THE PARANOID NEWS. An On-Line Newsletter. Issue #1. Feb. 7, 1994. -----> "The Enemy is Ourselves." <----- Written, published and copyrighted by psychospy. See bottom for subscription/copyright info. In this issue... WELCOME TO PARANOIA PARANOID LOGIC DSM DEFINITIONS MOTIVATION PROGNOSIS [Note: This file ends with "#####". Check for truncation.] ----- WELCOME TO PARANOIA ----- Paranoia is a tendency to see personal threats where none exist or to overreact to actual threats beyond the bounds that reason would dictate. In many cases paranoia is a self-fulfilling prophesy, because someone who thinks the world is already against them will often take preemptive actions which indeed alienate others and make their fear come true. In an extreme case, we would think of someone as paranoid when they lock themselves in their homes, cover the windows with tin foil and hide under their bed trembling with the unrealistic fear that the CIA or alien invaders are coming to get them. More commonly, however, paranoia is expressed in a person who is outwardly sane but just plain nasty. In the course of our lives, each of us has come to know and profoundly dislike at least one truly paranoid character. In our childhood, there was the mean old lady down the street who would become furious and immediately call the police whenever our baseball happened to roll into her yard. It seemed to us that this woman did nothing all day but sit at her kitchen window waiting for an affront to happen. When it did, she was well prepared for battle and reacted with a ferocity far out of proportion to the actual offense. To a lesser extent, paranoia afflicts all of us from time to time. Sometimes, we are hypersensitive to perceived slights and read into the acts of others a sinister and demeaning intent that simply isn't there. There are times when each of us has hidden under our bed to escape an imaginary foe or fortified ourselves for battle against enemies who were only in our minds. We may have lashed out at people we love or at total strangers on the assumption that we "have to get them they get us." Often, we find ourselves deeply embarrassed sometime later when we discover that the evil wolf whose shadow we attacked was little more than a startled rabbit who happened to approach us on our bad side. Time may expose our most significant misjudgments. "I was paranoid," we admit. "I overreacted." We calm down and assess the damage. Sometimes it can be repaired, sometimes not. We recover as best we can and get on with our lives, vowing next time not to be quite so hot-headed. That's not to say that our paranoia is over. It's still there, under the surface, in every one of us. Paranoia is not just expressed in angry outbursts; it can be quiet and invisible, a pervasive disease that eats away at our potential. The same skewed perceptions and flawed justifications that shape the enraged behavior of the lady down the street are also at work within each of us every day of our lives. In some form, irrational fears influence our every decision, especially our most important ones. We like to think of our choice of career, romantic partner or current life circumstances as a thoughtful one based on logic, wisdom, luck and love. We like to see each life-altering decision as a movement toward some positive personal goal. We forget that what sometimes motivates us more strongly than logic or love is fear. Instead of some positive reward pulling us ahead, what causes many of our decisions is a stark terror of something else pushing us away. ---- PARANOID LOGIC ---- If you talk to someone who is paranoid, the explanations they give for their odd beliefs always seem to make some logical sense. If they say that the CIA is watching them, they almost always have "proof." Upon request, they will offer a whole litany of evidence to support their claims: The newspaper arrived late today, and the mailman wasn't the usual person who does the route. There's a van parked across the street with tinted windows, and strange clicks can be heard on the telephone. If you turn yourself over to this person and hear only their side of the story, you may begin to believe it, too. Maybe the CIA is indeed watching this place! Who is to say that the paranoid is wrong and we "sane" people are right? On the surface, we only seem to have a difference of opinion. Maybe the phone is tapped and the van across the street is a government observation vehicle. Neither of us knows for sure, so how can we say who is correct? Based only on the evidence the paranoid himself presents, the case seems flawless. At the same time, we know there is something warped about this person's point of view. He seems to have ALREADY come to the conclusion that the CIA is after him, and he looks around for any shred of evidence that supports that view. When he finds the evidence he is seeking--like the mysterious van parked across the street--then he grasps it passionately without bothering to investigate further. If you or I saw a strange vehicle parked across from our house, we might walk over to take a look or call our neighbors to find out who it belongs to. The paranoid usually won't do this. He has already reached a conclusion of ominous threat, and he will do only the minimal