“I’m not paranoid. I know you’re all out to get me!”
Paranoia is another vicious symptom of PTSD. Paranoia is closely linked to anxiety, and often the two are confused. Paranoia can be set off by various triggers, but it can also set in sometimes
for no reason and without anything external to trigger it off, other than the thoughts in the mind of the sufferer. The sufferer has periods where they have an irrational belief that something bad will happen, and they may search for evidence to prove their paranoia right or wrong. The slightest hint that they may be right can then trigger an anxiety attack.
Paranoia can also trigger off other symptoms of PTSD, but anxiety is probably the most common, with depression being not far behind in second place. Most commonly it comes in the form of believing that someone, or some type of person, has ill-will towards them when there’s no logical reason for thinking that. Some examples:
- Everyone of a certain race or class of people hates you or wishes you some sort of harm.
- Every dog will bite you when it gets too close.
- Your partner is cheating on you, even when she has done nothing out of the ordinary.
- Everyone that looks at you is judging you negatively.
- You will be attacked when you go out after dark, even when you are with friends.
- Your child will be hurt by someone when you are not there to protect them.
Notice a similar pattern here? These are all common fears that most people have had at some point in time. However, for most people, these phrases should contain words like if, might, maybe, and could; whereas these phrases contain the words when, will, does, and is. Paranoia is when a fear of what might happen becomes a belief that it is happening or definitely will happen.
With PTSD, it is always a belief that has a background to back it up. Something bad happened once before, so the sufferer fully believes that it will happen again. They won’t necessarily always believe this however. They may go for long periods of time able to function normally and have faith and trust in people and situations, then slowly but surely doubts can start creeping into their mind, they’ll start to worry about what if that bad thing happens, and eventually they will start to fully believe that it is happening or will happen if they take a certain course of action.
Without help, they may not be able to overcome these paranoid thoughts without finding hard evidence to prove themselves wrong. This paranoia can build up slowly over a period of weeks or even months, or it can evolve far more rapidly within a matter of hours. If something happened to trigger it off, the sufferer could go from calm to totally paranoid within moments. It can also fluctuate. They may find evidence to prove they are wrong about something and calm down for a few hours, but then their paranoia creeps back in and makes them believe that the evidence that proved them wrong was just a plot to avert their suspicion. They may read a lot of negatives into every little thing other people say and do, and every thing was wasn’t said or done as well.
Someone suffering severe paranoia could be driven by it to some strange extremes to prove their paranoia right or wrong, even to the point of setting up a scenario to find out if it does indeed happen. A formerly battered woman might be so paranoid about being harmed by her new partner that she actually tries to provoke a fight to see how he will react. However, she may not realise that she’s doing this, because all she can see is what her partner is doing and saying – which is simply reacting to her negative behaviour. If he doesn’t understand that she suffers from paranoia and how it affects her, it can become very hard for him to not react negatively when she openly displays her mistrust, and accuses him of hurting her time and again.
A close friend of mine who also suffers the occasional bout of paranoia can see by my erratic behaviour when I’m suffering from it. It took him quite some time to figure out how to deal with me when I get like that, but now he just laughs and asks me if I’m getting paranoid again. He then calmly talks me through it and helps me see that my fears have no logical foundation. This is the same friend who once raced to the local park to check if I was okay there with my kids and insisted on staying there with us and driving us home safely, because he was in a paranoid state of mind when he saw someone in a car with out-of-state number plates slowly drive past my house. To his paranoid mind at the time, that person was there to cause me harm. Never mind the idea that they might just be on holidays and visiting someone else!
If you suffer from paranoia, it is usually a good idea to explain it to those that are close to you and what you are likely to get paranoid about, at a time when you are calm. Explain to them how you might react to it and what they can do to help you come out of it. If you wait until you are in a paranoid mind-set to explain these things, you could very well end up pushing them away, accusing them off all sorts of horrible things, and cause severe damage to your relationship with them. If they can understand how you might behave and what they can do to help, before you have a paranoid episode, they will be better prepared for it, they will know what to do to help you, and will know to not take the mistrust and accusations you might throw at them personally.
If you know someone that suffers from paranoia, and they suddenly start behaving strangely, push you away and accuse you of some nastiness that you’re innocent of, be aware that it is most probably just their paranoia talking and don’t take it all personally. However, pay some attention to what they are saying so that you can figure out what it is they are worried about, and try to avoid doing anything to make it worse for them. If you can, talk them through it and show them that their fears are unfounded and they have nothing to worry about.
There is help available for anyone that suffers paranoia, be it as a symptom of PTSD or for any other reason. Sometimes mere personal insecurity can make a person very paranoid about certain things. Any good mental health professional can give advice on how to deal with such paranoid thoughts, how to avoid having them, and how to get a grip on reality and stop those thoughts from becoming an invasive problem.
(June 16th) (
