Dealing With Persistent General Paranoia (Warning: TMI, Psychobable, Long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Greetings Teeming Millions,

I am addressing you in hopes that the cumulative intelligence, wisdom and knowledge of dopers can assist me in fixing some defects in my personal and professional life. Without going into specific personal details, I need a nudge in the right direction, and I don’t want to wait til I find an actual person I can talk to. I’ve been waiting for years. I am doing this in parallel of seeking professional help, because I know that will be the answer from some of you. I just need all the advice I can get my hands on, and then maybe I can piece together my own answer. Also, some of you will try to tell me “That’s normal, everybody does it”, but without going to deep into the specifics, let me assure you that I find myself in situations most people do not because of my mistrust, and as such, even if normal, I need it stopped.

My problem is that I don’t trust people. I have never trusted people. When I was a child I watched my mom care for my dad while he was dying of cancer. He didn’t know. He lived with it for 9 years and he didn’t know until a few months before his death - the soviet medical establishment did not let him know and assured my mother that it would greatly worsen his condition if she told him. My mom carried that burden for almost a decade - and it destroyed a part of her soul. I was on my own, I often felt lonely and bored. I didn’t like other kids, they didn’t have to grow up like I did, they dealt with their own family problems by being kids - playing, forgetting. I had a lot of fears, and I dealt with them on my own. Herein lies the problem.

From a very young age, perhaps 6 or 7, I was somewhat preoccupied with my own mortality. I rejected religion, for I felt eternal existence in any form is by definition hell. I dealt with my fears by accepting mortality. I might be afraid to go into the dark room, but if there IS a monster in there that hurts me, it would only hurt for some time, and I would die and it would end. I might be in pain, but it is guaranteed to have an end - either the pain will go away, or I will be in pain for the rest of my life, but I will die in the end and it will end. Anything and everything I needed coping with was treated with “It’s not forever, and a finite amount of time I can handle one minute at a time”, and it kept me alive, and kicking and doing things. Maybe not being a very fun kid, but I had periods when I was happy or I was sad, just like everybody and it worked.

I never trusted anybody, not even my own parents, because I didn’t understand how lies worked, but everybody seemed to lie about something and it often hurt me or others - I almost always know when people lie. Up until a certain age I was unable to lie and never once told one, probably as late as 13 or 14 years old. Even when the circumstances required it, I would avoid a situation where I would have to say the untruth. I couldn’t even lie by omission, so I would just not talk at all sometimes. As I grew up, the world got more complex, and I taught myself to lie, to protect myself and others - but I still avoid it most of the time when I can. However, as I started getting into more complex human relationships I realized I was unable to. I sensed all the lies, not even lies at this point, just thoughts.

People think things that they don’t say. I know they do, I do too. This bothers me. A lot. I’ve always coped with everything by accepting the worst possible situation that fits the evidence as the truth and accepting THAT. There IS a monster in that room and I am still walking into it, because I accept that I will die in 5 seconds, but if I don’t I have to live the rest of my life as a coward. This coping mechanism stopped working. It stopped working entirely half a decade ago or more. With all the horrible ideas I accepted life seemed not worth it, so I would check things, always check the most mundane stories. My mom would tell me she went to the store, I’d check her mileage. My friends would agree to meet me at place X at time Y, and I’d drive by their house before hand to make sure they’re not … I’m not even sure what. Everything was building up. These little truths reassured me that my “worst case scenario” that I tried to accept but was eating me inside was better than I thought.

I realized that I was wrong. Nobody is after me, nobody can possibly care that much. So I internalized these feelings and tried to get my paranoid actions under control. I’ve been trying and trying, but the thoughts are still there - I distract myself, do things, meditate. It helps, but all this shit, all this baggage, all the paranoia, all the associated paranoid behaviors, all the pain I internalized by making my life feel a lot worse than it actually is, everything comes out when I’m tired, or upset, or sad, or cranky. Anybody who gets close to me gets hurt, and the worst part is that now I feel powerless to stop it. I regret doing so many small things that drove so many people away. I regret questioning small innocuous things that other say - the choice of synonym, omission of small detail, etc.

Psychiatric descriptions of paranoia differ from how my brain works. I am not afraid of one particular thing, and the feeling always comes first and then later I rationalize it “I am afraid of her betraying me” or “I am afraid of him being dishonest”. The feeling comes firs. It’s always easier with strangers - strangers are separate, uninvolved, if I don’t like them I can just walk away without saying a word, if they hurt me I can fight back with all I’ve got. But I want closeness, and I want to trust, and I am really fucking sick of second guessing every single person around me, I just want to stop. I need to stop hurting them. I don’t want to hurt anybody anymore.

