Is this Paranoia?

[BrokenAge]

Ever since the beginning of my OCD almost a year ago my intrusive thoughts where triggered by one of my bi polar friends who was having a very paranoid episode. So today I was playing basketball with my friends and this car slowly pulls up to the court and drives off. Then 10 minuets layers another car drives by slowly. It's not uncommon for drug deals to happen on that side of town so me and my friends agreed that's probably what was happening. My one friend says "that just still freaks me out" and I start getting a bit anxious and all these intrusive thoughts popped in my head. "What if they're gonna attack us? "What if they follow me home?" Now I know that that's not going to happen but it really upsets me that I have those thoughts. It makes me question my sanity. Like I am becoming paranoid because of these persistent thoughts?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, I know what you mean because I've had the same. A car pulls up and you think "what is that doing there, is that person watching me?". In reality, it's a guy who has just pulled up for a break, for a drink, to check a map, etc.

Typical fight or flight working a bit too hard.

There is obviously a legitimate concern with drug dealers but as long as you are not interested in them, they won't be interested in you.

It's a paranoid thought, but I don't think it's paranoia in terms of a problem. The anxiety is just doing it's thing. Perhaps you are worrying about paranoia because of your other worries over mental illness given paranoia is a significant feature in some of them and recall you seeing that in your friend when it scared you when she had her episode (hopefully I'm remembering that right) and it's just trying to make you think there are more worries than there really are? You know how sneaky anxiety is at trying to get us from subtle angles.

I've always found paranoia when I'm at more anxious stages and when it decreases, you are less on alert and more self confident.

[viking111]

OCD notices triggers like that and uses them as its oppurtunity, so it's nothing really major, just another OCD strike.

[BrokenAge]

That's what I always thought Terry. I don't know why my brain mimics the thoughts of my friend because it scares me. It makes no sense. As long as I can remember my brain has always been like this it's just never caused a problem until I devolped anxiety

[MyNameIsTerry]

In the presence of anxiety, it makes total sense to me. It's classic with intrusive thoughts. It looks for your weak spots.

Mine were always my parents. So, I would have thoughts of harming them or thoughts that could lead them becoming ill if I didn't mitigate them with compulsions. A also had ones about harming strangers but when I examined it I noticed it was more about the repercussions and not going to jail but how it would cause shame on my parents which would hurt them. So, there was a common theme in them all.

In your case perhaps you fear losing control of yourself or being unable to see reality? You have had the DP/DR stuff too and that could lead back into that fear of not being in control of yourself and being aware?

The thing is too, we learn through our lives based on our environment. So, if you spent a lot of time around people who have certain values, you start to take them on or you find yourselves drifting apart. So, perhaps your subconscious latched onto this from your friend knowing that it's something you find scary?

I remember once talking for some time to guy on here and he said that he couldn't be around anxiety sufferers much because his OCD would attempt to take on their symptoms. There must be a term in psychology for this because it's not exclusive to mental health issues. But he had been talking to someone with agoraphobia and then his OCD started to make him worry about becoming agoraphobic. Obviously, this can't happen in the way he thought it would but it gave him an obsessions to fixate on and increase his anxiety over thereby it becoming more likely because he was so scared of it. He said his OCD used to jump around quite a bit because of this.

Probably it never scared you until a certain point. Once it did, it latched onto that thinking? You think a certain way and when you introduce fears to a disorder level, your thinking can then just change focus to the fears.

I was always very analytical. It was never a problem for me and I lived on stress. But after my breakdown my analytical mind turned to analysing anxiety. It would be asking the same questions but now about whether something meant I should be scared. Perhaps that's all it is with you?

---------- Post added at 09:55 ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 ----------

Nick, I don't know how relevant this one is but there is a theme in OCD called Emotional Contamination. I remember discussing this with that guy I mentioned but it was a while back so I'm sketchy on the details of it.

There was an element to it where people could feel they were being influenced by others in some way. I wonder if any of that connects to what you witnessed in your friend? I would have to dig the articles up again to understand that theme, it's an uncommon one, but it might be worth a look?

[BrokenAge]

In the presence of anxiety, it makes total sense to me. It's classic with intrusive thoughts. It looks for your weak spots.

Mine were always my parents. So, I would have thoughts of harming them or thoughts that could lead them becoming ill if I didn't mitigate them with compulsions. A also had ones about harming strangers but when I examined it I noticed it was more about the repercussions and not going to jail but how it would cause shame on my parents which would hurt them. So, there was a common theme in them all.

In your case perhaps you fear losing control of yourself or being unable to see reality? You have had the DP/DR stuff too and that could lead back into that fear of not being in control of yourself and being aware?

The thing is too, we learn through our lives based on our environment. So, if you spent a lot of time around people who have certain values, you start to take them on or you find yourselves drifting apart. So, perhaps your subconscious latched onto this from your friend knowing that it's something you find scary?

