Newsletter: Bipolar Disorder and Paranoid Delusions

Parnoia is a type of psychosis called a delusion. A delusion is a false belief.

For example, paranoia can be the belief that you have done something wrong and that a person or an organization is upset with you. This is a scary delusion as it feels so real. 

Paranoia used to really cause me a lot of trouble. I have worked hard so that I can at least recognize it before it makes me do something stupid.

I often get the feeling that my friends are ignoring me and that they have met friends they like a lot better than myself.  It's a terrible feeling. Luckily, I know the signs of paranoia and I don't act on them, instead I call my friends and ask them to do something. When they say yes, I know that all is fine. My friends are the type who will tell me if something is wrong- so my paranoia is almost always rooted in bipolar and not reality.

Paranoid feelings are FALSE. Worry based on at least some fact is real.

Paranoia does not stand up to factual questioning- but for the person in the paranoid episode, it feels more real than anything they have ever experienced.  It's important to remember than it feels real for them.  If you try to talk a paranoid person out of their beliefs, it won't work.

Here are some examples of paranoia. Have you seen these in yourself or your loved ones?

1.Beleiving that someone is standing across the street staring at you through your apartment window, but when you look outside, there is nothing there.

2. Feeling with great certainty that your coworkers have a plan to get you fired.  You know this becuase when they are in a group and walk up to them, they all sccatter in different directions without saying hi.

3. Once, when my former partner Ivan was in the hosptial, he was very, very paranoid. I went in one day to say hello and he looked at me and said, "Why is your face so red? Have you been doing something wrong that you aren't telling me?" True paranoia. He told me later that he really believed it.

When you are well, these thoughts never even come up. You know there is no one outside and you know for sure that your colleagues like you. They simply go back to their desks when they finish a conversation.

The dangerous this about paranoia is acting on it. Calling the cops for a man who isn't there or confronting coworkers for talking behind your back.

Question: What is the best treatment for paranoia? Anti psychotics and a management  plan such as the Health Cards to make sure the paranoid symptoms are caught early so they don't move into destructive behavior. This is what I have done, so it's possible!

Julie

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