[ultramar]

The recent thread about paranoia (and there have been other threads that have touched on this) led me to some research. I was wondering how can we distinguish between suspiciousness, distrust, psychotic/clinical paranoia, and other similar things and found a great article in Psychology Today. It's discussed as a kind of spectrum -very interesting.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic.../slew-suspects

[bluewave7]

Hey it might be a good idea to post this in the schizophrenia forum as your article said paranoia most often goes with schizophrenia. Just a suggestion.

And then there is psychosis. Once I was manic psychotic and I was terrified people were looking at me in the ER waiting room. Well they were because I was screaming! But psychosis is different...I was seeing things that weren't there...either that or the veil between this world and the next had been lifted and I was seeing the other side.

I've seen crack heads that were severly paranoid. Not a fun drug.

[middlepath]

Huge thanks for the link Ultramar. I read the full article and it answered a ton of questions for me. Most appreciated

[ultramar]

Originally Posted by bluewave7

Hey it might be a good idea to post this in the schizophrenia forum as your article said paranoia most often goes with schizophrenia. Just a suggestion.

And then there is psychosis. Once I was manic psychotic and I was terrified people were looking at me in the ER waiting room. Well they were because I was screaming! But psychosis is different...I was seeing things that weren't there...either that or the veil between this world and the next had been lifted and I was seeing the other side.

I've seen crack heads that were severly paranoid. Not a fun drug.

It's a hallmark of severe mental illness, most notably schizophrenia.

So not just schizophrenia, it seems more common in that illness, but not exclusive to it.

In the manic phase of bipolar, some people become psychotic and paranoia/delusions are a form of psychosis (or part of psychosis for some people). Also, later in the article they talk about how it can occur in depression.

I'm no doctor, but my understanding is that some (most?, not sure) schizophrenics would often be delusional (in one way or another) if they were not medicated, whereas in bipolar disorder it's more episodic. I think it's a matter of 'psychosis' whether of the schizophrenic type or bipolar type.

That said there are people who experience this outside of episodes, but as the article says there's a while spectrum of experiences people can have.

[comicgeek007]

That article is me, at least when dealing with people - especially women. I always feel like I'm going to get yelled at or berated in front of people and then when I explain it to my sister (who I don't typically have that fear about) she thinks the other person wasn't being angry or hostile towards me. I've attempted suicide twice in part because I misread the intentions of others.

Wow. I just reread that last part and realized how bad my people skills are.