I remember once talking for some time to guy on here and he said that he couldn't be around anxiety sufferers much because his OCD would attempt to take on their symptoms. There must be a term in psychology for this because it's not exclusive to mental health issues. But he had been talking to someone with agoraphobia and then his OCD started to make him worry about becoming agoraphobic. Obviously, this can't happen in the way he thought it would but it gave him an obsessions to fixate on and increase his anxiety over thereby it becoming more likely because he was so scared of it. He said his OCD used to jump around quite a bit because of this.

Probably it never scared you until a certain point. Once it did, it latched onto that thinking? You think a certain way and when you introduce fears to a disorder level, your thinking can then just change focus to the fears.

I was always very analytical. It was never a problem for me and I lived on stress. But after my breakdown my analytical mind turned to analysing anxiety. It would be asking the same questions but now about whether something meant I should be scared. Perhaps that's all it is with you?

---------- Post added at 09:55 ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 ----------

Nick, I don't know how relevant this one is but there is a theme in OCD called Emotional Contamination. I remember discussing this with that guy I mentioned but it was a while back so I'm sketchy on the details of it.

There was an element to it where people could feel they were being influenced by others in some way. I wonder if any of that connects to what you witnessed in your friend? I would have to dig the articles up again to understand that theme, it's an uncommon one, but it might be worth a look?
Terry I would say that is most definitely what I am. I find symptoms and I latch onto them. Mainly health concerns. I've had this bruise on my arm for a couple days now and I'm still obsessing over it. Poking it occasionally and worrying if it's cancer. Half of the time I don't think I'm suffering from DP/DR because I know it's distinct feeling but I think about feeling disconnected all day which then MAKES me feel that way. I also try to avoid some of the OCD post because I'm afraid I'll start thinking that way, but I have been able to control thay little fear. All in all I think this makes incredible sense and had been an eye opener for sure.

[MyNameIsTerry]

This was what I was thinking of, Nick:

https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/emotional-contamination/

Sometimes it can be a “type” of person who represents a disability that one fears contracting, such as a blind person or a person with deformed limbs.

There is also a statement just below this about how a event could act as the trigger for the obsession and it made me think of how you described seeing your friends bipolar episode.

The problem is, reading about the behaviours in this theme seems to indicate the opposite to me because you aren't avoiding your friend. So, maybe this isn't really the theme after all? But I guess the fact there are elements in this (Magical Thinking, paranoid thoughts, any superstitious behaviour with it?, etc) then maybe it is somehow skewed with the real form? For instance, whilst I had intrusive thoughts I would aso have them combined with Magical Thinking and physical checking & touching rituals but this is unusual because normally there would be mental compulsions and not a combination.

I think OCD gets screwed up & scrambled. It's not just about clear themes, they overlap with each other. So, maybe there is an element of this contamination issue combined with the fear of contracting things like schizophrenia because of a trigger event?

AND I wonder if an element of this contamination comes back into play with reading posts because like this example, it would be completely magical to believe some writing on a web forum could impact on the physical world. Maybe this is why some people fear reading threads? I know the guy I spoke to couldn't read threads because he feared getting the symptoms and to me that sounds a bit like this Emotional Contamination form as it caused him to avoid threads out of fear.

There are others around here that say that reading threads is triggering for them too but many of them say it is because of the fear from what they read but there are some I've seen say they start to take on the symptoms too. Perhaps the split in between them is something like this EC issue, and with it being so uncommon, people don't realise?

What I don't understand though is suggestibility. At what level do we all have the ability to take things on from others, from things we read or watch, etc? Is it this and the fact with anxiety it can be made worse so you are more susceptible to suggestion? But the flaw there is - why aren't we all? From what I gather, emotional states can leave us more open and anxiety can certainly cause that! More reading needed I guess but there are some angles here for you to consider.

---------- Post added at 07:03 ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 ----------


Thank You for that Terry,you have helped me understand why this happens to me.:D

Karina

Glad I could help, Karina. :yesyes:

---------- Post added at 07:35 ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 ----------


The thing is too, we learn through our lives based on our environment. So, if you spent a lot of time around people who have certain values, you start to take them on or you find yourselves drifting apart. So, perhaps your subconscious latched onto this from your friend knowing that it's something you find scary?

I oversimplified this. Obviously there are more outcomes than a) stick with the group or b) drift apart. It was just a quick point about how negative people drift towards each other, the same for positive people and how if you spend enough time with people behaving a certain way, you may be influenced but it comes from modifying your own behaviour to match the group.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[BrokenAge]

I mean it makes sense for me but I don't avoid her because she's not like that way at all anymore. I just looked at her thoughts and they scared me. Like I remember her telling me that she thought there was cameras in her room filming her. Like that's completely insane haha. It freaked me out at first like "how could anyone think that way" well now my obsession are just cancer and more health orientated. Like at the moment I'm nearly convinced I'm dying.