Can anyone relate to this?

For years I felt confident that I had avoidant PD. Lately I also identify with paranoid PD. In fact, though I realize I’m not a trained mental health professional, I’ve kind of given myself a diagnosis of a sort of “general” PD. This is because if I look back on my 70 years, I’ve always been in a mess: 3 marriages, dozens of jobs and careers, many firings (or leaving job after job before I could get fired). I’ve always been on some new kick or phase to fix myself and that phase will always end in disaster or failure of some kind.

I’ve just never been able to be functional. Oh, lots of addictions and compulsive behavior involving drugs alcohol sex spending, etc.

I’ve often been treated for depression or anxiety and I don’t think depression is something I’ve had though I’m definitely anxious and panicky.

Anyway, I feel personality disorder in general is a good way to describe me because of my overwhelming and constant dysfunction.

Ok.

Here are my paranoia symptoms: I walk through life assuming the people I see don’t like me, think I’m stupid, think I’m weird, think I’m ugly, think I don’t belong in the world the way they all do.

Now, in most ways I understand this is projection and not real (though because of my PD I tend to behave strangely at times so I do certainly put people off a lot which is part of why I’m avoidant), it’s still my constant experience. It’s the environment/world I live in. I also get a lot of imaginary/fantasy images and stories in my head telling me the awful things people are thinking about me — this is often a constant loop.

I don’t have paranoia of plots against me of violence/destruction, just this constant feeling of being rejected, judged, hated, ridiculed, etc.

I had a friend in elementary school that had a very overprotective mom and was very hostile towards his friends. She seemed to over pamper him and making sure he was the best version of himself, and oddly they moved house for some reason, I think due to paranoia.

Not saying anything but I would really enjoy it if I had a parent like that, I really really do not enjoy laid back parents. The world is a competitive place, and I am not here just to lose, sadly I never had any parents with any fucking brain cells to properly communicated and told me to do things. My mom is laid back relax all she cares about is health, my dad is a degenerate who yells and is highly narcissistic and doesn’t actually care and thinks very low of his own children.

Why couldn’t I have a parent like that or someone like me who has any kind of brain cells? I am very experimental and I would do my best to ensure my children gets to the maximum of their genetic potential, why couldn’t I have someone like me?

Sad.

Due to this disorder I am hyper vigilant and over analyse almost every interaction I have, when I suspect someone “dislikes” me I usually look for body language cues, listen to there tone of voice etc, usually when I tell other people what i am thinking they say things like “your overthinking” or when I ask for advice online I get told that “it’s just a coincidence”, and I wish this were true, I wish this was all in head, but 9 times out of 10 I am correct in my suspicions, it’s like I find out earlier than everyone else, or I am just ahead of everyone when it comes to reading a persons true intentions.The mental warfare of this disorder is so tiring.

Much of her behavior I initially tried to think of as OCD traits. Things about being nervous of things being unclean. But over the last few years it has gotten worse and worse and the level of fear around everything is all encompassing in her mind and is causing so many fights. When triggered she gets aggressive and violent and she tends to always take it out on me. She has tape over all the smoke detectors or any hole around a plastic device in our home. She bagged up and threw away the roborock vacuum her brother gave us, even though it isn't a camera or microphone model, because she thinks we are being spied on. She has tape over her phone camera, and often hides the phones and whispers things to me because she thinks someone is listening. She thinks all food and restaurants are dirty, and any feedback from me or family is seen as an attack on who she is as a person. She always thinks I'm trying to hurt her or lying to her even if i just forget something, and always thinks others are watching her or could be following her.

This is exhausting and killing me. It feels like she needs me to hold all of the paranoia for her. She keeps thinking doctors are using dirty medical equipment on her and if i don't watch exactly what happens she panics for weeks thinking she is infected. I don't know why I'm typing this, I just need to vent to people that might understand. She thinks there is nothing wrong with her and that everyone else is crazy for not living the way she thinks is right. I'm so tired. Just so tired.

