It is a huge revelation to realize no matter how personal an attack, nothing a person with a Cluster B personality or Borderline Personality Disorder does or says is truly personal. As a matter of fact, their rage, lies, nastiness, personality flips, and manipulations are simply outward manifestations of an inner compulsive urge to (for better or for worse) keep themselves in control of the tempo of everyone else’s emotional support while they keep themselves in the spotlight.
Ultimately, when a person with BPD chooses to rage, it is literally a choice. Able to control their own emotions of anger but preferring to, the narcissistic person with Borderline chooses to rage to intimidate, degrade, and humiliate other people in a compulsive attempt to make themselves feel in control and all-powerful.
Once you start to ID this stuff, no matter how hard they huff and puff, it’s hard to see them in the scary “big bad wolf” role. Heck — it’s even to see them as the Great Wizard of Oz — the man behind the curtain pulling the strings efficiently.
When and if you start to feel insulted or put upon by them, in fear for your personal safety or the safe treatment of your personal possessions, or are just plain disconcerted over witnessing one of their world-famous, verbally hellish temper tantrums, stop and take a deep breath. Ask yourself quietly in your mind’s eye a few key questions.
First of all, ask yourself questions like “Are they dangerous?” or is my personal property or my physical body in harm’s way right now?
Then, prepare to get real.
If you are dealing with a person who has BPD or any sort of narcissistic temperament, the most likely answer to that question is, “Yes!”
Ask yourself, “Are they worth the time to let emotionally devastate generations of families while this personality disorder stuff perpetuates?”
That is the crux of the call any adult child (or adult sibling) of a person with any personality disorder has to make. It’s not about hoping and wondering if the narcissistic and self-centered, emotionally domineering, and erratic predator can be saved. Literally, when people who have been raised around toxic personalities and have not gotten help as young adults to learn how to save themselves or people with personality disorders are involved in a social dynamic, whether it be home, school, or work matters not.
What is important to consider is the physiological and psychological effects of being forced to endure being targeted or having to witness abuse dished out without remorse by the emotional vampire. Truly, attention-seeking predators, the only way to protect yourself from the harm of their soul-sucking bite is to go gray rock.
Once they figure out their gig is up, watch how quickly they begin splitting and smear campaigning against you while claiming false victimization. Above all else, people with Cluster B personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder are, if nothing else, predictable.
Children and adult children of people with Borderline suffer the worst. Spouses and/or romantic interests suffer a close second. Parents of adult children with BPD who are forced to live with them during their senior years also find themselves frequently targeted for blamestorming, narcissistic rage, and betrayal by backstabbing smear campaigns, false gossip, and public ridicule.
If you tend to minimize abuse by claiming they had a valid reason to lash out, overreact, or rage over some imagined or perceived narcissistic injury, think again. People with BPD are one of the few true Cluster B personality types that have the ability to learn how to properly display or efficiently control emotions.
How do psychologists and psychiatrists know for sure? It’s actually pretty easy to figure out.
Watch how they act in the presence of a real authority figure or witness who they know will refuse to lie for them or help hid abusive behaviors. If they have the ability to control themselves in front of a judge, a policeman, or a school official, they have complete ability to prevent themselves from raging in front of friends, family, and their own children, too.
Totally selfish to the core, most refuse treatment. Instead, they chose to rage whenever the mood strikes — which is regularly throughout the day. For them, they are simply blowing off emotional steam. The problem is, they have little to no care or concern for who their ugly and self-indulgent fits of rage actually harm. They could care less about who they hurt because, in their minds, everyone else is to blame.
Abuse — to them — is something their closest friends and family (as well as random strangers) deserve.
If you have not stopped feeling sorry for them yet, understand there is more about their personality disorder to consider.
BPD is a treatable condition with shown differences in brain function. They do have the ability to get help and self-regulate.
NPD and BPD are truly nothing more than personality TYPES.
The core of their personalities will never change.
Going gray rock is a huge help for victims who elect to continue to suffer abuse. Going low to no contact keeps you physically, mentally, and emotionally safe. Psychology Today shares, “As you know, people with BPD are emotionally unstable. Nearly all emotions go up and down, but anger is the one that others find most hard to take…”, noting the damage on family members of people with BPD is life-changing.
Why do people with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to rage overtly on and off at various times throughout the day, seemingly with little to no provocation? “Their intense and annihilating anger comes from believing that others don’t care about them, are not listening to them, or are not meeting their core needs. Their pain is your punishment…” says the psychology news source.
Sadly, the quote summarizes what it feels like to be a victim of a person with BPD quite efficiently. Your pain is their goal to create in order to make themselves feel powerful and in control of both themselves and others no matter how petty, small, or insignificant the way.
Ultimately, their dysfunction is rooted in egocentric behavior. Narcissists with full-blown NPD, narcissistic people, and people with anti-social personality disorders also tend to indulge their own emotional bodies without remorse.
None seem to exhibit any awareness of or connection to the very real fact they are choosing to act with a deviant sense of entitlement whenever they see fit to rage. People with Cluster B personality types like Borderline Personality Disorder [or BPD] both act with a misguided sense of entitlement whenever they pitch a fit, throw temper tantrums that rival those of even the angriest or most attention-seeking toddler, lash out at others, or callously yell and scream at strangers and passersby whenever they experience road rage.
