It must be one of the worst to have in terms of character evaluation. Descriptions are uniformly negative. In my usual ambivalent way i outwardly refute the diagnosis while inwardly taking on board the diagnosis. The latter has me agonising ‘Am i really that unpleasant a person?’ It makes me feel bad about myself and adds fuel to the low self esteem and self worth.
I think if you are sufficiently paranoid, and don’t fit the criteria for paranoid schizophrenia, you are at short odds of being diagnosed as such regardless of whether you fit the personality profile.
As i feel my paranoia stems from early(childhood/teens especially) negative life experiences it seems cruel punishment for struggling to cope with those negative life experiences. In essence it smacks of rebuking the victim as though the victim were the actual wrongdoer .
Instead of seeking to blame and negatively characterise the distressed/traumatised with such antisocial relish, a good psychiatry should be at the forefront of seeking to minimise things that can lead to distress and trauma by challenging harmful political/social attitudes .
It should never be a vehicle for protecting the oppressor and guarding the status quo but be there to better human existence.
I can’t agree more with you.
I don’t think i was that paranoid in childhood but the bits i have put in bold really stand out.
Course
Paranoid personality disorder may be first apparent in childhood and adolescence with solitariness, poor peer relationships,social anxiety, underachievement in school, hypersensitivity, and peculiar thoughts and language.These children may appear to be odd or eccentric and attract teasing. The course of this disorder is chronic.
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe01.html
The poor peer relationships were a product of difficulty with social interaction from a very young age. The teasing especially as a teenager was because i was physically and socially awkward. The social anxiety developed in line with the bullying/teasing as a teenager. The underachievement at school could partially have been due to mental illness, but also to having specific, unrecognised, areas of cognitive difficulty that adversely affected me as school work got more complex( i fit the profile for nonverbal learning disorder(which has similarities to aspergers) quite well).
What i would say is that the paranoia didn’t just develop in a vacuum,devoid of precipitating factors.