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Tell me, have you ever had the feeling that someone is relentlessly chasing you, watching your every move? And at the same time, you don’t even remotely guess who it is: a maniac, an intelligence officer, a crazy stalker, or maybe all three at once? Of course, if you are a grata person close to high society or a member of the family of a popular politician, or a well-known blogger in narrow circles, then it is quite possible that your fears have some basis. However, if you are an ordinary person, not noticed by anyone in relations with foreign intelligence, having no fans and potentially uninteresting to the broad masses … In general, it is worth considering here, but is it paranoia in your case?
«Nearthinking»: a rarity or a regularity?
In general, paranoia (by the way, the word is translated from Greek as near-thinking), as one of the rather rare types of chronic psychosis, is an extremely insidious disease and successfully masquerades as schizotypal traits or as the usual light “movement”, obsession and even jealousy .
You can become paranoid at any age, but more often the disease affects older people who already suffer from degenerative age-related abnormalities. And this is not some colorful, highly artistic nonsense in the style of Salvador Dali! These are very logical, systematized, crazy and even overvalued ideas that fit into reality.
Paranoid people are fully aware of themselves as a person, they are not prone to the development of negative symptoms, such as apathy, abulia, exhaustion, emotional-volitional defects. They are predictable and consistent in their judgments and actions, less often people with other perceptual disorders suffer from illusions and hallucinations.
How to recognize the paranoid in others and in yourself?
Remember, there is probably a person in your close or not very close circle who does not laugh at jokes about reptilians, seals the camera on a laptop with electrical tape, vigilantly monitors the personal life of his spouse and each time, expressing a seditious thought on the phone, apologizes aloud to the FSB officers. Or maybe it’s just you?
If there are obsessions in your life, you have become more suspicious and react much more painfully to criticism of your views — it’s time to turn to a specialist. Such «bells» can indicate both banal overwork and serious mental disorders.
It’s worth noting that paranoid people don’t unusually look like they’re crazy. They are quite sociable, quite integrated into society, they can be good specialists in their field and very interesting interlocutors.
One gets the impression that a person is normal, lives an ordinary life, but in some particular area he experiences obvious discomfort. It is worth raising a painful topic for him and, voila! A completely friendly and open person seemed to have been replaced. He becomes unmotivatedly suspicious and even aggressive, stubbornly looking for a connection with the conspiracy theory he likes in seemingly random coincidences. Little of! He is actively trying to convince you of the veracity of his suspicions. And, I must say, he does it well. An unprepared person may well take logical nonsense at face value, the arguments and arguments given are so realistic and convenient.
How to help?
To begin with, it should be remembered that paranoid delusions cannot be corrected. If you have witnessed an attack of paranoia, you should call an ambulance, before it arrives, try not to enter into an argument with the person and not provoke him. The paranoid will not listen to logical arguments in this state, therefore, before the arrival of qualified help, it is best to agree with everything that you hear.
Another important point: do not make independent diagnoses to anyone! A ludicrous theory expressed may well turn out to be a common misconception, and suspiciousness a manifestation of justified concern. Only a doctor can make a correct diagnosis.