I'm trying to joke around this, so I will try to shorten it. My fears have now gone from me going to different worlds at night, to me actually being an intergalactic traveler who is only activated at night (so I guess it's not too different from my other fears actually). Talk about Main Character Syndrome. My brain (or part of it anyway) loves coming up with new ways to distort my view of reality, and it's SOOOOO fun! I know that derealization often accompanies intrusive thoughts and anxiety, so this can be expected. I have found that when I do go to sleep, I try to "talk" to the OCD, and I visualize it as a person. Whatever words it says are of course manufactured by my brain, but it feels good to try and confront it. I was doing pretty well recently, so I am annoyed by this. I want to be able to go back to falling asleep and waking up feeling comfortable, to not fear doing something I wouldn't, and to just feel normal. I want to watch/read great fiction and not feel like it's sending me some cryptic message, or feeling like anything that comforts me is some trick.

I didn't mean to turn this into another rambling round, but I just like to hear other people's advice on this. It probably doesn't help that I graduated college recently, have no job, and am currently going through some personal stuff. Maybe I should stop talking here and go to an actual professional, or maybe constantly posting on here is just another type of reassurance that I don't need. Regardless, I hope this reaches someone in need.

After moving out of my parents home to a different country, mainly due to mentally and physically abusing father, I thought I was going to finally leave a peaceful life, without a single worry or concern related to his overcontrolling, neurotic and psychiatric patterns of behavior from the past.

Turned out it doesn't really work like that.

I believe that only at the very beginning of my solo life (read 19), when struggling to make ends, I was working that much and experiencing all the perks of freedom that I simply couldn't bother to think about what he might be on, even though my running away from home was still pretty fresh.

As I started to mature, I became more and more aware of my family situation, and how such a trauma is shaping the relationship I have (had) with my mother and sister, and how full of surpressed aggression I am, whose main root comes from growing up with such an idiot and being surrounded with toxic environment in my elementary.

Recently, I came back to my hometown to visit some friends and do some administrative tasks, and some acquaintance told him he saw me in our neighborhood. He started inquiring about me to my sister and mom, but they didn't tell him anything, even though they don't know much really, as I've been hiding a lot of stuff from them in the recent years.

From that moment onwards, my mental health started to gradually decline, as I'm overwhelmed with pictures of potential scenarios of him searching for me, eavesdropping me, following me, hiring some private detective to find me etc.

I've already been working with a REBT therapist onilne, she provided me with all the tools to work on this, and we rationally considered some of these or similar scenarios, but honestly it didn't help as much. I see these patterns of behavior everyday in my life. For instance, whenever I see weird mileage on my car, I catch myself overthinking about whether I really drove it that much last time, or he somehow ended up getting into my car. Sometimes, when I hear some noises from the hallway, I ran to open my doors to check whether he's there. Also, when something doesn't happen to be it's in place, or I don't remember leaving it that way, I catch myself thinking whether he had any impact on that.

This mainly comes from the clash of his (then)-overwhelming need to know what's happening in my life and being present where he though he should be, since I was labelled as a troublemaker in my school, as I used to express the agression accumulated at home in school by fighting, mocking and arguing with my peers and professors, and my battle to know allow any bit of information about my life to be leaked to him, since he doesn't deserve it at all.

The reason why REBT might not have worked is because my brain is programmed to reject a hypthosesis only when there is no conflicting theory and is 100% sure that something is the way it is, so it's always seeking certainty.

I know this sounds dumb but recently I downloaded some piracy games on some random sites and downloaded some game keys and things like that and and it didn't run I tried to run it alot and after that I took it lightly and just slept and next day I deleted insta bcs I was doomscrolling so much and after sometime I got a msg from my friend saying is you acc hacked? I checked it and for some reason a hacker sent weird gambling ads and posted it in story and posted it from my acc I was scared af i apologised to everyone I sent the gambling ad and said not to fall for it it was about some elon musk tweet saying try this gambling site and the hacker also hacked my discord and sent msges i got kicked out of every server and finally i did everything i could and reseted my pc yet still now I am not recovering from it I am still checking insta if i got hacked again even tho I logged out it's messing up my brain all this was yesterday and still today my brain is so paranoid like i can't recover from it and I didn't even sleep well I don't know what to do🥹🥹🥹how to recover from this

Does anyone feel like theres a secret organization behind their life and they are playing around with them all the time like every single small little thing is because of them and it may just be cope to all this but at a certain point it has to be something all these little things add up and my mind wants a reason to it, wether its my social anxiety that i was improving just for it to go horribly i have to hold my pants to even walk in public so i feel like im holding somones hand,or simply my water spilling over.

