Tag Archives: borderline personality disorder

Pot…kettle…karma!

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pot_kettle

In 1996 and again in 1997 I was hospitalized for episodes of clinical depression and near-psychotic, self destructive behavior.   For several years I’d had severe mood swings, shifting from near-mania to near-catatonic depression.  During these depressions I’d sleep all day, not even bothering to eat some days.   I was sure I had Bipolar Disorder, but it turned out I didn’t have that.    The first hospital stay was where I first got my BPD diagnosis.  I was also diagnosed with Major Depression, alcohol abuse (not alcoholism), and PTSD.

My sociopathic MN ex loved to use these diagnoses against me, especially the BPD one.  I guess he already knew BPD had a terrible reputation.   He used this diagnosis to demean me and discount anything I said, and also used it to turn our friends against me.   He’d always say things like:

“No one will take you seriously because you’re certifiably crazy, even the doctors say you are crazy!”

“You have BPD and we all know all Borderlines lie and can’t tell the truth more than they can tell their mouth from their a-hole”

“You’re a Borderline which means everything you say is a delusion and a lie.”

“No one believes you because you’re batshit crazy and even have the BPD diagnosis to prove it.”

Years later, after being arrested for domestic violence and public drunkenness (he had a pillhead girlfriend at this time), he was diagnosed with both NPD and ASPD, which makes him a certified Malignant Narcissist.   I find the irony of that pretty funny.  I wouldn’t trade my BPD diagnosis for his in a million years.

My DD calls me a narcissist, but is it her or me, of both of us?

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momanddaughter_argue

From a text conversation I had with DD this morning:

Me: Do you want to go to the pool today?

DD: I will lyk (let you know) in a few, I’m trying to find a way to cough up $50+ for Weston’s (best friend’s 2 year old son) birthday present ugggh

Me:  Cool, but you do remember you forgot to even get me a card or anything on Mothers Day

DD:  Wow, it’s always all about you isn’t it.  You can be such a selfish c__t.

Me: Really? You are the one being a you know what.  And you know how I feel about that word.  Your father always liked to call me that.  I am sorry you are depressed or whatever but I would like an apology.  I am tired of you treating me like crap.

DD: WTF are you talking about?  I’m trying to sleep for a few and I care about that child,  hence why I am getting him something nice for his birthday but since your selfish ways won’t permit me to get him anything nice I’ll spend the rest of my money on YOU so stop worrying.

Me: Just read my last message.  I hate how you talk to me. 

DD: Honestly, you are too self absorbed to realize that I care about that child and want to spend money on him but since your selfish ways exactly what I just said are getting in the way of me doing that, don’t you worry I’m not going to buy him a damn thing, instead I’ll buy you everything!  That was pretty much what I just said 3 minutes ago so I know how I sound, I am always nice to you and you just have to call me up telling me not to spend money on a two year old because how dare I not get something for you, God forbid. Don’t talk to me the rest of the day, I am not in the mood for you. 

Me: Don’t be ridiculous.  You didn’t spend one penny on a gift for me but went all out for your dad on his birthday, getting him 20 things, and guess what. I have feelings and that hurts…it’s called having feelings and not being selfish.  It’s like I mean nothing to you.  Sorry you’re in one of your bitch-moods.   I still want to go to the pool with you today. 

DD: Money is a really important issue in your life, isn’t it.  Actually that’s a dumb question because I know it’s pretty much your whole life.  So I am so so so so so so sorry about not spending thousands of dollars on you, God forbid that you never pay me back that $5000 [for the record, she never loaned me $5,000]  but I’ not going to bring that up am I?

Me: You just did, and you and I both know you never loaned me that sum of money. 

DD: Whatever. I haven’t slept, I’ve been stressed, I have no money ever, I have a job I hate, I hate my life and you want to call me at 7 in the morning and say we’re going to be late to the pool and they don’t open til 10.   I probably will not be joining you today we can go another day nut I do not want to see you today to be honest.  Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, just means I don’t like you right now. I stayed up all night now I need to get some sleep

Me: (replying to an earlier message–I had not got her last text yet):   Why are you being so mean? Go back to sleep.

DD: I’m going to sleep.  I forgot it was Fathers Day too. Now both my self absorbed parents are mad at me now because I haven’t bought them a gift. So excuse me for not spending money on you, too bad, bye.