There’s lots of resources out there about dealing with suspicion and paranoia - modern psychology offers us distraction and rational analysis, Buddhism offers us compassion and understanding, but these are all shields that let us keep the turmoil inside from affecting how we feel and act while we use them. But I am already doing that, and it works most of the time, but the times that I slip up, the stressful times, the tired times, I still hurt people. More so than anybody else I know.

I’ll take any advice…

Regards,

Groman

2

I just noticed the typo in the title, can any mod fix this?

Thanks.

3

When I put “eneral” in Google Images, the first picture that came up was the NASA Ames Research Center. This may or may not have meaning to you in your quest.

Here is the most important question:

What is it that you want?

How do you want to be? What do you want?

Less Important Questions:

  1. How do you hurt people?

  2. What are the medicos telling you?

  3. Who are your supporters (family, lover, spouse)?

Answer these and I’ll get a clearer picture. I will have some advice for you.

4

fixed itle.

5

Start with increasing your physical exercise.
Mens sana in corpore sano - A sound mind in a sound body. (Juvenalis)

6

That’s quite a lot to think about, groman. Two obvious comments: 1. It doesn’t come across as psychobabble - clearly you have problems getting close to people and it’s understandably a problem; 2. It’s good to hear that you’ve posted this in parallel to seeking professional help.

7

I drive by it every once in a while and it always looks so menacing with Moffet Field right next to it. It’s odd that you mention something right near me.

What I want is to figure out how to stop the constant feeling that my friends, relatives and co-workers are somehow out to get me. I’ve uncovered some pretty big secrets as a child by just being at the right place at the right time. Now the entire world seems to be full of plots and secrets (and it is, but they’re unlikely to have anything to do with me), and I’m constantly fighting the urge to try to uncover them. In a way this is a delusion of reference on a perception level constantly fighting a rational human being at the conceptual level.

The only way it usually happens is through what the buddhists call “habit energy”. I do things I don’t want to do (and always promise myself not to) but feel compelled to like spying on friends, testing them, clinging to them, etc. It hurts them when they find out.

Nothing conclusive yet. Adult ADD-like symptoms. No explanation for paranoia yet.

My main problems are with my girlfriend, because she is the one who expects me to trust her the most. I’m jealous. I’m clingy. I’m that guy. I don’t want to be that guy.

My mother either gave up on me ever trusting her fully or believes the guaranteed familial bond is more important. She supports me but she is a lot like me as well. She, for one, does not believe in personal space in relationships.

I have a couple good friends whom I can communicate almost anything to and they support me, but I can’t spill my guts because no matter how many years we know each other I am afraid to appear weak or defective. I try not to rely on them for anything, yet still be good friends - that way I never get paranoid because they are never in a position to betray me. Out of sight, out of mind. This makes me seem stronger than I am, but how do you tell somebody “You know, if I had to rely on you, I’d get a gut feeling you’d betray me, rationally I know it wouldn’t happen, but I’d still get the feeling, and it would be a problem”?

8

It sounds to me like you lack the capacity for basic (or primary?) trust. I was told by a counselor that if a person loses trust after it’s been established, it can be regained, but that if they never established trust in the first place (i.e., never learned to trust their parents, as you mentioned), that it might not be possible for them to ever learn how to trust.

I hope that isn’t true, and I hope that doesn’t make you give up - but I think maybe that’s the primary thing you need to work on. I think professional help will be necessary to do so.

Good luck.

9

Well behavior like that is debilitating. I had a serious girlfriend several years ago who was extremely suspicious of the motivations of other people (including myself) relative to her. She was a very smart, attractive, talented professional, and a great cook and a caring lover, but this suspiciousness suffused her existence.

I hesitate to call it “paranoia” because that imputes some mental unbalance. It was more like like her brain was going a million miles an hour dissecting every nuance of every interpersonal interaction she had. The smallest things that would fall below most people’s radar were construed and weighed as potential insults or alternative agendas, and there was very little gray area in these interactions, you were either for her or against her, complementary or insulting, honest or deceitful it was a somewhat binary outlook.

She had continuous ongoing battles with her kin, her professional colleagues etc. Eventually it just got to be too much to deal with, including being annoying and insulting, because I consider myself to be a trustworthy individual. In the end I stopped the relationship after one incident too many, it’s a pity because she really was my soulmate in lot of ways and I probably would have married her were it not for the suspicious/jealousy thing.

Honestly I donlt think you can do anything at this stage as an adult. It sounds like an inherent mental tendency, not something you can talk or rationalize yourself out of.

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I should mention that there was a flip side to this and that this laser like focus of hers was not necessarily incorrect. She could scan a cocktail party crowd and determine with a fair degree of accuracy who was attracted to who, and who was having affairs etc., who was getting separated or divorced. Some of these relationships (involving my professional co-workers - not hers) I was completely unaware of, and she turned out to be right about them. So it wasn’t like she was nuts, she just couldn’t turn it off (or at least keep her opinions to herself) when she needed to.