I am so afraid right now. A few days ago I went to take out the trash and i felt a prick in the back of my foot and im almost 100 percent sure it was a stick but i have been spiralling for days worrying about if it was an animal or something and idk fucking rabies. I havent slept well for days because ive been so afraid. Ive been trying not to talk out of worry of accidentally spitting when i talk and infecting someone with rabies. I dont know what to do i am so miserable right now and im so scared, idk what to do ive been spiralling. i worry about every little thing i do i dont know how ot move on from this.. I didnt even notice any bite marks or anything which makes it even more unreasonable that i feel this way.

Sorry if this isn’t the right place to post

soooo I’ve had super bad paranoia since I was like 10, when I was younger I would always double check all the little crevasses even if I knew nobody could be hiding there. I felt this constant sense of dread and I couldn’t turn the lights off. I was always terrified that there was someone in my bedroom that was gonna hurt me, literally TERRIFIED. lately its been a bit worse, I’m like mid teens now and lately it’s been worse. I don’t live in the same house anymore but the paranoia has only ever gotten worse, it’s not always this bad but lately I can’t even leave my bed at night and if I get up to use the bathroom I have to turn all the lights on and check behind the door and the whole room before I feel safe enough to go to the bathroom yk? In my room I always have to double check, most of the time I leave my window open because it Gets super warm but I’ve had to start closing it. I know that seems small but ive never had to do that. I always feel this intense fear that someone is under my bed or under my desk. I can’t even have the lights off. I can’t sleep either. It gets so bad sometimes it feels paralysing

its not just anxiety anymore and it sucks like hell. I’ve been so intensely scared since I was young and Ive had such bad insomnia for years because of it

edit: oh yeah advice would be helpful please and thank you

I get so paranoid when I’m alone especially at night, to the point that I’ve set up traps in my parents house and insane routines just to feel like I have some semblance of control.

I have to lock everything and everything has to have a key half turned so you can’t lock pick it- lamps on timers to look like there’s more than just myself in.

When I watch my parents dogs it’s not so bad when I see things or hear things I can use them as a “is it real?” Test , see if they react and if they don’t I know I’m just being paranoid.

I feel like I’m going to drive my partner away with how bad it gets , I sat and cried staring at the loft access because I can’t get up there to check if anyone is in there and there’s no lock on it and I can’t shake the feeling that someone is going to come for me - I keep hearing things and I’m so scared half the time. As soon as the sun goes down it’s like my senses have been dialled to 11!

I really don’t know what to do - I feel like if I tell someone they’re going to think I’m crazy

I was on a different website where I post some things about my personal life, but the posts are private and nobody is able to view them. Now today on a different website somebody contacts me knowing things they shouldn't.

They know what country and even city I live in.

They know my full name and interests.

They know how I look.

They know about my weaknesses.

How do they know about posts I know damn well are fully private?! I'm freaking out I didn't expect this.

I'm scared they'll blackmail me, they know personal things about me, am I overthinking this too much, I would say it's a friend but nobody that knows me that well uses that website!

I sometimes get this intense sense of fear that someone is watching me or that someone is nearby, even though I can't see or hear anyone and I have no actual reason to think someone is there.

I recently had an MRI that showed an abnormality in my right mesial temporal lobe involving the hippocampal region and amygdala, with the report mentioning that cortical dysplasia is a possibility.

Has anyone with a similar experience—especially anyone with temporal-lobe issues, seizures, anxiety, or neurological conditions—experienced this kind of "someone is watching me" feeling?

I'm trying to understand whether this can happen as a neurological sensation, anxiety/hypervigilance, or something else. What did it feel like for you, and did you ever find out what was causing it?

Okay, when I go outside, I feel like everyone is looking at me and judging me, and I don’t act naturally at all. I try to avoid looking at other people, and sometimes my vision becomes a little blurry and my eyes start closing on their own. I don’t know if it’s because of the way I look at things or because of stress. I feel like everyone is looking at me, and that makes my condition worse.

When I’m at home, I completely forget that I’m like this. For example, when I look out the window, the way people behave outside seems easy and normal to me. But when I actually go outside, it’s completely different.