Me: Even if you had only made a Mothers Day card-it’s not about the money, like I keep telling you, it’s the thought.   Anyway, I think when you get up later you should apologize because you were really mean to me and hurt my feelings. 

DD: I think you should apologize for waking me up, keeping me on the phone to argue, and self diagnosing me when you’re not a licensed therapist [where did I diagnose her in this convo?] so please keep your opinions to yourself.  You’re not getting an apology, I always apologize, this is your turn.  So this is the last time I’m going to tell you.  I am not going to answer any more from you so please do not text me again. 

Me: I am texting again because I still want  to take you to the pool. I will be there at 12:30. I also want to say this for you to think about.  If I consistently always forgot your birthday  but always remembered everyone else’s, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be hurt, I know you would.  You need to grow some empathy.  And I was not diagnosing you, where do you see a diagnosis?   But I did see that you called me “self absorbed” which is kind of a diagnosis, isn’t it?   I just wanted you to know that I feel like I’m unimportant to you, so it isn’t about the money at all.  You know I’m not the materialistic type.

There were no more replies after this.

Reading this back over, I think both of us were acting like narcissists.

DD was using the old tactic of “all or nothing” (a form of splitting), eg, “you complain that I didn’t get you a gift–even a cheap $1 gift–so that means you’re materialistic and only care about money.”     Also she was the one who started the name calling by calling me a c__t (knowing how I feel about that word).   She also lied (telling me she loaned me $5000 when it was only $1000 and I paid most of that back). It’s true–she did completely forget about Mother’s Day (claiming she was broke), but still went out and spent $100 for her father on his birthday which was the same week.   It’s not the money that was spent, it was that I felt like he was important to her and I was not (and maybe that’s partly true).     She was also projecting her own self centeredness onto me (although I think we were both being pretty self centered).  Of course, she has heard a lot from her father (my MN ex) too, about my alleged narcissism.  Then she lied a second time, accusing me of diagnosing her when in fact I was not.

In her favor, I know she’s been depressed lately and she’s quick to anger when depressed, but sometimes when she’s like this I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.  It was early and I probably got her up when she was half asleep.

On my side, I did use guilt-tripping on her and kept belaboring the same issue even after she said she wanted to go back to sleep.

In conclusion, I don’t think either of us approached this argument in a healthy or mature way.   For the record, she has also been diagnosed with BPD and PTSD, and she is symptomatic a lot.  Put two Borderlines together (even when one is recovering) and there’s always going to be drama because all kinds of stuff gets triggered.   But I’m never prepared for it when it happens.   I feel kind of horrible now, but should I apologize to her anyway even though she was at least half wrong?

Anyway, this is the beauty of text messaging.  You can go back over a conversation later and analyze it in a way you can never do with a spoken conversation.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams (cover)–“BPD” cover.

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Ted Giffin, a musician, said he read my earlier post from today that compared the lyrics of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and this arrangement of the song was inspired by that post.

My comments about his version:

I like this arrangement-the melody sounds slightly “off” but in a way I think you intended. It does seem as if there is more than one voice all kind of at war with each other, and there seems to be a scattered kind of feeling and some kind of extraneous “noise” like the noise that goes on in the head of a triggered Borderline (or person with CPTSD/PTSD). I think this is what you intended…anyway, I think this is a really interesting version and the vocals are good.

You can listen to Ted’s arrangement on his blog post.  Enjoy!

6/6/16:  Ted just posted the music video:

https://tedgiffin.com/2016/06/06/boulevard-of-broken-dreams-video/

tedgiffin's avatarArtist- Ted Giffin - Musician

I was surfing the internet today checking out blog posts.
I came across one that made me think of the Green Day Song called
‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, in an entirely new light.
The thought was that the lyrics were an accurate expression of
the internal experiences of someone who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder.
I have had friends who struggle with the affliction.
So I tried to sing the song from that vantage point.
To see the post, that inspired my version. Visit:
https://luckyottershaven.com/2016/06/05/monday-melody-boulevard-of-broken-dreams-green-day/

Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I…

View original post 198 more words

Why I changed my blog’s description.

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I just changed this blog’s header description slightly.  It now says “Confessions of a Recovering Borderline.”  There are two good reasons for this.

