I Feel Like My Paranoia Ruined My Life

[Horrendous_Hexapod]

I think I’ve always been a paranoid person. From as far back as I can remember I’ve had a variety of fears, ranging from things like the dark to nightmares I had that scared me for days, but instead of fading with time like it typically did with other kids, I feel feel like my paranoia has gotten exponentially worse over the years.

I think it all started to go downhill back in 2015, I remember being home alone with a family friend as my parents were out at a parent teacher interview with my brother. I was watching a YouTube video ranking the worst boyfriends and girlfriends, and I remember the announcer saying “theres very few things that will get you into Hell.” I don’t know why, but for some reason, after he said that I felt the urge to look up what will get you into Hell, and I found a list on some religious website that said things like saying the lords name in vain which, as a recent teenager, I did quite a bit. Over the next few weeks I kept feeling the need to apologise to God for every little thing I did wrong, from swearing to getting angry, to the thoughts in my head, pretty soon I kept having intrusive thoughts, saying that I hated God, that I wanted family member to rot in Hell, that I wanted people and animals to die. I didn’t mean any of it, but I kept apologising in my mind because I thought that if I didn’t something bad would happen, or God would think that I really meant it.

Then, in 2016, I started worrying about conspiracy theories. At first it was creationism, and then this theory that dinosaurs never existed. This one got to me because I love dinosaurs. I could’ve just ignored it and went about my day, but I didn’t. I obsessed over everything these people would say, I found myself to listen to every single last one of their arguments, thinking I would be a closed minded idiot if I didn’t, thinking that every time they would come at me with irrefutable proof of their theories, but they never did.

But then, at the end of 2019 and well into 2020, I forced myself to get into politics. I had dabbled in things during the “SJW” era, but this time was different. Over the last five years I’ve subjected myself to some of the most horrible ******** I’ve ever heard, first it was about women, then people of colour, then LGBT people, then liberals and conservatives in general. I think what really got to me about these debates is that they actually used scientific sources, but because I wasn’t well versed in politics or psychology, I felt like I had to believe them because I couldn’t rebut much of what they said. Even then, there were also a variety of contradictory sources, so most of the time I didn’t know what to believe.

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t keep on living like this, but I force myself to. I’ve never been in a relationship, I’ve struggled through much of school, struggled through uni, struggled through finding a job, I’m not anywhere near where I wanted to be in life by now, and I think it’s at least partially due to these useless worries. I feel guilty on the occasion that I choose not to engage in politics or conspiracies after having seen a certain article or book or whatever, and part of me is telling myself that I’m a coward who doesn’t want to face the real world by coming here, but a bigger part of me is just sad, sad that I’ve wasted so much of my life, sad that I spend hours worrying about things that probably don’t matter, sad that I barely get joy out of things I used to love, sad that I hardly have the energy to do anything.

I just really want some help, some advice, anything to stop me feeling the way that I do.

[Croix]

Dear Horrendous_Hexapod~

Reading back though you previos posts a couple of things seem important. The first is self-diagnosis, listing yourself as having paranoia. Frankly this does not sound at all like the paranoia I'm familiar with though my family. Plus trying to use Dr Google or Dr YouTube is fraught with dangers, they may be either plain wrong, or simply inappropriate for you.

Several people have suggested that the possibility of OCD be examined. From what I understand your mind latches on to one concept - going to hell is one example - and then can't get away from it, worrying the concept continuously and making yourself feel worse in the process.

This mental process have given you an unhappy life, and I'm sure it could be a lot better.

May I strongly suggest that you see your GP in a long consultation and set out the way your mind has been working, then see what happens. If you find this difficult to do, or are worried you will not explain things properly face to face then spend a couple of days, as I have done, and write everything down in point form. This has made things a lot easier

I hope you would like to come back and say how you went

Croix

[therising]

Hi HH

While we can possess certain things such as an open mind, a sense of wonder, a strong imagination and guiding inner dialogue, the question can be 'When do such abilities begin to feel more like a curse?'. I suppose the answer would be 'When they begin to create a sense of disorder or stress and upset in life'. Your open mind, sense of wonder, strong imagination and inner dialogue sound like they're making life incredibly hard for you, to say the least. 

• An open mind is the thing that leads us to evolve beyond certain perceptions or beliefs. Learning to open and close the mind is a must, otherwise it's staying open all the time which can lead to
• an almost constant sense of wonder. While a basic sense of wonder can lead us to research some fascinating stuff, constant wonder can become incredibly time consuming. Always wondering on the internet in our free time can mean not getting out to live an active life. We're researching instead of taking positive action in our life. I say this from personal experience. While I can wonder about a particular thing that comes to mind and get on the internet to satisfy my sense of curiosity, something I find in the first research article can lead me to wonder about and research something else, which can lead me to something else and then something else. This can go on for hours if I'm not conscious of the time
• If we can fully imagine what it is we're wondering about, this is brilliant unless we're being led to imagine what's stressful, depressing and so on. The imagination requires extremely careful management at times, especially when we can feel what we imagine. Also it's important to question what we imagine or are being led to imagine. What we imagine can lead to certain beliefs if we're not careful, destructive beliefs included
• Inner dialogue can be so incredibly helpful at times, as it can offer a really inspiring and solid sense of guidance. When inner dialogue begins to take a downturn though, it can definitely make life challenging. With you mentioning a part of you leads you to think or feel in one way and other parts of you lead you to think and feel in other ways, I've found a helpful way of dealing with a multifaceted nature involves identifying different parts of me with the help of my imagination. I don't necessarily believe but simply imagine I'm comprised of a wonderer in me that leads me to wonder, a stresser that leads me to stress, a visionary that leads me to visualise or imagine, a pessimist that leads me to only see the worst, a saboteur in me that leads me to self sabotage and so on. Each part of our nature can sound and feel different. If we were to imagine a sage in us and develop and exercise that sage, we could come to rely on it in many ways. We could tap into it when the need arises. For example, the sage in us could say 'You don't have time to wonder about and research that topic, you've got work to do'. Our inner sage can shift our focus toward more productive things and more positive visions

So, while an open mind, a sense of wonder, a clear imagination and inner dialogue can be seen as gifts, such gifts can require incredibly important forms of management, otherwise they can become completely out of control and make for a 'hell on earth' type experience.