11

That’s the way I am, and when I am in a good mood I’m typically under control. When my mood goes sour though, or I am tired, all the signals mesh into this background noise… everything just seems… I don’t know… shady? I’ve noticed this with poker too, I win when I’m in a good mood, and lose when I’m in a bad mood, regardless if I’m concentrating on the game or not. I just can’t read people correctly 24/7 and I can’t turn it off.

12

groman,

You have what appears to be a difficult case (I am looking at it from a mental/spiritual perspective; what the medicos tell you is of great importance too, needless to say), and you have already received some good insights.

Things that give hope here:

  1. You recognize you have a problem

  2. You want to fix the problem

  3. You seem to understand yourself in considerable depth

  4. It’s mostly your problem; you may be hurting others to a degree but not in such a way as to cause a bad karma spiral

  5. You care about others

I would recommend the use of a stone to soak up some of those extra-negative thoughts. A piece of jet carried on your person and left under the pillow at night could be effective. Also, if you find a stone to which you feel a personal attraction, you could do the same thing too.

My guess is that you are seeing people through a lens that reveals true things about them but out of proportion to their total being. Like astro’s girlfriend (I found his post enlightening).

Here are some ideas for dealing with the world you see:

  1. Assuming that they are accurate (i.e., not hallucinations or the products of actual paranoid schizophrenia), why not just accept these perceptions about people as “data”? When you get these thoughts, just say in your head, “Data.” “More data.”

In other words, accept them, don’t fight them. You can’t fight the color red when it comes into your vision, can you? Same thing. Data.

Caveat: If these thoughts are pummeling you so that you can’t stand them (that can happen regardless of how pleasant a thought is, as when music runs through your head and won’t stop), then that’s a different issue. That would be something like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and you should probably turn to the docs for help.

  1. Set up a system for dealing with people that doesn’t rely upon the “data.”

This is more necessary than you might think, even for people that consider themselves “normal.” You are hypersensitive to the “data” and get freaked out; others don’t receive it at all and are duped all the time. Some people misjudge others, etc.

I can’t do it for you, but you should write it down: An algorithm. You’ll ignore someone’s “data” until s/he crosses a certain line. Until you see certain signs (getting caught in a bald-faced lie, getting caught stealing your stuff), you’ll keep them in the “trusted” category.

The important thing here is to put a wall between your actions and the “data.” Why? Because you feel (if I understand correctly) you feel constantly compelled to act on the “data,” and that drives you nuts. You need to free yourself from that self-imposed obligation. Putting it in writing makes it a clear, explicit contract with yourself that you can turn to again and again to reinforce this practice.

  1. Distract yourself! The reality with most problems is that they can’t be fixed completely. It’s just the way life is. Ameliorate, certainly, but if you make things 80% normal, that remaining 20% is a real bitch and usually not worth dealing with.

Do something big. Launch a career, do volunteer work, start a difficult hobby. My guess is that serving others (whether for money or for free–either can be true service) would really help you.

Also, a greater focus on the spiritual. I got horrible PVCs (a non-serious but incredibly annoying heart arrhythmia) from stress but was able to get rid of them almost completely through stone therapy, vitamins and herbs, meditation, and other practices (Western med had nothing to offer but beta blockers, which didn’t help much and sometimes made it worse).

I wish you the best of luck, and if there is any other way I can help, I’ll be checking back in the thread, so please don’t hesitate to ask.

13

Thank you very much, Aeschines. Thank you everybody.

I have never considered a stone, in fact, I haven’t carried anything with me that has any sort of meaning in a long time. I am an engineer and it’s the most natural thing to be to follow an algorithm, a method. However, remembering to follow the method when I need it most is what requires attention. Habits are hard to break.
The mere fact that I can post my self analysis and receive many good words is reassuring in of itself. Thank you!

My concern about professional help however is that the amount of help they can offer is limited by my ability to trust them not to mess with me or string me along.

14

That is a great suggestion. Starting with a few things or people and expanding gradually as you have some success mught be the way to go.

The beauty of it - it seems to me - is that you remain in control. As several people have said, the encouraging thing here is the degree to which you are aware of your difficulties. Time to put your more rational self in charge.

15

This is more of a ‘what not to do’ than a ‘to do’, but I hope it helps none-the-less.

