The Original Causes of Paranoia

One of the most useful realizations we can have about ourselves is that we are 'paranoid.' This is a word that is easy to dismiss as irrational, conjuring up images of people who believe they are being followed by the secret service or being watched over by an extraterrestrial civilization. The reality, on the other hand, is much more normal-looking and far less comedic-feeling. To be paranoid in the genuine sense means to be plagued by the persistent belief that the vast majority of people despise us, that the vast majority of situations are exceedingly dangerous, and that some sort of catastrophe is almost certain to strike us soon.

It's not always evident how something like our suspicion that a colleague is playing a joke on us relates to our fear of being disparaged by our colleagues, our suspicion that the waiter has purposely placed us at the worst table, or our fear of becoming embroiled in a smear campaign.

However, our perception that the world is constantly and imminently conspiring to belittle, attack, and humiliate us is most likely the result of a very specific string of experiences of belittlement, attack, and humiliation that will have occurred at the hands of only one or two people during our formative years — and yet that will have been carefully submerged and overlooked. And this will have been accomplished because we have implicitly preferred to fear the world rather than acknowledge the reality of the torment we have endured at the hands of characters — who may or may not have been our mother or father — in whom we would have liked to place our faith and our trust, as well as our love.

It's sad that our minds require a place to expel their toxins, and that if they are prevented from doing so in the appropriate setting, they will seek to do it anywhere that feels vaguely relevant: the office or the restaurant, the party or the newspaper article, to name a few examples. That which we dread from coworkers, acquaintances, and social media is merely a proxy for what we once received from sources close to home — and which we have been unable to return to their senders because we have lacked the support necessary to do so.

Identifying and understanding those who have crushed and damaged us is a vital component of developing adult self-awareness. It is also — and this is something we should acknowledge — an insight that we may be quite hesitant to obtain, preferring instead to remain permanently scared rather than raise objections to our treatment by caregivers whom we have decided to believe are innocent. Once we realize that the derision and disgrace we anticipate for tomorrow already transpired in our heartbreakingly pained and unexplored yesterdays, we may one day feel as if significantly fewer people are truly laughing at us and that there is far less possibility of a scandal occurring soon.