can i struggle with both? is it considered paranoia if i’m aware it’s irrational, but yet can’t push it away?
my job is starting to take a toll on me. my dads telling me to go to full time and i’m sitting here wondering if i can continue handling part time. i do like the job, but even on days i don’t work, i sleep horribly now and when i do work i have bad anxiety all day long before i get there. once i’m there it’s okay, my tummy settles down, but my brain doesn’t.
when i think about anxiety vs paranoia, i can’t really pinpoint a difference besides when i look it up i find that paranoia comes with delusions. well, i often find myself worrying about things, and i continue thinking about it and i get scared, or whatever appropriate feeling for what i’m thinking. but that one specific thought doesn’t necessarily stick with me. does this make sense? or am i literally just full of ■■■■ and over thinking everything?
The degree of fear involved. Anxiety doesn’t bring as much fear as paranoia for me.
For me they are two very distinct things, paranoia is delusional thinking, anxiety feels in the whole body.
Anxiety makes you think that you’re going to lose your mind. Paranoia is when your past that point and already losing it.
Listen you’re young it’s part of your life and heavily increasing the days you age. It’s a roller coaster that doesn’t stop.
I work full time, I take the paranoia to work with me and it drives the anxiety to levels that are off the chart, I’m sure I have been close to insanity on several occasions.
I’m sure you life iand thoughts are probably different than mine but it’s all the dame really, if you can stick to part time, to live a decent life I have to work full time or live under a bridge. Hope you can get by part time and congrats for even doing that, you should be proud of yourself.
could someone answer this?
i definitely experience fear based off my own thinking of what i’ve seen or heard, or sometimes just out of nowhere… but i’m fairly aware that it’s unnecessary for me to feel that way. but there’s nothing i can do about it until it just seeps away on its own after a while.
sometimes, often, i think i’m not sz. as i’ve never been diagnosed and i don’t really see or hear things very much… but a part of me thinks i am, merely for the fact that i do and have experienced these things, and also i HATE talking to anyone about it. which isn’t me, usually i will talk to anyone about anything going on. but this one thing i keep to myself, unless someone asks and even then i hardly half ass go into any detail.
Yes it’s paranoia, even if it’s real life or a delusions, real life events your mind can turn into more than it really is and a delusion can be real in your mind and scare the hell out of you driving anxiety to unreal levels.
I was told my anxiety is very much to do with my paranoia. Certainly mistrust of people due to past negative experiences makes me anxious/socially anxious.
The anxiety can trigger irrational thought processes often in the form of hyper catastrophising. There’s an awareness to some extent that they are irrational but they are very hard to get past.
That of course raises the question of how much the delusional and the irrational share and part company.
You work really hard, and I have alot of insane panic attacks like you too. It’s hard and I never want to get into a car accident during one!
For me, I get anxiety when things are overwhelming. My paranoia is more related to believing I’m in danger somehow, so it’s more connected to fear of not being safe.
You could say paranoia is a form of anxiety though I suppose.
This, perfect explanation.
I’d get into a whole vicious cycle with it the anxiety would trigger off paranoia which would trigger off more anxiety which would trigger off more paranoia and so on.
you have to learn to ignore the fear involved with anxiety. tell yourself, “so what if I have anxiety, I can do this !” it worked for me and I had debilitating anxiety. overcame it …it’s just a head game that reacts with your body and heart rate.
Do you drink any caffeine? It does really help to cut back or stop it entirely.
It sounds like you have some difficulty trusting yourself and your thoughts. It’s really not good to self diagnose a condition like sz. As it is, it doesn’t sound like you have great difficulty trusting others which is really what clinical paranoia is about. if you are concerned it would be best to see a mental health pro.
There are probably some reasons your job seems a little dangerous, though not as bad as a police officers.
First of all, in a job you have to be polite all the time so you have to be a pretty careful about what you say to everybody. That can be quite stressful because you have to maintain your poise even if you don’t feel well physically or mentally. Even a joke can be taken the wrong way. A manager may insult or belittle you and you are not in a position to make a comeback. You also would probably like to leave your employer on good terms so that you can get a good reference from him/her in the future. You may even have to have a certain dress code or at least take a shower every day before work (computer programmers can often get away without this though 
Second, you could make a mistake in your work. If you are a surgeon that could be really bad news but if you work in food service or in an office most likely the mistake wouldn’t cause too much harm except for maybe a grumpy customer or a small accounting error.
So basically you mentioned that you are worried, but it might help to really look hard and think as calmly as possible as what those specific worries are. It might even help you to write them all down on a piece of paper so that you are not constantly shuffling them around in you head.
It might help to read some books about anxiety too… I thought Dale Carnegie’s book on worry was pretty good.
One thing he said that I really like is that if you are worried about something happening a really good strategy is to pretend that it’s already happened, accept that it’s happened and then figure out how to make things a little better.
Are you worried about getting fired? Pretend it’s happened. It sounds very unlikely that you would end up homeless or anything like that especially since it sounds like your family is very supportive of you.
The fact that you are so worried makes me think that you are pretty responsible and have a good conscience but perhaps things will be ok even if you make some trivial mistakes now and then.
i’m not worried about getting fired. my jobs actually very laid back, and i do get paranoid about some people at work. fun story, actually. something happened to me today.
well, it’s happened a few times. but i said something today and action was taken…
a homeless guy has come into the gas station and sits at the first booth, and just stares at me. any time i look in his direction, he is watching me. no paranoia about it, besides because it was actually happening. well i told someone, this is the 4th or 5th time he’s done this since i started my job a month and a half ago. my boss tried talking to him, and even offered to give him a ride somewhere. he got snippy with him and was saying explicit words, so he called the cops. me being the big hearted person i am felt bad for him because he stood outside in the rain for an hour waiting for the cop to come get him… 
he didn’t get arrested, just a ride elsewhere.
i was told today that if any person EVER makes me feel uncomfortable, and none of my bosses or managers are there, to call the police. that made me feel comfort.
there’s not much for me to worry about at work, i screw a lot of stuff up and i get told it’s okay. i also kind of feel favorited… my bosses treat me good. i’m sorry if this was a lot of unnecessary information, i just wanted to vent about my day. i need to go to bed. i got off an hour ago and work again in 7 hours 
I really have to make sleeping a priority or I will have a bad day also. I get sleeping pills from my pdoc I fall asleep faster,feel more rested on less hours of sleep. I see you have to be to work again in just a few hours. Might be a good option for you. I do much better with 9 hours a night. But can be ok on less with a sleeping pill.
I have anxiety and paranoia all the time. Every day. I have had anxiety since before I had a MI. for years. I never had paranoia before, but now that I am MI, I do.
The difference for me is; anxiety is non-specific. It is a nervous and worried state about any and everything. Always uneasy. Paranoia is more specific, like something bad is going to happen to me. Even if I don’t know exactly what that something is, I fear something bad happening to me.
Anxiety is like constant worry. Paranoia is like fear of harm.
To me.