  1. This blog has always has been (and probably always will be) confessional in nature.
  2. In my last session, my therapist gave me some more information about my current diagnosis (he said he had to think about it for awhile before he was sure).  The verdict is that I used to have BPD but no longer qualify for that label!   How cool is that! This is a huge, HUGE deal for me.     I wrote more about it in this post, which I decided not to put on this blog.  Blogging (among other things) had a lot to do with this “impossible” achievement.  Now I just have residual PTSD (actually C-PTSD if you’re not a DSM purist, which he is not, thank goodness) and that’s what I’m still working through and imagine I will be for some time.

I wanted to keep BPD somewhere in the blog’s header but don’t want to misrepresent myself by calling myself something  that no longer applies.  So that’s why I changed it a little.   Like me, this blog has been through many changes since I started it in September 2014, and it will keep growing and evolving with me.   I have no plans to ever take it down.

 

Triggered.

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Depression (1)

Some days are better than others. Overall, they are getting better and better, but there are days where I feel like I took three steps back and get trapped in my old toxic emotional thinking patterns. At those times I feel like I’m trapped inside a dark, moldy prison with no one but my own demons to talk to and will never be able to escape. I know that’s not true, and tomorrow will probably be better, but right now, at this moment, I’m in immense emotional pain.  I feel like if I died and went to hell, it wouldn’t much worse than this. I can’t just turn the pain off with a switch, the way the narcissists in my life seemed to expect me to be able to do.

I got triggered. At least I know what the trigger is. Today is my daughter’s birthday, and we were planning to drive up into the mountains and have lunch together. She was supposed to be here around 10 AM. But by eleven AM I still hadn’t heard from her. I began to panic and imagine some kind of catastrophe befell her, the way I always do because the world has always seemed incredibly dangerous to me and no one can be trusted.     You never know when you’re going to get bad news or when the other shoe will drop.  It’s a horrible way to live and I definitely don’t recommend it.   But it’s in my programming.   People think I’m nuts but I can’t help being this way.   It’s hard to change the programming.

Around noon, I finally got hold of her and she hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. She was hung over from a night of partying and she was also depressed. All I could think about was myself and what SHE was doing to ME. I told her I’d been looking forward to this and I’d taken the day off work to spend with her. She told me I was putting her on a guilt trip and she was right–I was. I apologized and told her to try to have a nice day and we’d get together another time. But I still felt triggered  and ornery.  I’d written a nice, positive post this morning about the fun day I was anticipating having with her, and what a great daughter she was, but I couldn’t bear to keep it up, so I removed it.

I spent the rest of the day alternately feeling sorry for myself and being angry. I did nothing but sit on the couch, switching channels mindlessly but not really watching anything, and poking around online but not really paying much attention to what I was looking at. I tried to read a little, but couldn’t focus and would keep reading the same sentence over and over, not comprehending the words. I yelled at my cat for no good reason. I snapped at my housemate. I thought about how much my life and everything in it sucks and how I’m not getting any younger and will probably be dead in the next 25 or 30 years with nothing to show for it.   I thought about how most people my age and even much younger are doing much better than me emotionally, financially, and every other way. They have healthy, real relationships because they were given the emotional tools to have those things.  My programming cut me off from having access to those things.   Of course I was constantly reminded of my inferiority by my unsupportive narcissistic family (I was rejected and labeled “the black sheep” for my failure to attain the “success” in life my very programming denied me) until I cut off almost all contact with them.  I was cruelly told to “sink or swim” but never given any swimming lessons and in fact spent most of my childhood with my head forcefully held under the water. That’s the sort of mindfuck you get when you’re the child of narcissists. You can’t win. You can only lose–and then you’re callously blamed for it. Sometimes you’re even disowned for it. I’ve been treading water–barely–for years, in constant fear of drowning.

The rain stopped and the sun is shining but I have no motivation to even go sit outside on the porch. All I want to do is stew in self pity and self hatred. Why? What good does it do? I hate it. Angry and bitter? You bet. But I refuse to drown in those feelings because I still hold onto hope that I can be a real person someday. I won’t give up on me, even though the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally did.

