[sorrel]

I feel all the time, from one part of my mind, that anyone behind me is following me and is going to hurt me. I feel constantly under threat. Although I know in my rational mind that I'm not. Not any more. But the world still feels a hostile place. Apart from a number of 'safe' people in my life.

When I was a teenager, well, every day for nearly 10 years, I was constantly under attack and threat through bullying. They would follow me everywhere, throw things at me, [including a wooden chair one maths lesson when I was 16]chase me, laugh at me, call me names, flick ink over me, thump a chalky board rubber on my back, hide my possessions... This was every day. I am not exaggerating. And it was a gang of 20 plus girls. All in my year.

Then we have my home situation. A paranoid father who had resentment against women. A depressed father who was constantly irritable and hostile and scared of the world and of other people. A father who threatened regularly to have me put in a home for bad children, put in a strait jacket, make me sleep in the shed. And also abused my mother. Domestic violence. Which I was a witness of. Threats from mum to take me to a refuge. But this, like my father's unsafe threats, was never carried out. So I felt very insecure, unsafe and under threat.

Except that I dissociated back then, and only now, as I'm learning how to feel and feel safe with all the feelings that were discouraged and attacked, I am feeling the threat in the present. Where it isn't really there.

I understand that this is a form of paranoia, but related to PTSD and hyper-vigilance. I have tried to read articles on the connection between PTSD and psychosis, as it seems there is a connection, but they are all ones you have to subscribe to to read.

My reading points to the possibility of my having what are known as 'secondary delusions'.

Would you say that I was suffering from psychosis?

[pachyderm]

I don't know if you are experiencing psychosis. If fact, I don't really know what that is. Feeling like bad things that happened in the past are happening now makes a lot of sense. Memories include emotions, and they can repeat if not worked out (somehow). I don't see how that equates to "psychosis."

Although you should check with a dr., I would have to say that the main thing is that distinguishes what you are experiencing from psychosis, is that you stated you rationally know that you are not under threat. In psychotic paranoia, the paranoia is the reality... one cannot normally distinguish what is rational from what is felt.

I have often experienced a form of anxiety that would be classified as paranoid-- fearing that someone put something in my drink when I wasn't looking, fearing that the car behind me is following me-- all of this equates to a huge fear of something catastrophic happening-- being poisoned, killed, etc.

Your paranoia, like mine, is of known origin. You know exactly where this came from. You seem to be completely in touch with reality. You obviously have excellent insight, as you were able to analyze the origins of your anxiety right there in your post.

To me this sounds as though your anxiety is manifesting itself through these paranoid thoughts.

[Psychotic_Phil]

I've been paranoid to the point that I've lost contact with reality. You don't seem to have that. It's great that you are fully aware that these thoughts are irrational. i wish it were that simple for me. Sometimes I get very worked up. but with meds and therapy I'm able to sometimes stop myself.

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
sorrel: I understand that this is a form of paranoia, but related to PTSD and hyper-vigilance. I have tried to read articles on the connection between PTSD and psychosis, as it seems there is a connection, but they are all ones you have to subscribe to to read.

Some links for you...

[*]Relationships Between Trauma & Psychosis [PDF File]
[*] Trauma & Psychosis: Theoretical & Clinical Implications [PDF File]
[*] Trauma & Psychosis: An Analysis of the National Comorbidity Survey
[*] Linking Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Psychosis: A Look at Epidemiology, Phenomenology, and Treatment

Books that can offer you more background. You could also try running the names of the titles through a search engine to find excerpts or discussions related to the books.

[b][*] The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit
[*] Models of Madness
[*] Trauma & Serious Mental Illness

One test of psychosis is 'loss of reality testing'. You say that you know that people aren't trying to hurt you, it is just that you feel like they are. That sounds like your reality testing is intact.

Another test of psychosis is something that you alluded to. Jaspers 'ununderstandability' criterion. The idea here is that delusion-like ideas (Jaspers teminology) arise in an understandable way from the persons experiences (e.g., your paranoia arises understandably from your experience of bullying and abuse). Delusions proper, however (Jaspers terminology again) arise in a way that they are not understandable (they are 'un-understandable) in light of the persons history. The un-understandability could arise from bizzareness of content (e.g., 'My brain is a nuclear power plant') or the un-understandability could arise out of the blue where there is no anomalous (bizzare, strange) experience that preceeds the development of the delusion.

The understandable / un-understandable distinction is controversial. Some say that it makes whether a person is delusional or not more a matter of how things are with the clinician than with the patient. By making the clinicians ability or inability to empathise part of what makes a person delusional things seem to have more to do with the clinicians limitations than something that is going on with the patient.

It isn't uncommon for people to have transient (passing) psychotic episodes when they are under extreme stress. Trauma can be something that triggers psychotic or psychotic-like experiences. A war vet, for example, might be triggered into thinking he is in the warzone when he hears a car backfire. He might say that he can literally hear the panicked voices and other gunshots and he can literally smell the gunpowder. Such experiences tend to be transatory, however.

Can you see a therapist to talk about your traumatic experiences? Typically the treatment for post traumatic stress involves talking about the experiences. Processing some of the stuff so that one gains some feelings of mastery and control over it so that one is better able to live in the present rather than being haunted by the past.

[sorrel]

Thanks everyone for your comments and thoughts..

I have a really good therapist, who I see 3 times a week.
My life is a work in progress...

Basically I have Complex PTSD which is indeed complex. Complicated depression, too.

s_e, my favourite book ever is that 'Inner World of Trauma' one, the whole book and ideas resonate deeply with my own experience.

Yes, it's of known origin. Yes to anxiety. Yes to acute awareness of a split reality -past and present.

I'm starting to understand more now, have more perspective... That being aware of the split in my mind, the 2 realities, past and present running concurrently/consecutively, is showing how I am becoming more aware of how I am not under threat now, but was, very much so, in the past. And that being overwhelmed by the fear that I was losing touch with reality - totally - shows how I am increasingly aware how devastating my past was, and how safe I am now, and that the whole thing is indicative of my healing journey.
I'm not wording that as well as I'd like, but I hope that conveys some of what I intend to say.

Today I've been reading information on dissociation, and realising more and more how this started when I was very young, and that I've been very ill for a long while, because of all that happened to me.
Its strange, because I find it hard, in some part of my mind, to equate myself with having severe dissociation, rather than other things. It means that what I went through really was awful. Which of course I know, but..

[pachyderm]