A lot of schizos become paranoid that people are out to get them in a conspiracy. Based on the statistics from this forum, schizos are more likely to be a victim of violent acts. But does this just include physical assault - could it not also include bully behavior? People perhaps sense the weakness in a “mentally ill” person and it attracts predatory behavior. “Normal” people don’t experience this as much, so it perhaps seems unusual to someone in the beginning stages of psychosis to experience this kind of treatment from others, making it seem like a conspiracy.
What do you guys think of this theory? In essence, maybe it is not all in the schizos head that people are messing with them, as schizos have a higher incidence of being victimized, but it is not an organized event at the same time. If you’ve ever seen the movie Special, it perfectly depicts this idea.
Especially on the internet we can see that people indeed do play mind games on vulnerable people. Are schizos immune from this dark side of our world? I don’t think so, but I think people are more prone to write off such complaints from schizos as delusional, and in fact I think some people try to shelter the schizo from some dark parts of human nature and society. For instance, in some programs for mentally ill people, they will not allow them to listen to music or watch certain movies. This constitutes as sheltering schizos and treating them like children in some respects, at least in my book.
My paranoia stemmed from two things, my fight or flight mechanism being triggered for no reason at random times making me feel like I was in a ton of danger, and from my anxiety disorder causing me to worry about every possible bad thing that could happen to me at any moment.
They are victimised probably because they have behavioural and social interaction problems and yes , this does bring them , at times , to the notice of people that are predatory in nature. But when you break social dynamics down like this and if you were to disect it , for a person with psychosis they would become paranoid quick.
It seems like some people have a combination of assertiveness and peculiarity that draws others to bully them. Schizophrenics might be more susceptible to this, but a lot of people leave the mentally ill to themselves. As for the paranoia, a person has to be pretty important for people to be out to get him.
I think you should read up on how grandiose and persecutory delusions work together. What often happens is grandiosity and then paranoia, with the grandiose delusion fueling the paranoid delusions.
For example: people are watching me because I am very highly functioning, am very strong and know Krav Maga. Basically they are watching me because I am an outlier by many means- from appearance to performance in school- I’ve lifted nearly three times my weight repetitively and also have top honors at my school. I look different, I am quite muscular. I dress differently, I almost always wear all black.
See? Thinking I am special and then thinking that is why I tend to think people are watching me.
I am talking more along the lines of targeted individuals. Some of their ideas of people messing with them could be true. I’ve seen them heavily trolled on the internet for example.