I know that no one here can offer any diagnosis or anything for what I'm experiencing, I just want to post this to get some feedback. I'm wondering how far out of the "norm" my experiences are, and if others have experienced similar things or not. I apologize in advance for this being long, it was hard to get everything typed out without being too wordy.

I've been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder for years now, since I was in high school (over 10 years ago). I know that it's a problem, but there are occasions when I become overly paranoid. I've always assumed that it's just part of my anxiety, but I know there are parts of my experience with paranoia that other people don't go through. I've never really talked about this stuff with other people, so I really have no way of defining my experiences other than just what I experience. I am definitely planning on bringing this up with my therapist, but I still have another week before I see her, so I was hoping to get some thoughts from people here.

There are the occasional periods when I feel very intensely that I'm being watched or I'm in danger. I've experienced it a lot of the time when I'm outside, usually at night but sometimes during the day. The last time I can remember experiencing this was at work a couple of weeks ago. I usually work until about 8 at night, and on this particular night I decided to go out and start my car before I left so it could warm up. I can't remember if there was really anyone around, our receptionist may have left early that night, which would have left me the only person on this side of the building. It's a large building, so being the only employee in this wing means that no one is around to see or hear me if something were to happen. That information isn't really relevant to the parnaoia I felt, I just wanted to set the scene. I've had the same experiences when getting home at night at my parents' house, and they could hear anything from inside. Anyways, on this night I remember walking out to my car and starting it, with nothing unusual happening. I didn't see anyone, didn't hear anything, nothing. But on the way back to the building, I just got this overwhelming feeling that someone was in the parking lot or next to the building, and they were watching me and intended to hurt me. It was a strong enough feeling that I almost ran back to the door, and when I got inside I pushed the door closed instead of letting the springs pull it shut, just in case someone was there. Like I mentioned, I've had this experience in other places as well, even with people around enough to hear or see me. I've felt the same fear when walking to my car at a store, or just getting home from somewhere at night. This night at work is just one example.

I sometimes get strong paranoia of being watched at home too. This experience is what is really making me question my paranoia now. Sometimes my feelings are minor, and they don't happen often at home. I don't always feel completely safe at home, especially now that I live in my own place, but there are rare occasions. The one incident that has come back up happened a couple of months ago. I got up one morning when my boyfriend left for work, as we usually do, and was heading back to bed for a couple hours. On this particular morning, I happened to notice a small hole in the paint on my bedroom wall. It wasn't anything big, it was like a pin point, or maybe somewhere someone thought about putting a nail in, just leaving a small mark in the paint. But this particular day I became convinced that someone was using this hole in the wall to watch me. I was so uncomfortable, I laid down in bed for a little while, but had to get back up because I was so afraid of this hole in the wall. Eventually I got a piece of masking tape to put over it, and haven't had any issues with that specific fear since. But I can definitely recognize that my fear was exaggerated and unnecesary.

I can't figure out where these fears could be from. I've never had any problems being outside at night, and even with this occuring at work I've never had any fear for myself there. I've never been assaulted in a parking lot or anything like that, thankfully people tend to leave me alone (I'm pretty socially awkward and shy). I've never caught anyone spying on me in any situation, or had any reason to suspect it was happening anywhere. I'd make the assumption that this paranoia started when I moved into my apartment, because it's been really hard to find safety there. But I've had experiences like the first one for years, since long before I moved out. Does anyone have any ideas about this? Is what I'm experiencing mostly "normal", or could it be indicating some other kind of problem besides my anxiety?