When I was young, I went through what was a very, VERY minor version of what you did (ie- found out the world was full of bad secrets people didn’t tell each other). It contributed to a lot of other factors in my life that had me finally seeking therapy at age 11.
I didn’t get that therapy until I was 18.
One of the problems that I see many people getting into is going to a therapist, finding its not the one for them, then giving up completely. I went through about half a dozen therapists before I found one that was right for me.
I’m not saying therapy is right for you; what am I suggesting is this- if you go into it, and it doesn’t ‘click’, try again. Try to find the one that’s right for you. It took me a long time til I found a good one, but when I did, it worked wonders.
Either way, I wish you the best of luck with this, and I’m proud of you for comming forward with your problem. It took a lot of courage.

16

I wasn’t your girlfriend (at least, I think I wasn’t!) but this is true for me as well–I can suss out the couples at parties who had a fight in the car on the way over, the ones who are strained, the ones who are in the make-up sex period etc. It makes the party happen for me on at least two levels–it’s very overwhelming at times.

It’s one reason I don’t go to to many parties–too much to process for me.

Data–that’s an excellent way of defining this problem. You just have to remember to tell yourself that the dis-trust data isn’t the only data that is available.

I’m glad you’re looking into professional help. I had 3 or 4 therapists before I found one that was excellent.

I hope you find your way.

17

Aeschines’s advice seems good to me.

Just a couple of other things:

I think that your idea that a therapist will do you no good if you don’t trust him is extremely good. It’s going to make finding a therapist very difficult, but I still think that it is so important that you find the right therapist that you should be patient about finding one.

My guess is that mostly what you’ll get out of therapy is some ideas that hadn’t occurred to you before, that you can use like tools to help yourself.

I think you can do a lot on your own. I think with a small movement, you can dramatically improve your trust. If you could regard the lies as neutral, or even positive, things would be a lot easier for you.

Some hypothetical ideas to play around with:

People frequently form bonds, and become more intimate through lies: If one person opens up to another and admits a lie, intimacy results. If two people through a mutual motivation agree to maintain the same lie, intimacy improves between them. If two people invent a lie together, they form a bond. Sometimes the bond is far more important than the lie. For example, suppose someone shoplifts a candy bar from a grocery store, and as he is leaving, he shows you what he stole. If you smile and shake your head, an bond that could last months or years has been purchased at the price of a candy bar – you don’t even have to approve, you just have to understand.

Often lies are not entirely false, especially detectable lies – they often contain a truth that could not otherwise be expressed. For example, suppose someone tells you that his relationship with his father is great, even though it is obvious that it is strained and bad. He is communicating that he wishes his relationship with his father was better. Often lies are intended more for the teller than the told, and in that sense they are good – they reinforce something that the teller wants desparately, and communicate that desire to those who appreciate where the lie came from. If you see a lie, often you can do more good for a person than if they had told you the corresponding truth. He gives you the keys to a lock that he himself cannot open. It is a way for him to communicate something to your consciousness, that he is only subconsciously aware of! In that way, a lie can be good!

One more thought: I don’t think of myself as very good at detecting lies, and I am almost certain that I am surrounded by plots and lies that I unwittingly play a role in. But because I genuinely try to do what is best for others based on what they tell me, people soon learn that lying to me often does more harm than good. If they don’t provide me with good information, or if they provide me with bad information, I can’t help them, and my attempts to help them may do more harm than good! So concentrate on trying to help people. If you notice a lie, look beyond it to the truth. Through the truth, you will be able to help people – stop using lies as an excuse.

You want to stop hurting people – so do your best at that, and let them tell you what they want! They will learn what works best with you.

There is no reason to judge people.

I suspect that you are afraid that people will hurt you with lies. Just remember that there are people far worse at reading other people than you who do just fine. Lies eventually out, and justice ensues. Keep a tally of everything you’ve personally lost because someone lied to you. Total up the dollar value, and buy it for yourself, so you don’t have to worry any more. I bet it will be cheaper than the drugs the psychiatrists will prescribe.

18

Groman, how old were you when your father passed away?

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I was 10 years old. It took my mom about a week to finally tell me, I just thought he was at the hospital. She came in and told me “We’re going to your grandma’s in Ukraine for a few weeks” and I asked “What about dad?” and she broke the news to me.

20

I don’t want to get all psychobabble, but, I also lost my dad. I was 8.
I don’t remember all the details of the program I was watching, and I’m not going to look up cites, but I was watching tv with the wife and someone described how children react to losing a parent as a child who is old enough to understand what happened but still too young to effectively deal with it. IIRC, those people had trust and detachment problems.

My wife tended to agree with their assessment, although I would never have put the two together. And I also would never admit this to anyone except through the complete anonymity of the internet (so son if you are reading this I will deny I wrote it).

The people tended not to trust others because of the fear of being abandoned. That would help explain the thoughts about lies and paranoia. There was more to it, and I don’t remember much but maybe this is a place to start.

You are not alone. And I have no idea how to deal with it other than possibly realizing one of the causes. I am 40 now and have mellowed with age if that is any help.

My $.02 worth