Paranoia

What is paranoia?

Paranoia is thinking and/or feeling that you are being threatened even when there is no or very little evidence that you are. These thoughts are often influenced by anxiety and can heavily impact a person's life.

Clinical paranoia is a more severe version of paranoia. It is a rare mental health condition where a person believes that others are actively trying to harm them, to the point they may even distrust those close to them. It can be hard for a person with paranoia to realise that they are paranoid as they’re thoughts are real to them.

Types of Paranoid Thoughts

Paranoid thoughts can also be described as delusions and can come in many different forms. Everyone will experience paranoia differently, however, below are some examples of common paranoid thoughts:

You are being talked about behind your back or watched
Other people are trying to make you look bad
Believing you are at risk of being physically harmed
People are deliberately trying to upset or annoy you
People are trying to steal from you

Symptoms

Symptoms of paranoia can include:

Sudden defensiveness, hostility or aggressiveness
Being easily offended
Believing you are always right
Trouble letting your guard down

Being unable to accept criticism
Being unable to trust/confide in others
Reading into hidden meanings behind the thoughts and actions of others

Anxiety vs Paranoia

Paranoia and anxiety can be hard to separate as a paranoid thought is a type of anxious thought. What makes this separation harder is that paranoia can make you anxious and anxiety can make you paranoid.

It is normal to feel anxious in a large crowd or at the end of a relationship. These feelings of anxiousness are often referred to as paranoia, or a person being paranoid. However, the key difference is that when a person is having paranoid thoughts, they are 100% convinced of what they are thinking.

These anxious thoughts are likely to be paranoid if:

No one else shares your suspicions
There is no evidence for the suspicious thoughts
The suspicious remain despite evidence against them

Paranoia and other conditions

Paranoia can be a symptom of other mental health problems:

If you feel like you are struggling with anything you have read or any other aspect of mental health, then there are services out there that can help. If you need to talk to someone you can sign up here for our peer coaching service.