- Suspicious thoughts or worries without sufficient reason
- Exaggerated fears, that are not based in reality
- you fear that something bad will happen
- a delusion in which a person thinks they are being singled out in a negative way
Paranoia - sense of threat for example:
- psychological or emotional harm - e.g bullying, spreading rumours about you
- physical harm - e.g someone trying to physically hurt or injure or even kill you
- financial harm - e.g stealing from you, damaging your property
Being paranoid can bring up a wide range of emotions. You may feel:
- anxious
- stressed
- scared
- terrified
- mistrustful of people and organisations
- victimised
- persecuted
- isolated - reluctant to confide in others because of fear that it'll be used against you
- tired/exhausted from worrying all the time
What makes people paranoid?
- can be caused by a number of factors such as stressful life events
- but most commonly seen in people with mental health problems
- people experiencing severe anxiety or depression can develop problems with paranoid feelings
- extreme forms of paranoia are usually seen in people with Schizophrenia or bipolar disorder
- can cause people to lose touch with reality
- psychosis - lose the insight to recognise that their fears are not grounded in reality
- can simply be caused by too much thinking about something
How to deal with paranoia?
- keeping yourself busy
- relaxing - meditate, yoga
- therapy
- prescribed medication from doctor
- not over thinking
Statistics (general population):
- over 40% of people regularly worry that negative comments are being made about them
- 24% think that people deliberately try to irritate them
- 20% worry about being observed or followed
- 10% think that someone has it in for them
- 5% worry that there's conspiracy to harm them
- 52% feel that they need to be on their guard against others
- 48% feel that strangers and friends look at them critically
- 40% feel that there might be negative comments being circulated about them
- 32% feel that people are laughing at them
- 28% feel that bad things are being said about them behind their back
Paranoia links in with other mental illnesses - other diagnosis that may include paranoid feelings are:
- bipolar disorder
- schizoaffective disorder
- severe anxiety
- depression
sources:
www.mind.org.uk
www.localhealth.com
wikihow
www.medicalnewstoday.com
IDEAS:
- book about how the different mental illnesses affect people in everyday life
- book full of illustrated paranoid thoughts supported by as little text as possible
- series of illustration based on the statistics
- the world through the eyes of people with paranoia:
- how people feel and what they think they see when paranoid - inspired by the ad below (Fragile Childhood - Monsters):
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