It seems to be pretty common in the community. It’s also something that you should be concerned about. Hurting yourself or others is never good.

-Kelsi

It used to happen to me a lot…not so much anymore because I have learned tricks and coping methods (and am on meds) that help me not get so angry and explosive.

-Kelsi

It doesn’t have to be for hours. In fact what you describe sounds like Emotional Lability from our Diagnostic Checklist.

It’s quite common for people with BPD to have rapid mood swings so being angry one moment and not the next certainly isn’t unusual. Personally I can be very angry and then fine fifteen minutes later. 

~ Vay

That really depends on you. Different people will have different levels of people they tell. I’ve only told my boyfriend because I live with him, we’re in a long term relationship, and I don’t see any point in letting anyone else know.

I think the danger is there are so many misconceptions about BPD that telling your work about it might not improve matters, but worsen them. It might not? That’s not for me to judge, but for you to.

I think it’s appropriate to tell a counsellor for instance you have BPD so you can work with them fully, but it might not always be due to their biases or perhaps because you just don’t want to go there.

If you lash out at work constantly it might be more appropriate to identify what triggers those reactions, what you could do to manage them (DBT skills), and how to improve your working relationship if there are certain people that trigger that response. It might be there are certain people who piss you off, in which case is there any possibility of limiting your contact with them? 

I hope this helps.

~ Vay

Aggression/violence is not a mandatory part of diagnosis. 

Being easy to anger/hot-tempered is mentioned on the Diagnosis Checklist but these don’t necessarily link to aggression or violence. 

I think you’ll find many people with BPD are not particularly aggressive or violent. It’s a bad stereotype that people with BPD are impossible to get along with because they are so aggressive and sometimes violent. While some people may have problems with relationships due to this (and that doesn’t discredit them in deserving help) it’s not a necessary part of the diagnosis. Just a result that can manifest in some due to contributing symptoms, current situations, past experiences etc. 

There is no way someone can be “too quiet” to have BPD. I’m an extremely quiet person offline but still suffer with all the rapid mood changes, identity disturbances, impulsiveness, black and white thinking, and so on that BPD can entail  It sounds like you unfortunately just encountered someone who had the incorrect stereotype of people with BPD in mind.

Hope this clears things up.

~ Vay

We have a post in our FAQ discussing dealing with anger that might be helpful. 

-Robyn

I struggle with really intense anger too, and I also get that sensation of feeling like I need to rip my skin to shreds because I need to destroy something.

What I do when i feel like that, is I rip paper.  Like I take like 10 sheets of paper all together and try to rip them will all my might.  The more pieces of paper you try and rip at one time, the more force you have to put into it and it is much more satisfying.  And I know it’s wasteful, but it’s better than turning that rage on myself or other people.  So I just rip more and more paper until my rage lessens. 

Another thing I do if I don’t feel like ripping paper, is I will shred fabric.  Just basic, plain cotton fabric, you can rip it with your hands if you just make a small snip at the edge to get you started.  And I just shred that piece of fabric into little strips.  It’s destructive but in a controlled way so that you can get out your anger.  Fabric stores often have remnant sections of small bundles of fabric for cheap so you don’t have to buy expensive stuff.

One other suggestion is aggressive doodling.  Like take a colouring book or a plain piece of paper and just scribble all over it as hard and as messily as you want.  You can also write out your feelings on it, just writing what you’re feeling over top of the last thing you wrote until you have a paper that is totally filled up with scribbles and nothing is legible. Some people suggest doing this on your arms (with non-toxic and water-soluble markers) if your anger is directed at yourself, but I prefer paper because then i can just rip up the paper and throw it away, no clean up necessary. 

This is also a website that when it loads it just looks white and blank, but when you click on it, it’s like breaking a window.  I use this website a lot when I feel like I need to break things.

Those are three techniques I use when my rage is overwhelming me otherwise I end up breaking shit like dishes and that’s not good.  So I hope maybe a couple of these ideas will work for you.

-Pandora