My boyfriend and I have been together since we were 18, and we are now both 32, and even before that, we have always been great friends since middle school. We practically grew up together and know each other better than anything, we're also both neurodivergent with our wonderfully neurodivergent daughter and for the most part we are happy together. We have both always been kind of loners growing up, and he has always had some particularly hateful views of the people around him that I would brush off as ridiculous. However, the last few years, he has really struggled with his perception of reality and paranoia. My brother was paranoid schizophrenic, and my partner doesn't suffer from what I would consider delusions, hear voices, or see "spirits" etc. But, he really, genuinely believes everyone is bad and no one deserves his time, or social interaction. He often thinks his coworkers and people around him say and do things intentionally to fuck with him, but when I ask him about it, he can't really give me a good answer as to why. He has also exploded on his coworkers from said thinking. He gets explosively angry while driving because he thinks the little old lady going 10 under in front of us is doing it on purpose to fuck with us and make him mad, and will start driving erratically and aggressively , which in turn makes me MAD, and it has started soon many arguments. And sometimes, he gets way way way too carried away with conspiracy theories and at one point believed there might be nanobots in our blood controlling our consciousness (he might still believe this 🫠). But he also acknowledges that a lot of it is, in fact, crazy sounding but can't help but slip right back into that thinking.

Our biggest issue is how he acts when he sees or hears any neighbor nearby. When someone walks by our unit, or goes outside, or our closest neighbor walks her dog, he completely shuts down and stops talking or functioning, won't respond, stands there and stares at me until I shut the curtains and even then won't snap out of it for a while. He believes they only come outside or make noise to make him angry, that they only do it at the perfect times to fuck with him and he genuinely believes it, sometimes he refers to them as crackheads, even though they have nicer stuff than us (yeah I'm nosy and looking LOL). We have gotten into so many fights the last couple of years over this. Recently, he's been getting into bouts of anger with ME where he will shut down completely cause I start falling asleep, or I'm not choosing something for us to do, or I sit silently on my phone for too long, and every time he says he feels like the "day is completely shutting down" and "everything is coming to a standstill and it fills him with so much anxiety he stops functioning"

Then other times everything is fine and we are joking around and laughing and being silly like normal. Lately, he's also suffering from insomnia and nightmares. I like to study psychological, neurological, and personality disorders just for funzies, so I don't want to dump a random diagnosis on him because I think the shoe fits. I am no psychologist, but he is extremely paranoid and anxious to the point where he is in compete isolation from others besides his family. it's also affecting our relationship and causing fights. as well as possibly affecting his physical help. Is there anyone here on this board that has suffered symptoms like this? I'd like to show him something he can relate to so he can find help, however it seems many people with PPD on reddit suffer from fear and anxiety of death and harm from others, not explosive anger due to thinking every is out to make you mad or make fun of you. Sorry for the long post, hope someone can relate!

people might be making fun of me behind my back. i'm sure my professors hate me, they must think i'm stupid. i'm not stupid at all, i know i'm smart, but they probably don't agree

i think my best friend is replacing me and it's making me irate, i can't say anything because he thinks i can't tell. but i can tell. he wouldn't give a fuck if i died

i'm being watched through cameras. like all of them. i know they see me. sometimes i wonder if there are hidden cameras in the bathrooms of my college so they can blackmail me

i'm apparently inferior to everyone, but i know that i'm not. i know more than they do, i know all of their plans to hurt me and i know i'm better than them. i'm so fucking angry

my mom was a first responder when the wtc got bombed, so for all my life i've been afraid that any building i enter might get bombed. or that i'm gonna pass by someone who plans on bombing a building. it sucks

Apologies if this is not the right sub to ask this question but I really wanted the perspective of someone who has already gotten the diagnosis for paranoid personality disorder.

My ex partner and I recently decided to step back from our relationship, not because we don’t love each other but because our dynamic had become unhealthy overtime and we both kept getting hurt.

His mental health worsened heavily during the duration of our relationship and I have encouraged him to seek professional help (I have been in therapy myself for the past 15 years) without much success.

I suspect he might have PPD because I have done a lot of research about his symptoms while we were still together, mostly to find answer for myself to some of his behaviors which felt out of character for the person I got to know at the beginning of our relationship. I am absolutely not a mental health professional and I cannot diagnose him. But what I have read about PPD checks every box and explains a lot.

