Being present is the biggest challenge of my life. Due to early abuse, my brain learned to zone out of any unpleasant situation, and that eventually became my autopilot for mildly unpleasant, but necessary life events (like dealing with jobs, interviews, errands, arguments, classes, etc). It got to the point where it made me ineffective and downright incompetent because I’m not using my full brain capacity, and people definitely notice. When I have time to get assignments done, and I have time to put in the work, people are usually surprised at how smart I seem on paper compared to how retarded I come off in real life. Cutting definitely helps me snap back into reality. Drugs/alcohol don’t help much, but they’re nice sometimes. Hope someone here can relate.