when someone angry is around. And the flutter in my chest was not there.

And then it hit me, was I okay that someone was angry? Was I actually not feeling a threat? At least not a personal threat. Was that possible?

The truth is, I didn’t believe it. As I got off the bus, I assumed that there was some other explanation I had not responded when someone in my vicinity had gotten angry. Maybe I was really tired. Maybe I was getting sick. Maybe I was having a super off day with my radar; something that had not ever happened even once before, in more than thirty years of surveillance and practice.

It couldn’t possibly be that I was “okay” with anger. Nope. That momentary flash I’d had, thinking maybe I was okay with it had to be a delusion. Had to be.

And then it happened again. I was out somewhere and someone in my vicinity got angry with another person and my body remained quiet. And then it happened again. And again. And again. And again.

More than several times now I had not gone into freeze mode, preparing myself for an impending threat when anger was around.

Maybe I was becoming okay with it. Maybe I was starting to be around someone who was angry (not with me), and I didn’t have to prepare myself. I didn’t have to protect myself.

Of course, when someone does become angry with me, my radar kicks in as fast as ever, and I’m working on being able to be around it without freezing or shutting down. But if anger is around, and not directed at me, or someone I’m with, I actually am okay with it.

It doesn’t set off my alarm bells. It doesn’t put my body in a state of extreme tension. It doesn’t set my mind to watch for the nearest exits. It doesn’t scare me. Not the way used to. And I’m starting to get used to it. It’s really nice to not be on constant alert and perpetually terrified because prior to this I encountered anger in a lot of places. Like a lot. It was everywhere. Seriously.

On buses and subways. In restaurants. At grocery stores and department stores. At the movies. On the street. Getting coffee. Just everywhere, someone was mad about something. And so I was constantly frozen. Waiting and watching.

It has been a pleasant experience so far, and I can only hope that when anger is directed at me I will learn to handle it and not shut down. For the first time in my life, I will not be living in constant fear. I highly recommend it.

DBT Individual: Anger

I learned something new in my individual session. All my life I have been afraid of anger, particularly other people’s. I am so terrified of the anger of other people that even two strangers arguing on the street will immediately make my chest tighten. I will feel butterflies in my stomach, and I will most likely hold my breath until one of us moves on from the spot.

I hate anger. I hate confrontation. I don’t like my own anger either. But the real fear is of other people’s anger. No matter where I am or what the anger is about. Terrified. Seriously. It could be something as small as a pissed customer in a restaurant who got the wrong order, or a pissed driver cut off in traffic, up to and including bar brawls, or any kind of physical altercation.

Frankly I don’t see what purpose anger serves other than to damage, bruise, or wound, or all of the above. And to me, those don’t seem like very good reasons to have anger around.

This was briefly discussed in my individual therapy with my DBT therapist/coach, and she pointed something out to me that floored me.

To set the scene: I was discussing my intense fear of anger. Even in the office with her, just discussing it, I felt uneasy, and didn’t want to talk about it. But she encouraged me to go on. So I was talking about when my mother would get angry with me or my brother she would yell, slap, spank, and probably give the silent treatment thereafter. I then mentioned about when my brother, very much like my mother, gets angry he swears, throws, punches, and once he grabbed me by the throat. He has put holes in walls, doors and at least two pieces of two different game consoles, both damaged by his anger, including one game, to the point that the pieces ceased working and needed to be replaced. He has bruised me on multiple occasions when we were young but mostly to my arms. And finally I mentioned there was my ex who preferred to communicate with me by yelling, screaming, berating, degrading, slapping, and punching, and who has also grabbed me by the throat at one point as well.

It was in the midst of this that my therapist asked me if my husband ever got mad. To which I had to stop and think for a moment. Did he get mad? Well, of course. everyone gets angry at some point. She asked me how does he express his anger, and again I had to stop and think. How does he express his anger? I had to stop and think when was the last time I saw him angry, how did he act? Well, he swore a few times, he vented out, his voice was tense, his hands a little clenched, his brow frowning. But that was about it. So I asked her, why do you ask?

And you know what she said to me? I couldn’t believe it. She says to me that it was no wonder I feared anger because what I had actually experienced for some twenty-odd years or more, with my mom, my brother, and then my ex was actually rage. Not anger. Rage. And often violent rage at that.

I stared at her, slightly confused. What was the difference exactly?

She patiently explained to me that from my childhood until my early adult years I had experienced or witnessed rage not anger. Anytime, any of them got angry, because this wasn’t to say they shouldn’t get angry, but that when they expressed their anger, it was seriously disproportionate to the event that caused them to get angry.

I beg your pardon?

People are free to feel anger and to express it but there is a healthy, proportionate way for it to be handled, and thus far I had experienced that they didn’t handle it at all. They blew it up, literally and figuratively. They turned to rage; violent, property damaging, limbs bruising, derogatory comments, total exclusion and ostracization, and loss of consciousness rage. Was she sure? Was this new? Were others aware of this?

She reiterated that, yes, she was sure, and no it wasn’t new. What my husband exhibited was actually closer to healthy anger than anything I had ever witnessed before with my mom, brother, and my ex.

She was right. It was no wonder I feared anger.

I honestly couldn’t believe what she told me. How had I not known this? How had I gone all these years and not realized that I actually didn’t know what healthy expressions of anger looks like? When I see someone get angry, I imagine volatile outbursts are just around the corner, and the situation will most likely will turn violent. Like every situation where anger is involved sits on a thin precipice, only moments from turning into a blowout, and someone getting hurt. I couldn’t, and in some ways still can’t, imagine someone getting angry and not freaking out, calling me names, resorting to violence, and shutting me completely out of their life.

I see. Well that’s a bit if a surprise.

Have other people heard of this?