Would having trouble understanding patterns be considered dissociation (borderline personality disorder)?

Question

I am currently reading Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, and in one of the chapters she says -


"I was having a problem with patterns. Oriental rugs, tile floors, printed curtains, things like that. Supermarkets were especially bad, because of the long, hypnotic checkerboard aisles. When I looked at these things, I saw other things within them. That sounds as though I was hallucinating, and I wasn't. I knew I was looking at a floor or a curtain. But all patterns seemed to contain potential representations, which in a dizzying array would flicker briefly to life..."

One of the criteria for borderline personality disorder is severe dissociative symptoms, but would this be considered dissociative? I can't manage to find a clear answer online. If it is not, then what explains what is happening to her?

Thank you in advance.

Frank · Accepted Answer

No.

That is not dissociation.  Dissociation would be, "I couldn't even see the floor anymore.  It was like I wasn't even standing there or it was someone else standing there."

This description is suggestive of a delusional state that would point toward bipolar disorder, not BPD.

While some people maintain that there are clear differences between the two, especially with the presence or absence of splitting, many people see an overlap in the symptoms.

medcenman · Answer

Dissociative symptom mean that you have no feeling. For example, you see someone falls on the floor right in front of you. instead of helping, yo stand there and say jeewheez I hope someone help this dude. Or when a doctor talks to a patient without any passion : Oh you have cancer and gonna die in 6 weeks but I have to tell you about my new car that I just bought!!! As a medical student we used to sit around the lunch table and talk about all kinds of gross diseases but non of us were grossed out by it. We were to the extend dissociated with the subjects. 
If a person can never fall in love or when his parents die and he has no feeling, that is dissociative. This lady in this story only ha trouble with her eyes. Astigmatism. All she has to do is to go see an eye doctor.

Dubist Arschlock · Answer

Sounds shizophrenic to me, but I'm not an expert.

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Would having trouble understanding patterns be considered dissociation (borderline personality disorder)?

4 Answers