Thanks for your posts ED and DM!

ED, this is not really so much like depersonalisaton/dissocation, although I have experienced that too. But you are right,I have my bf as a 'sounding board' and he is very calm and always tells me what is real and what is a product of my mind. It helps a lot.

DM, the longer the better... I have never been as paranoid as you describe, but indeed I do the 'challenging' thing too. Have paranoid thought, say to self 'what would be more likely', good guy thought prevails, bad guy thought stays (intrusively) in the background. I am very grateful that I can still distinguish the good guy from the bad guy. But... IF I tell someone that there was someone following me at the bus stop (it 'happened' last Tuesday ), they say 'you're paranoid', the next time it happens for real, they still say 'you're paranoid'. Ya know?

Or, let's ask BB what she thinks of this idea - oh no, let's not, she has bad judgment and lives in cloud cuckoo land, let's discount her good ideas.

Pffff.