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://www.BiologicalUnhappiness.com/screen.htm) and BPD criteria ( http://www.BiologicalUnhappiness.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.