Paranoia vs social anxiety

DX'd - Other
1

I think defining things to a mental health professional can cause problems when it comes to self distinguishing between (social) anxiety and paranoia.
I think this is especially true if you are seen as having insight and what you say is taken at face value.

Mistakenly say you are paranoid enough times even though severe social anxiety might be a better descriptor, and it may be assumed that you are,indeed, prone to paranoia.
That then feeds into how you are dxed.

If you say you are paranoid often such a statement is taken at face value without an attempt to tease out why the person is saying they are paranoid, and to ascertain whether the self description is indeed accurate.

I do wonder about the difficulty of teasing out severe social anxiety from milder forms of paranoia. At what point does a fear of being bullied,embarrassed or ridiculed if engaging with others become something paranoid in nature?
Obviously we are not talking about CIA/MI5 bugging my home level of paranoia but what may be much milder/subtler presentations of paranoia.

Is a difficulty trusting because of negative experiences like bullying an understandable but socially limiting protective mechanism or an indicator of pathological paranoia ?

2

There’s a difference between paranoia and fear. Paranoia is based upon the imagination and is impossible or very unlikely whereas anxiety is fear based on reality and very possible.

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3

There is a big difference between the two. When i have social anxiety, i just have an overall fear of talking to people. When paranoid, regular conversation becomes twisted and somehow they’re talking about personal things about me. Things they couldn’t possibly know. But in reality they’re just talking about everyday things.

4

I have both, I once reported my next door neighbour to the police because I thought she said something and actually I was hallucinating. That got me in a lot of trouble.

5

When I am having paranoia, everything someone says or does is interpreted as an attack on me in some way. It usually targets one specific person, who is all of the sudden an evil person plotting against me in some way. Sometimes it is a group, but that is less common for some reason.

Social anxiety is just me being afraid to have people behind me, me being afraid of crowds, or me being afraid to speak in a group meeting, or meet some new people.