Coping skills for BPD are often centered around learning to manage moments of emotional instability and/or control anger. Some techniques to help in these situations could include: Using stress-reduction techniques, like deep breathing or meditation. Engaging in light exercise, like walking or yoga.
Psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy, is the primary treatment approach for borderline personality disorder. Talk therapy for BPD focuses on improving functionality, managing emotions and reducing impulsiveness. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is one approach used for the treatment of BPD.
Intense and sometimes inappropriate rage is a characteristic of borderline personality disorder (BPD). A person with this condition has difficulty regulating their emotions or returning to their baseline. Extremes of rage and other intense emotions may last longer than might be expected, from a few hours to a few days.
A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days.”
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) cannot be cured, and anyone who enters treatment looking for a quick and easy fix is bound to be disappointed. However, with treatment the symptoms of BPD can be effectively managed, monitored, and ultimately reduced in intensity, or entirely eliminated.
It is commonly believed that some features of borderline personality disorder improve as individuals reach their late 30s and 40s.
As with 'classic BPD', you have a deep fear of abandonment, but instead of fighting for attachment in the form of clinginess, in quiet BPD you believe you deserve to be abandoned. The self-loathing can drive you to isolate yourself for days and weeks.
Individuals living with quiet BPD may have decreased levels of empathy, high conflict relationships, clinginess and fear of abandonment, adds Dr. Lira de la Rosa. “The combination of these symptoms can lead to unstable interpersonal relationships, low self-esteem and periods of depression.”
Antipsychotics are widely used in BPD, as they are believed to be effective in improving impulsivity, aggression, anxiety and psychotic symptoms [Nose et al. 2006; American Psychiatric Association, 2001].
Get Moving
Getting out of your head and concentrating on the physicality of moving your body can break the cycle of dark thoughts, maybe long enough to take that first step toward seeking treatment.
Although people with BPD often cycle through their emotions more quickly than people with bipolar disorder, it is possible for someone to experience a very short manic or depressive episode.
Also, BPD patients seem to recall autobiographical, particularly negative events with stronger arousal than healthy controls, while BPD patients also show specific temporo-prefrontal alterations in neural correlates.
Often, the borderline person is unaware of how they feel when their feelings surface, so they displace their feelings onto others as causing them. They may not realise that their feelings belong within them, so they think that their partner is responsible for hurting them and causing them to feel this way.
Findings showed that 73% of BPD subjects engaged in violence during the one-year study period, and frequently exhibited co-morbid antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathic characteristics. Reported violence was mostly characterized by disputes with acquaintances or significant others.
Borderline rage, or borderline anger, is more than just a standard emotional reaction. In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), anger in BPD is described as "inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger."
One explanation for the intolerance of being alone in BPD may be that individuals experience annihilation anxiety [10]. This is a traumatic anxiety based on an actual experience of danger and psychic helplessness [11], reflecting a fear of impending psychic or physical destruction [12].
But with some individuals with BPD, you don't want to get into the habit of allowing certain things such as calls after hours, visits to your home without announcing it, borrowing your things and never returning them, driving your car and keeping it longer than they should, etc.
Their wild mood swings, angry outbursts, chronic abandonment fears, and impulsive and irrational behaviors can leave loved ones feeling helpless, abused, and off balance. Partners and family members of people with BPD often describe the relationship as an emotional roller coaster with no end in sight.