Anger As Communication
Communicating feelings can be one of the most difficult things a person can do. For the BP, it can seem impossible. To communicate feelings honestly, you must first be able to identify them, and then you must be comfortable expressing them.
For many, including some with borderline personality disorder, anger may be the only feeling that they are able to express, and, possibly, the only feeling they recognize having. Everyone has a range of feelings, even if they are are unaware of them. However, people cannot express what they can not identify and/or articulate.
Emotional Vocabulary
In order to identify feelings, a strong emotional vocabulary is needed. This allows people to better understand their feelings and the feelings of others. An emotional vocabulary provides names, definitions, and an understanding of the more subtle feelings involved in human interactions. Very often, BPs do not have a solid emotional vocabulary and experience the world in extremes of good or bad, happy or mad, love or hate.
An emotional vocabulary assists a person in making sense of the language of feelings. Like any language, the greater your vocabulary, the greater your ability to communicate. Imagine being dropped into the middle of a foreign country where you do not speak the language or understand the symbols. Once there, you are supposed to fit in, following all the rules, having relationships, and earning a living – all without knowing the language. At the very least, it is not easy. You would misunderstand and be misunderstood often.
For someone without an emotional vocabulary, relating to others is like trying to communicate, but being unable to speak or understand the language.
Anger’s Role in Communciation
Anger is an emotion that most everyone learns to feel and express from an early age. Anger does not have to be subtle; it often comes on strong and overwhelms.
For those with a limited emotional vocabulary, often the case for the BP, anger may be the only means of communication. It may be the only way to express or experience difficult feelings including fear, rejection, insecurity, disappointment, frustration, anxiety, and shame. In the best of situations, anger can be easier to access, easier to express than other emotions. Anger can be expressed without feeling vulnerable, and, for the BP, vulnerability is not safe.
Alone In Anger
Anger can be safest feeling to experience and express, yet also the loneliest. For the BP, anger can be isolating. It often seems to come out of nowhere, exploding into a rage. Furious, the BP accuses and threatens, unable to be calmed. As soon as it appears, the anger is often gone; it is as if the anger never existed.
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When Jeanette and the group they were out with changed the planned restaurant, Jeanette’s sister, Pam, became furious. Despite this being a group decision, Pam insisted that it was not what everyone wanted, but that Jeanette was inserting her own plan. In the midst of her anger, Pam threatens to go home, but the group is content to change plans and go on without her. Pam silently follows them into the restaurant. She stews in her anger for almost an hour while everyone else, used to her angry outbursts, enjoys their meal and the company. As suddenly as her anger came, it goes away and Pam starts enjoying the dinner and her companions as if nothing had happened.
It seems ironic that the BP’s anger pushes people away when that is precisely what so many BP’s fear. Then again, the anger is often the only way the BP can communicate fear or disappointment.
