I really didn't think there was any one out there who felt the same way as me. I read your posts today and feel much better. Thank you so much for having the courage to post your story. I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 about ten years ago and also have paranoia. For a long time I didn't know it was part of the bipolar disorder and sometimes it still seems separate. I just had a manic episode about a month ago and was hospitilized and lost my job over it for missing so much work. I am able to hide my symptoms from family and friends but when I had to miss a week of work for the hospital they were not okay with that.

You said things are going well and people are really nice to you but you feel like they are plotting against you. I feel the same way with people and I wonder if maybe part of that is the social stigma we feel and I think maybe we all have that mental divide of what things look like from the outside and what's going on inside with us. We kind of have to hide a lot of what we really feel, ya know? I totally understand.

I was slowly getting more and more manic running around all over the place having sex, spending money, drinking, my usual manic self and I was very paranoid. I ended up in a hotel room somewhere with my dog and some clothes about to hurt myself when I decided to go to the hospital. But about the paranoia, any time I answered an email at work I felt like the whole office knew what I said in that email or if I had a conversation on the phone I assumed everyone knew what that conversation was at work. Also, if I left my house I felt like everyone knew what was going on with me and was watching me in my car. When I went running I felt like there were cameras in the trees. I even asked my dad if there were cameras in my room in the air vents. It got even worse and I felt like you did and started to think people could read my thoughts and that there was an interconnected network that I wasn't a part of where everyone knew what I was thinking and could watch me and was in on this big joke that I wasn't a part of. I wasn't on my medication because like always I thought "maybe I don't have bipolar disorder and I can do this without meds" but I crashed and burned like always so now I'm on them again and I don't feel anything. I wish I knew what the answer was but it seems to always be a tradeoff with bipolar disorder. The ups are horrible and so are the lows but being on the medication right now I just feel like I'm not moving. I'm so grateful for the honesty of other people like you with this disorder. It makes it easier to know I'm not alone in this.