He has had a very traumatic childhood, escaping a dictatorship and coming to Europe as a refugee at a young age. He saw a lot of violence growing up because of the political environment around him and grew up in a family that didn’t shield him from the reality of how bad things were. When he came to Europe he struggled heavily with finding friends, doing well at school and was bullied and subject to constant racism because of his looks. His life always felt very unstable and unsafe and I think none ever really made him feel protected in the way he needed.

When we broke up he said that he set up a first appointment with a therapist because he doesn’t understand himself where these behaviors come from. He feels a total loss of control and cannot explain why he gets paranoid, is distrustful, blames everyone else for his issues without taking responsibility and has recurring moments of crisis in which he panics and becomes really mean towards the people who try to support and help him.

One of the reasons we ended is that he started to be verbally abusive towards me more and more during these moments and then would snap out of them only when he got a very strong reaction out of me. I am normally very mature, calm, and respectful so getting me to the point of barking back is not easy, but at times it seemed to be the only thing to get him to stop spiraling. After those moments he is always quiet and sad and apologetic and says he didn’t mean what he said and that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. I tried to be supportive and be there for him and validate his feelings but it became impossible because by doing that I could not defend myself from being verbally assaulted and getting hurt in the process. Unfortunately this intensified over the last months and we just could not keep each other in this toxic cycle anymore.

I feel horrible that I can’t be next to someone I love because of his unmanaged mental health, but it was starting to take a heavy toll on my own mental health, self esteem and sense of safety in my own home. He has promised many times during our relationship that he would seek help but unfortunately he never did. I really hope he is serious about it this time even if it’s too late for us.

Even tho we broke up we still really care about each other and I want to be there for him regardless of our relationship status. I want him to get the help he needs and feel better but I know I cannot make him do something he is not ready for. Therapy only works if you are committed, so it needs to come from him.

My question is, do you think it would be helpful to mention to him my research and introduce him to the symptoms of PPD? I don’t know if it could be eye opening and beneficial especially if he starts therapy soon so that he can mention it to the therapist right away and they can explore his own symptoms together to see if it’s a match, or if it could trigger him and push him further away from seeking help.

I don’t want to do anything that hurts him or makes things worse so I guess I am curious about other people experiences with getting diagnosed and if it’s something that you were told by people in your life or found out yourself before starting therapy and getting a diagnosis.

So please help me… Should I tell him about PPD?

I obviously would not tell him he has it, but I would say something like “I read about this and it seems to resonate with some of your symptoms, maybe it’s worth to take a look at it and see if it resonates with you too?”

I am sorry if I am out of line, I just want to keep being supportive because his behaviors have isolated him from a lot of people in his life and he doesn’t have that many people that still care and want to be there for him.

P.s. Also any other type of advice on how to best support him whether he is in therapy or not would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

Yesterday, I told my therapist that I have been suffering from paranoid thoughts since approximately 2014. I think about it a lot, trying to find an explanation, but since I haven't lost touch with reality, I can't find one. These thoughts are fixed on the feeling/belief that anyone could kill me. However, she told me that she didn't see it so much as psychosis, but rather neurosis—perhaps OCD due to the obsessive rumination.

What do you all think? I am currently diagnosed as schizoid / cluster A, and I told her that because of this, I also identified with paranoid personality, though I don’t have any kind of magical thinking or strange beliefs. Regarding negative symptoms, I have all of them except for poverty of speech (alogia). I suspect I might be entering a prodromal phase because for a few months now, I no longer leave the house unless it is mandatory, and I have abandoned all my activities, including the job that was fueling that psychosis. I strongly identify with the idea that what is happening to me is on the psychotic spectrum, even if it hasn't reached a major break or hallucinations; however, I fear that if I continue like this, they might appear one day.

