In my experience, it's complicated. For instance, there's "after the fact" empathy, where sometime down the line after you calmed down you realize how you overreacted and start to understand and have empathy for the other person.

It's because usually before a blowup, you feel under attack and you experience immense pain and hypersensitivity- an amalgamation of all the pains of abandonment, rejection, belittlement, betrayal and rage and it's just overwhelming. The intensity and focus on the hurt prevent seeing things clearly and separating the present situation from all the past hurts. You are in so much pain you don't realize exactly what's going on, and the overwhelming and highly personalized response- the counterattack- is so out of proportion that it frightens and really hurts/traumatizes the other person. And it seems the only and automatic way to process that huge cluster**** of emotions that can't be identified but are about to burst out of your body. In that moment it's impossible to have empathy, because your senses, your cognitions, your emotions are all overwhelmed by this reopened wound and the outburst of traumatic ghosts that are trampling you. In these moments, your rage can make you seem like a monster. But it's a knee-jerk, almost reflexive protective mechanism. It's not instrumental or predatory like that of sociopaths. It comes from a real throbbing wound that has been there since childhood.

In other times, your sensitivity heightens your ability to read people's emotions and your desire for connection to people and experiences of pain actually help you have empathy. I don't know if I can say borderlines have more empathy than others. Everyone has their own empathy capacities and in many instances empathy can be learned with maturity, experience and therapy.

That's how I see it, and my self-awareness is the product of over a decade of therapy and ****ing up. Heh.