How do you deal with your paranoia

I try to rationalize it, try to analyze what is real and what is not,

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I up my meds. I get overwhelmed sometimes. It can be very hard. Sometimes my thoughts just convince me something horrific is going to happen. I worry every single day. I am always paranoid. Itā€™s just that usually, I still manage. Anti-anxiety pills donā€™t help me because it is my thoughts that are the problem. Anti-anxiety meds just make me tired and paranoid. I try very hard to rationalize through it. My therapist has been helpful with that. Very, actually but usually, I end up increasing my risperidone for a day or two until it is manageable again.

Not well, but I donā€™t have extreme delusions in regards to paranoia. The worst I think is when Iā€™m convinced my husband is cheating and I flip outā€¦
I have other paranoid beliefs like that everyone at work talks about me, etc. But itā€™s like a lot of things for me in that itā€™s just always there and I try not to react. I just do what I need to do.

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My paranoia surrounds physical and emotional torture. Horrible, fearful thoughts. I feel only meds can really help but my therapist helps rationalize my fears too a little bit.

I also try to design my living environment so that it would not have unnecessary elements that may cause and trigger unreal paranoia, in addition I try not to react to mental processes caused by these triggers, meds help a lot, but still paranoia exists.

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Depends on the paranoia. Paranoia that people are talking about me, following me, things like that? I make myself come up with alternative explanations for why people might be acting the way they are. I think about why I might be doing the same thing. I try to make myself proceed from the assumption that itā€™s not about me.

Itā€™s mainly training my brain to think in non-paranoid ways.

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easier said than done. I couldnā€™t do that until a few years after my diagnosis, so I just prayed sometimes.

meds really helped.

lol I definitely couldnā€™t do that. I live in a city with a lot of people. simple eye contact could (and still can) trigger me sometimes. the only way I can ā€œdesignā€ my environment is by staying home most of the time.

In Finnish ā€˜itse elƤn landellaā€™ meaning I am living in the countryside ā€¦

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I suffer from media shock syndrome. Usually the bad news of the day is what everyone is focusing on and really not necessary, but they do anyway. I often find myself going places like Walmart, where Iā€™ll see someone I know or THINK I know, but never say hello to them, because I am not sure the circumstances I met them in. Oftentimes, my visual illusions would make me seem odd, as I focus on the mundane things, like clouds in the sky, or unusual pebbles in the street. The most paranoid I can become is when I am cornered with my phobias.

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I second thisā€¦a bad idea for me in the corner.

ā€˜itse elƤn landellaā€™ā€¦I will remember this.

I mostly manage it through avoidance and isolating. I still get paranoid when I am alone, but not as bad.

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I keep having delusions about things like aliens colonizing the planet on certain dates. These things NEVER happen. Having a written record of all the times I have been wrong helps me to view my paranoia related to these delusions (and other things) with skepticism. This is the value of a recovery diary (I have a box full of old diaries over the years I can refer to). It helps me to reprogram myself to reject weird thoughts that arenā€™t helpful.

:blush:

Iā€™m on abilify and itā€™s reduced my paranoia greatly. My biggest paranoia was hidden cameras, and that seems to have gone.

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I never had that paranoia before. only time, I thought there were hidden cameras, was at the top of my apartment building staircase; because the cops always catch me there somehowā€¦

but yeah, Iā€™m 100% sure there are no hidden cameras at home. I always ask myself: what disturbed freak would want to see this bruised-up dude on a hidden cam? lol

I think a part of a reason why I got paranoid schizophrenia in the US was because they really spied on me in my private properties such as a house, when I for example I mentioned I wanted to go to Guatemala they immediately called my phone number, I started thinking all kinds of paranoid thoughts and possibilities ā€¦ well that was already 20 years ago.

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When I catch onto it I just say ā€˜realityā€™ three times. I wish it would cure it but it does remind me to maintain perspective. Plus due to my Finn heritage I just plow right on through some way or another. Good ole fashion Sisu.

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i face my paranoias head on so to speak. i look at it like from a distance and it is easier to realize it is just a part of sz.

judy

Sometimes the complexity of my mind causes so strange paranoid thoughts that it takes few days to rationalize these and eventually conclude that these have been results of unrealistic paranoia, then I just like to sit and think alone.

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