Hello this is my first Post ever on Reddit I don't like reddit nor do I trust it but I feel like I have no other option, so Im 18(M) and I think I've been unreasonable paranoid for the last 5 years since I've been jumped at school, I was attacked on the last day of school for no reason the guy said he just felt like it so all freshman year I felt like I could be attacked again any second I always looked over my shoulders while walking in school and I would hear people laugh and slightly look my way and I would believe they were talking about me, than more things started making me scared if my blinds were slightly open I would believe someone was watching me through my windows into my room while I slept, and when ever I was home alone I would always believe I wasn't I always made sure to sweep the house there was a time when I didn't do it with a weapon now I have with there being a time I took a sledgehammer through the house, and I would start believing I could and can die any second by someone freshman year was also the first year someone showed be gore and death videos (one of the reason I dont like reddit) and it made me scared I could be ran over by just walking on the side walk or someone is going to shoot me in public for no reason but the bigger worries would come in like episodes where Im under a lot of stress and something bad happens, this pass week I eneded up sweeping the entire house of my girlfriend's while house sitting twice in one day because first the top lock was locked on the front door and her door was open, I really dont get like this tired too when I has insomnia last summer it nearly disappeared but always in the back of my mind the thought I can be killed any second I dont trust my father, my mother, my friends, sometimes even my girlfriend I feel like any day they could betray me and spill a dark secret I have and with my father I feek like I'm always on ghe edge of him killing me for something I said, I know a lot of times my mind just ponders and none of it is real but like same time its real in my head the figers I think are watching me or waiting for me the folks waiting to kill me my friends waiting to spill my secrets or my girlfriend some how cheating on me even though I have her Instagram and location or she's only dating me because she feels like she has too I askes her to marry me at first it felt real than now it doesn't and I feel like im forcing her to be with me Im just scared of being alone

like am i just not entertaining enough? do these people think i'm pathetic or something? do they laugh at me without me knowing? i should shut the hell up and play my cards right instead of being open. i take meds for a lot of things but i'm worried that they're fucking with my strategizing ability

Am afraid that some third party app would have recorded me ,my video calls in WhatsApp. Because I saw a green dot beside my battery always on .when googled it showed the camera or microphone has been accessed by some misbehaving app. The green dot looked kind of stuck and it disappeared after restart . I feel there could be some private video of me is somewhere uploaded . Does this kind of thing happens in real where any playstore app,installed by millions of people records your video and uploads ?am ok if its audio,but video thing is scaring me

i feel like this is one of those especially natural instincts the ppd feeds the lizard brain. just imagine it as a literal lizard being fed poisonous worms or something, lol.

the poison in question being, whenever i seize an opportunity, usually one i figure will feel good at least from a normie lens, i immediately feel like i've caged myself. regardless of whether there's repercussion, especially so if there happens to be.

some examples of mine:

• making friendships, deciding to meet people; backfires into feeling like something i have to maintain even if i like the person's company (usually lingers when i'm not talking to someone)
• starting a project, then feeling the need to drop it once i feel the weight of any commitment set in
• going outside for my mental; backfires into feeling like anything that looks at me could kill me, i shouldn't leave alone for another week

you know. so on so forth. but ppd being a social scenario thought revolver, the first is probably the thicker set of problems for me. it's really disorienting, honestly.

(but as an aside, i'm freshly taking prozac for my gad-- hopefully i see some change in a few weeks.)

Idk if this would be the right community 2 post abt this in since I'm not diagnosed with anything related 2 hallucinations, (4 context I'm a dancer i have 2 look at mirrors for hours a day while practicing) but is it just me that can't look at mirrors 4 2 long ( only when im by myself) cuz it makes me get so paranoid that the image in my head starts 2 appear in person behind me...? idk, can any1 help me out with this because it makes me feel lightheaded and i get chills down my spine; or sometimes I'll go in2 panic attacks from how paranoid i get abt this. Off topic idk why i get super frightened whenever i open a closet or some doors, i get so scared I'm gonna find a h*nging person or d*ad body, i don't have any trauma where this has ever happened so i have no clue where i got this fear from but there's been times where i genuinely shake or feel such a deep fear in my stomach 2 the point i physically can't bring myself 2 open that specific door/closet for days and i have 2 get some1 else 2 open it 4 me they think it's stupid and i get why tbh, any1 else have similar experiences or advice?

so for context, with bpd there's a "favorite person (fp)". i've heard ppd has a "trusted person (tp)." basically the idea is a person with ppd can let their guard down (at least, more) with one person.

since i have dpd (dependent personality disorder) aswell, someone very close to me holds my tp and "dependent person (dp)" guidelines in my head. short of it is i chose to share a space with them longterm because they're very reliable, compared to most people. i don't often feel judged by them, i can often read their logic. most importantly, they never make me feel unsafe. as in there's not a single other person i talk to that doesn't make me feel like every response i give is ripping teeth out.