Finally I got a call from my daughter apologizing to me. She was crying. I felt so terrible. She told me how depressed she was and it sounded a lot like my own depression. She was talking about all the bad choices she’s made. She feels badly because some friends she went to school with are starting families or are getting advanced degrees or have careers and she has none of those things. But she’s just 23.  She blames herself. I could relate. I tried to be empathetic and not think about the way I feel very much in the same boat–only I’m a lot older and don’t have my whole life ahead of me or the options she still does. I assured her that she may be a late bloomer but that she is blooming and to be patient with herself. I may never be a perfect mom, but I will never give up on her or abandon her the way my family did to me, because it’s not something you ever get over. It ruins you. It murders your soul. I won’t let her soul be murdered.

Sorry this post wasn’t more upbeat. But I’m just really depressed today and needed to write about it. It doesn’t help to keep this crap inside.  

Where did BPD stigma come from?

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stigma_truth

In recent years, BPD has earned a very disagreeable stigma, so disagreeable that people who have a BPD diagnosis are refused treatment, being told they cannot get better or feared by professionals who might treat them. NPD too, hasn’t always been as demonized as it is right now. NPD and BPD have become almost interchangeable in the narc-abuse community. I don’t recall it being that way in 1996 when I got my BPD diagnosis, and I don’t remember ever being told I was hopeless or unredeemable or evil or anything like that. I was treated pretty much like any other psychiatric patient, and was given therapy and put on antidepressants. I was obliged to take a DBT class, which at the time I blew off. (DBT is like CBT but exclusive to Borderlines–and it does work. The fact it worked for me makes me think maybe I *did* have BPD but no longer do!)

BPD was always classified as a Cluster B disorder, ever since its introduction into the DSM in 1980 (it was recognized, however, for much longer than that, and popularized as a disorder in the 1960s because of the research of Otto Kernberg, a German psychologist who studied “the narcissistic and borderline personalities,” and other “disorders of the self.”).* All “Cluster B” means really is the person has a weak, fragmented or nonexistent sense of self. Not being able to access a “true self” means they become either cut off from or cannot regulate their emotions. One of the results of this is a lack of empathy (but BPDs are the most empathetic of all the B’s, and some have normal levels of empathy). In NPD, a strong false self takes the place of the true one, which is a very dissociative symptom. In BPD, there’s not a strong false self like with NPD, but there is a weak and unstable one, and the person isn’t ALWAYS showing that false self. Some BPDs act quite a bit like over-emotional or unstable narcissists (or narcissists in the midst of a breakdown due to loss of supply). Others act like covert narcissists or just act neurotic and insecure but are otherwise nice people. Some feel their emotions too much, including empathy. A few are antisocial. I’m not sure why BPD (and maybe NPD) isn’t classified as a dissociative disorder, because essentially the person is cut off from their “self” in some form or another and that is what dissociation means. I’m not sure what the mechanics are in ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) but they are very different from either Borderlines or narcissists because they aren’t dependent on others to boost their weak egos. They are psychopathic and just do what they want.

bpd_stigma_quote

So the Cluster B’s, including BPD, were already around, but until the mid-1990s, no one thought of them as anything but mental illnesses or for ASPD, a kind of “adult conduct disorder.” They were psychiatric labels and nothing more. The narc abuse community started in 1995 or so, and Sam Vaknin was pretty much the first one online who wrote about it. Of course, he has NPD but even so, he first called attention to the “evil”-ness of NPD/narcissism (actually it was M. Scott Peck but at the time he wrote “People of the Lie” in 1983, the term “malignant narcissism” wasn’t in vogue yet and there was no connection of “evil people” to people with NPD. There was also no Internet to spread Peck’s concepts like wildfire the way they could have been in 1995 and later. But over time, M. Scott Peck’s book has become one of the most popular in the narc-abuse community) After Vaknin established his online narcissistic abuse community and wrote his popular book “Malignant Self-Love,” more narc-abuse sites got established (many or most of them started by victims, who were understandably angry at the narcissists who had abused them). Soon “narcs are evil” became a sort of meme, and by association, so did all the Cluster B disorders earn a “evil” reputation.

There are benefits to this, of course. Victims are being more heard than ever before. People are paying attention and avoiding narcissistic abusers. But some people who carry a Cluster B label are being hurt too, especially Borderlines (or people–usually women–who were erroneously diagnosed with it). Some experts want to get rid of BPD and just re-label BPD as Complex PTSD (probably not a bad idea). There are MANY similarities. The vast majority of BPDs are not anything like malignant narcissists and are not sociopathic at all. Most just act extremely insecure, needy, and maybe “high maintenance.” They can be manipulative or act out to avoid rejection. They may collude with people with NPD, however. But it’s possible to find these same types of behaviors in many people with Complex PTSD. Are they actually the same thing?