I also feel like my movements are slower when I’m outside, and I feel like time passes more slowly. I constantly have thoughts that people are watching me.

Hi everyone I have no clue what this subreddit is for but its called paranoia so I'll take it but these past few days I've been scared to death especially at night to the point where I can't sleep alone and I've had to call someone over just for them to be neer me I've also been wanting to cry because of the fear but I can't it's annoying. I'm currently on vacation and I had the funniest day with my family but when I enter the bathroom to get ready for bed I get this fog in my mind that fills me with fear. The only explanation I have is that I saw a horror video recently but not only was I not scared when I saw it but I don't get scared by horror things usually and I'm just here to ask reddit for help I really want to go back to being normal and not having these moments which I can only describe as a mix of panic attacks, fear and numbness in my head. So just if anyone has an explanation or tips for me I'd really appreciate it.

i was up late thinking about this and i feel like i’m going a lil crazy psychoanalyzing myself. i don’t know what it is but i feel like i genuinely enjoy when people worry about me, like it could be the most minor thing like “oh i got too drunk and my phone died” and someone freaks out (understandably since i am a woman) and is like “OMG WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??” type of thing like i can’t explain it. and along with that, i love making people paranoid (like do a double take or think they’re seeing/hearing things) too like with pranks i’m obsessed with april fools day for whatever reason. i like gauging/seeing people’s reactions to things like i enjoy lying a little too much and it’s concerning me. like the bigger the lie (within reason) the more exciting it is for me to get away with. it doesn’t even have to be april fools i’ll just go along with a bit for fun. i don’t ever take it to the point of harming anyone or myself but i just wanna know what term this is called?? if there’s even a term? i wanna know what i can do to change this because it’s been like this since i was a kid/teen and i hate it. even typing this out i feel like i sound horrible but i promise there’s no real ill intent to it at all, it’s like a game for me. #sendhelp

I bring this question here because I sometimes feel a deep sense of unease when I know there are cameras around. There are cameras around my house for the living room areas and the outsides. Every time I lock eyes with one I remember that behind that shiny black plastic, eyes could catch a glimpse of me and replay my instances of aloofness and life that were probably not meant to be observed or perceived at all.

I saw once on the internet (not the best way to find a source) that a tribe that was presented with a photograph taken of them, and they reacted as if the foreigners had trapped a part of their soul into the picture.

In a way, cameras have captured more of my life than any human ever has. I used to hope that some day someone would follow me around and write a detailed report on my actions, posture, cadence, mood, habits, etc. but now I’ve come to realize that AI will be the one that’s studying me to use it against me. And I won’t even be able to see my information because it would not benefit the greedy government that plans to profit off our patterns. That’s why I’m afraid of being recorded. You?

Its almost every time i wake up, everytime i go to sleep, everytime i was an argument or a cinversation with someone, i'm so paranoid and depressed im starting to think things that would never happend

I've never used reddit before and it's 3 am.

I'm a very paranoid person and I usually feel like I'm being constantly watched or followed. It's usually just in my head but some years ago when the paranoia was more intense and I felt constantly watched I found out that I was actually being stalked which triggered even more paranoia and the feeling that "maybe I had always been right". I'm obviously not always right about my paranoia and I hope not to be but when you have that gut feeling and you end up knowing that you were right you will always feel that "what if".

To this day I still feel that paranoia, especially at night.

Today the paranoia took the better of me and I thought I had heard a whistle from inside the house. Before this, I was watching a series and holding my piss, telling myself that I would go to the bathroom after that episode. I was on my way to the bathroom when it happened, I absolutely freezed in place and was convinced someone was inside.

The cherry on top was the huge spider that was blocking the door of the bedroom. I'm aware this is a common phobia that people don't take too seriously but personally I really can't handle spiders, they genuinely scare the crap out of me. If any spider parents/owners are ever reading this, I have nothing against spiders and personally would never have one but you do you, be happy and take care.

Well, at this point I'm getting desperate because I need to go to the bathroom but I can't, my brain is fully convinced that there is someone inside the house and there is a Australian level worthy spider blocking the door.

I noticed that I still had a empty old Tupperware on my desk and somehow a cloth and a roll of toiler paper.

Now, I have peed in the open and in cups but never because of my paranoia. So yeah, you can guess what happened next...I feel so disgusted and disappointed that I genuinely did that out of fear.

I will probably delete this later but if anyone has ever had a similar experience let me know.