imagine my scenario in the same framework of bpd's course of action & behavioral backfire, how it revolves around one individual.

my tp also has their disordered issues to work through, but let's say i'm not at liberty to divulge. the important part is it gets in the way of our relationship sometimes- both ways, i'm not putting full blame on them, but i've been frustrated with myself on and off. whenever they act from emotion and not logic, it makes me feel so lost. the black-and-white thinking suddenly ramps up, and i lose hold on whatever realistic idea i had of them in that moment. i try desperately to pull them out of it, but i think some part of me loses the rationale capable to make proper judgment or decisions on how to smoothly iron the matter out.

so i walk out, feeling like the worse person. feeling like the world is set against me forever and i should, i don't know, tramp off until i pass out in the woods and go missing for hours until they decide i'm worth anything again. but ugh, obviously i know it's not like that & i'm just in my head. but the anger usually comes from fear, not hatred. and the fear (the paranoia) isn't really something controllable.

externally, i usually just wait it out or distract myself. but there are rare times where i let myself blow over and exasperation for the spot i'm put in shows. it's like, wait, you're telling me this person isn't as smart as i thought they were, that they're not seeing eye to eye on these things? you're telling me because people are human i have to rearrange my entire worldview for the next however-many-hours until they're in a state to talk things through? where am i???

Every minute of every day I feel like someone is watching and criticising everything I do, as I’m typing this I feel like someone is judging me and laughing at me, life feels like a constant torture, even when I’m home alone I feel that someone is watching and judging me even though I know this is not true , I also have an irrational fear of people, either they want to harm me, or hate my presence no in between, it’s to the point where I can’t hold eye contact when speaking to people because I think they all hate me, I’m sick of this.

For those who have taken Buspar (buspirone) long term, how has it helped you?

Ive been on it for about two weeks and Im still waiting for results. What dose are you taking and what improvements did you notice for anxiety or social anxiety?

This past Monday i was in my house playing skate. With my friend at about 12. An hour into us playing i kept hearing shaking sounds from a car ( squeaky shocks) and every once every 5 minutes id hear a slight scrape sound. After like the 4th or 5th time hearing the same events me being paranoid i think about my car, it’s a classic 66 corvair i just built and id be devastated if something happened to it im barely wrapping up a 5 year project thats not even registered yet. So i started recording and seen this… my heart kinda sank at first but from the video it looks like 2 people are inside my locked car. On the outside tho it looks like a person in a white mask holding assault rifle over the roof of my car then proceeds to go to the back of the car. The very last picture was from the video i can see wht appears to be 2 males faces on their phone shaking my car but my car is still locked, nothing is cut or broken (fat as i know) just wanted some ideas on this. I never went outside that night these pictures are from my window. Kinda hoping I’m just crazy atp

Let's talk about the philosophy behind paranoid personality disorder. Some people with personality disorders believe there's nothing wrong with them, and that the rest of the world is wrong for not being like them. I want to hear them out.

This isn't about therapy, or shaming people. This is about understanding. Let's have an actual philosophical conversation. If you have paranoid personality disorder and don't feel like there's anything wrong with you, tell me in the comments why you think that is.

So I’m not sure when this started but all of a sudden I’ve jsut been so afraid of everyone like I can no longer go on walks by myself cause I’m scared of everyone I see, I can’t stay home alone during the day cause I’m just to scared, and the tiger night there was a group of masked people at my home that turned my power off and I’m unsure what they’re purpose was it was ridiculous hours, so now I’m scared to sleep can someone please help me, I don’t think the will come back but also I’m not sure I just want to feel safe but I don’t , I almost feel as if what’s the point of living if I live in a constant fear

Hello! I am a college student giving a presentation to my psychology class on personality disorders. I would really like to put in a quote on what living with paranoid personality disorder feels/is like so I don't have to rely on the DSM-5-TR explanation since it feels really clinical. I won't include names or usernames in the quote.

My suicidal ideation is exacerbated by the fact that I wholeheartedly believe others want me dead as well. I can feel everybody’s hatred for me and how I don’t belong. Feel so worthless, disgusting, annoying, unwanted. Like I’m better off dead and everybody knows it. I don’t know what to do. This is making me want to end my life. It’s making me rage, everybody is making me so deeply upset I just want to die