- Why Do I Wake Up In A Rage?
QUESTION:
Dr. Heller, There’s a side of me that I’ve never seen until I had kids, and I scare myself. Following a night of interrupted sleep, I have ZERO tolerance and patience with my kids, which may be normal, but in an unexpected split second I can become so filled with rage over something little, and all my beliefs and good conscience are gone. I’ve never known myself to be so explosive before and I scare myself as well as my kids. During these fits of rage I want to hurt my kids even though I normally would think any person hurting a child is horrible – but I have VERY little self control at these times that I’m not thinking the same way as I always have. These occasions are not often, but enough. This only follows bad sleep. What’s going on and what can be done? Please help.
ANSWER:
The most likely explanations are the borderline disorder and temporal or fronto-temporal lobe epilepsy. I’d recommend looking at the screening test ( http://pks.947.myftpupload.com/screen.htm) and BPD criteria ( http://pks.947.myftpupload.com/DSM.htm). You definitely need to let your physician know what’s going on. A sleep study and psychiatric and/or neurological evaluation may be warranted.
