Paranoia

Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are "out to get them. 

One of the symptoms of my flavor of Schizoaffective Disorder is Paranoia. Paranoid thoughts have pretty much shaped my life. My paranoia has made some relationships stronger due to much needed open communication and understanding while others fell apart because of my unwarranted suspicions. My paranoia typically manifests as the “they are out to get you” type. This means I am on guard and looking for subtle signs that others are working against me.

I have seen few bloggers discuss paranoia is depth and figured that I would give it a shot. I apologize in advance if this is incoherent, it is difficult for me to discuss my paranoia and also hard to put psychotic ramblings into words that others can easily understand.

One of the ways that paranoia has had a negative impact in my life is in regards to the relationship with my family. Early on in my teen years when paranoia was first raising its ugly head it was primarily directed at my parents. I would dwell on feelings and thoughts that they were purposely setting out to cause destruction in my life. That any greatness I could achieve they were trying to thwart. Any kind of attempt on their part to reach out to me was perceived as a way for them to gather information that could be used at a later date. I just knew that they were secretly reading my private journals which caused me to destroy some entries entirely while others were censored with a black marker. Over time I would eventually devise a code that could be employed in entries to keep “important” information hidden and private. I would also do false entries in hopes of throwing them off.

This also ran with thoughts that my parents didn't like me. I could see it in their facial expressions and hear in it the tone of their voice. Even their silence was interpreted as a sign of this hatred. This caused lots of conflict as I “knew” they hated me and because of that they were out to destroy me.

I withdrew from my family pretty quickly. Leaving them in the dark about all areas of my life. After all they were attempting to gather information to destroy me and and any sense of a life and happiness that I had. I would see proof of this in every action, every word spoken and even in the looks they exchanged. Simple questions about what friends and I did were seen as hostile intrusions. Wanting to meet my friends was seen as way for them to get information from a third party, wanting to know what I was doing at school was seen as a way for them to form plans to undermine me. This paranoia would permeate into every little thing that was inquired about no matter how trivial.

When they would talk I would search for clues of this conspiracy. Were they dropping hints to each other in coded phrases? The more that I withdrew the more this paranoia grew. By age 16 my family had very little knowledge as to events in my life. They knew of maybe two friends and had little knowledge of relationships that I may have been in. It was about this age that I was hospitalized for manic like symptoms. The sense that my parents were somehow trying to destroy my life filtered into treatment. I kept my mouth shut about these thoughts for fear that my therapist and Doctor would tell my parents and they would be able to change tactics with that knowledge.

Over time this paranoia would grow, were my friends reporting back to my family? Were they too in on their plans? Were they merely my friends because they were spies? This would lead to not only a distancing from friends but also me cultivating newer ones that I was sure were safe from the influence of my family. Unfortunately these “friends” would have negative influence on me as I now gravitated toward people who were on the fringe of society.

I didn't see these people as a bad influence I saw them as so far removed from my parents influence that surly they were safe to be around. Deep down I knew these people were not true friends, yet that didn't stop me from being close with them. They even validated my paranoia, they had to be safe if they saw what I saw in regards to my family holding me back. They had to true friends if my parents wanted me to get away from them, this had to be because they couldn't use them. Never mind the fact that these so called friends were influencing me to greater distance myself and got me in trouble not only with family but also law enforcement.

As you can imagine it was tiresome keeping people at an arms length. I navigated my teen years on my own with little support from others. This would lead to me having somewhat of a standoffish personality, a near fanatical drive for keeping secrets while expecting the truth from those around me. Even today medicated and somewhat stable I keep many of my thoughts and feelings to myself. There is still a wall between me and those who think they are close to me. It hard to form meaningful relationships built of mutual respect and trust when your mind is always screaming that they are out to get you.