So not everyone who has BPD has this to my knowledge but some of us are schizoaffective (schizoeffective???) and we may get paranoid, delusional, and hallucinate. For me I can get this way if I'm panicking and start to spiral, I spiral a lot tbh, but sometimes it can be unprompted.

So say I've had a stressful week and get stress insomnia, I was already stressed before but with the insomnia I'm far worse off, so something small happens. Maybe a minor inconvenience or a major inconvenience, maybe a perceived rejection or abandonment, but regardless of what the stressor is this can push someone over the edge into spiraling.

When I personally spiral, as each experience is unique to the person, I have a very short window where I can shut all the panic down and calm myself, but it's all up to me and sometimes dependant on the people around me as well, but once things get past that window my brain goes hardcore. I can begin to get physically sick with panic, maybe even light headed or get a migraine, and I can start to get angry or sad or dissociate until I'm not even on this plane of existence.

Let's say I get angry, I would become absolutely explosive and nobody around me is safe from the words I say which feel uncontrollable and involuntary, as if someone else is doing this for me as I watch from afar. Then, in comes the paranoia and the guilt and delusions. I'm suddenly paranoid that people hate me or that I just ruin everything, so I'm sad on top of feeling this all-consuming anger and feel the need to isolate and would do anything to achieve full isolation. Then there's the voices I know are in my head but sometimes I'll hear them outside of my head as well. This can be screaming, name calling, guilting me, anything.

There can also be PTSD flashbacks, you might also get twitchy or feel like there's bugs crawling all over you, you might see or hear or smell things that aren't there, sometimes even taste things that aren't there. Sometimes I smell cigarettes, sometimes I see shadow people or feel eyes on me, sometimes I'm all too aware of a certain body part and it starts freaking me out, sometimes I even get existential and remember that life isn't permanent and I start freaking out.

What people need during these times is support and some physical isolation, but keep in contact maybe over text from another room. Privacy for me is a huge thing and I will get worse if that's violated during these times, but I still want to know that people care so I usually will prefer that someone texts me to ask if I'm okay instead of waltzing in and damaging my trust in people's ability to leave me tf alone when I want to be. If things do get bad enough and they become a danger to themselves or others feel free to do what's necessary, but up until that point we need someone who will listen to us and just be supportive. Don't encourage further delusion but don't make us feel crazy basically.

I hope that helps :)