Another reason for the BPD stigma could be the tendency for narcissists and borderlines to form partnerships or be attracted to each other. In such a pairing, the Borderline is almost always the abused or codependent partner. In several “couple killings,” one of the criminal partners, usually the female, has had a BPD diagnosis. But they may have been so brainwashed by their abusers they were coerced into colluding with them against others (a form of Stockholm Syndrome).

Finally, a number of high profile criminals and serial killers have labels of NPD or BPD. But they almost always also have a comorbid ASPD diagnosis. Media icons like Joan Crawford who were known to scapegoat their children also had a BPD diagnosis. In Crawford’s case, she was also diagnosed with HPD (Histrionic Personality Disorder). It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she had NPD (malignant) or ASPD as well, as her behavior was very sociopathic behind closed doors.

Why am I “defending” people with BPD if I don’t have it?  Several reasons:

  1.  I was diagnosed with it and carried that diagnosis for two decades.   I have personally experienced being rejected by therapists once they saw my “red letter” on paper.
  2. Just because my current therapist thinks I don’t have it doesn’t mean I don’t.  Or maybe I did have it and no longer do.  If I no longer have it, that means BPDs are not “hopeless.”
  3. Maybe BPD isn’t a valid diagnosis.
  4. Many people I have cared about who were slapped with “BPD” have been hurt by it.

These are just my rambling thoughts about this matter; I’d be interested in hearing your opinions.

* Timeline of BPD

Another brick in the wall…nuked!

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crumbling-wall

How do I even begin? What happened tonight in my therapy session was a little thing, objectively speaking, really a very little thing. But to me it was a huge, HUGE deal, maybe even a breakthrough of some sort.

I refuse to write a separate post about this, but when I got home from work, my mother called. She had gotten my phone number through my son and I took the call because it was coming from a New York phone and my mother lives in Illinois so I had no idea who it was. Normally I don’t take phone calls if I can’t tell who’s calling but for some reason I took it this time. When I heard her voice, it was like being transported back to being a five year old again. All my mindfulness skills and everything I know about narcissism and No Contact went flying out the window.  I won’t go into detail because nothing of any consequence was said. She told me she just wanted to hear my voice and proceeded to ask a bunch of personal questions. I felt like she was checking up on me for her own benefit, which is probably the case. I put on my fake-nice act and answered her questions as politely as I could, telling her nothing too personal, and finally made an excuse about having a sore throat (which is actually true because I’m still sick) and had to get off the phone.

I brought up the phone call in therapy. I asked my therapist (rhetorically) why I can’t just tell her to bug off. Rationally I know nothing would happen if I did that. I know she’s read my blog so surely she knows how I feel about her. Sure, she might get mad, but really why should I care? What could she do to me? Nothing! He suggested (correctly) that I was programmed from an early age to always respond to her in a certain manner, and that programming is hard to break, and that’s what’s making it so hard for me. I started laughing about the idea of myself being a computer that could be programmed. I looked at him and told him to debug me. He laughed at that, but really it wasn’t funny. I felt a little hysterical.

I’m always a little more emotionally labile when I’m ill, and so this illness he gave me last week acted as a kind of emotional lubricant–or maybe I was just ready and what I’m about to describe was going to happen anyway.

I said I was tired of talking about my mother and I wanted to talk about my transference feelings instead. It’s what I’d been planning to talk about but my mother, even in my therapy sessions, always has a way of drawing all the attention to herself and I wasn’t going to let that happen tonight.   Recently we have been meeting twice a week instead of once a week, but I won’t be able to afford to do that for too much longer, or at least for the next few weeks. I explained hard it is for me to only be able to meet him once a week because of my strong feelings of attachment. He wanted me to elaborate on this and describe how it felt. I had to think about that for awhile. The closest I could come was that it’s a little bit like limerence but without the sexual and obsessive aspects and has a more infantile quality. (There’s also a kind of mindfulness to it that’s impossible to explain but that keeps it from getting out of control.) It’s the way I imagine a baby feels about their primary caregiver. That I’m this little baby and he’s the only person who ever mirrored me or accepted me unconditionally for me. Because of that I feel extra vulnerable with him, too close to my raw core and fearing rejection while at the same time being able to let my guard down in a way I normally can’t. When I was asked to elaborate on the vulnerable feelings I had to think about it for a long time.

Finally I began to explain (in what I felt was a very childlike manner) and to my surprise I started to cry. I’ve come close to crying a couple of times recently, but this time my eyes actually filled up and a couple of tears spilled over (which I wiped away quickly). Sure, I didn’t sob and there weren’t many tears and it all ended quickly, but it happened. For just a minute, I shed real tears in front of another human being! Even more astounding to me than that, I felt no shame doing so. In fact, I was very proud of myself and even while I cried, I knew exactly what was happening and felt really, really good about it. So my tears turned to laughter and he laughed along with me. It was a real, bona fide emotional connection. How can that be? I don’t have those! I don’t connect with people! This was surreal.

“How did you do that?” I asked, sort of gobsmacked.
“I did nothing,” he said. “You did that yourself.” He was smiling.
“Then I guess you’re just the facilitator!”
“Well, I do have a degree!” he said jokingly.
We laughed again. Then the tears almost started again.
“You’re getting emotional,” he observed. “What’s going on?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” I wailed like a three year old. And I didn’t. I didn’t know why I was so emotional, but I felt happy that I was. “I just feel fragile, that’s all.” My lower lip was trembling like a toddler’s.
“I want you to know I think you’re very strong.” His eyes were shining.

So, another brick in that f*cking wall crumbled tonight.
I put my shoes back on (lately I’ve been taking them off and putting my feet on the couch–it seems to help somehow).
As I was leaving, he said our session moved him. I wanted to hug him so much right then but of course I didn’t.

Deconstructing the confusion about my disorders.

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The crazy history of my other blog.
I know what my real diagnosis is: CPD (Confused Personality Disorder). Enjoy!

Finally, a clearer understanding of Narcissism & how it relates to CPTSD

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WARNING:  THIS VIDEO MAY BE TRIGGERING  (I found it extremely so). 

Ditziness and complex PTSD, BPD.

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ditzy_comic

“She has no common sense.”
“She’s just a dumb blonde.”
“She’s kind of ditzy.”
“She never seems to know what’s going on.”

These are phrases I’ve heard said about me my entire life, and not just by my abusers. To most people, I do come across as a little ditzy or scatterbrained. It doesn’t help that I happen to be blonde, because blonde haired people have to work twice as hard as everyone else to be taken seriously, since the (false) stereotype that all blondes are intellectual lightweights doesn’t seem to be going away.

I prefer to think of myself as an Annie Hall type. You may remember the 1977 movie starring Diane Keaton as Woody Allen’s (brunette!) scatterbrained but quirky love interest. I think I talk and act a lot like Annie Hall. At least I like to think I do, because Annie had a lot of charm and was loveable too. She was also a lot smarter than she appeared.

annie-hall

It gets tiresome being thought of by others as less intelligent than I actually am (my IQ is actually very high) and I get self-conscious about appearing “dumb.” My self-consciousness only seems to make the problem worse though, because it causes me to make silly mistakes and do or say socially awkward, dumb things out of nervousness.

For over a decade I thought I had Aspergers, because not only am I socially awkward, I often seem to be “out in space” and not really aware of what’s going on around me. It’s hard to hide this from others, and sometimes people talk down to me in a patronizing or condescending way, believing I can’t understand simple directions or information.  I resent it when people do that.

dumb_blonde

I’m not an Aspie, and I definitely don’t lack intelligence.  But dissociation is a symptom of both complex PTSD and BPD, and this is what I think is happening when I seem to be off in some other universe. When you dissociate, you’re not really in your own skin, and are not present in the moment. You’re outside yourself, stuck in the future or the past, and not paying much attention to the material reality of the moment. As a child, my report cards alsways had comments like, “Lauren does not pay attention,” or “Lauren spends too much time daydreaming in class.” I wonder now if I was dissociated whenever I was daydreaming.

Dissociative episodes can be very scary, but if you spend most of your time only slightly dissociated, you might not even notice that anything is wrong. You’ll just come across as being a bit “spacey.”

Further reading:
Derealization and Depersonalization in BPD and NPD