investigation necessary to justify what he knows in his heart already. Observing how the paranoid selectively collects and interprets ambiguous evidence to support his prior convictions, we could conclude that he WANTS to feel threatened. He NEEDS to preserve this siege-like state of mind to protect his fragile ego from something else. ----- DSM DEFINITIONS ---- In future issues, we will look at the more subtle, everyday forms of paranoia. For now, let's start with the most obvious kind: the severe suspicions that are disruptive enough to be called mental illness. The DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS (DSM- III-R) is the Bible of the mental health industry. It contains objective definitions for the major recognized mental illnesses. There are precise criteria for deciding if a person is afflicted with each disease, and these standards are demanding enough that, aside from depression, which is widespread, most of us will never be classified as having a significant mental disorder. Nonetheless, we are likely see a bit of ourselves in DSM, for all of us have shown at least some of the symptoms from time to time. In DSM, paranoia crops up in several classes of disease, including schizophrenia, delusional disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Of greatest interest to our discussion is PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER. Following are the criteria for this diagnosis: > Paranoid Personality Disorder is a pervasive and unwarranted tendency, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, to interpret the actions of people as deliberately demeaning or threatening, as indicated by at least FOUR of the following: (1) expects, without sufficient basis, to be exploited or harmed by others. (2) questions, without justification, the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates. (3) reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events, e.g. suspects that a neighbor put out trash early to annoy him. (4) bears grudges or is unforgiving of insults or slights. (5) is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used against him or her. (6) is easily slighted and quick to react with anger or to counterattack. (7) questions, without justification, fidelity of spouse or sexual partner. Chances are, you have probably known someone who has consistently exhibited the required four-of-seven criteria, even if you did not diagnose them as paranoid at the time. He or she may have come across to you as combative, abusive and unpleasant--a person you wanted to get away from as quickly as possible. Other paranoid characters you have known may have seemed human at first; you recognized them as sub-human only when they betrayed you at some vulnerable moment. Paranoia can be a source of unbounded cruelty because the paranoid individual is so obsessed by the threats against him that he cannot comprehend the feelings of others. Ah, but can the rest of us throw stones? Hasn't each of us exhibited at least some of these criteria from time to time? We may not have done it consistently since early adulthood, but at least we can look at some of the above points, nod our heads and say quietly to ourselves, "Yes, I know what it's like." Even if we have never been clinically paranoid, that doesn't mean we can't understand the underlying mechanisms or see a bit of ourselves in the diagnosis. At least we can learn something by imagining ourselves in those shoes. ----- MOTIVATION ----- Imagine that you are a person who fills all of the above criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder. Why do you think this way? Certainly it can't be a pleasant sensation to see threats all around you and to be so distrustful of other humans that you can hold no close relationships with them. Paranoia would seem to be a living Hell. Why, then, do you live like this? What is the payoff to you in being paranoid? At the core of a paranoid personality--and maybe at the heart of every one of us--is a hurt and frightened child. While never admitting it openly, the paranoid lacks confidence in himself and is convinced, deep inside, that he is fundamentally flawed and inferior to others. He feels certain that if others really knew him, they would dislike him. Inside, the paranoid is exquisitely sensitive and easily hurt--like a clam without its shell. Like all humans, he wants to protect himself, and he does this by constructing a special kind of shell: a set of reactions and attitudes designed to shield the child from any possibility of insult. The inner child's self-esteem is very fragile. Even the slightest hint of criticism is intolerable. The hidden strategy of the paranoid is to prevent any messages of rebuke from reaching the inner child, or to at least neutralize their power if they do get through. Let us say you are a student whose report card is about to be released. You suspect that the grade will not be good, and this thought is unbearable to the sensitive child inside. A bad grade would only confirm your own private sense of worthlessness. For some of us, the impending release of an unfavorable grade might be a cause for depression, but the paranoid's inner self is far too sensitive to tolerate that kind of self-flagellation. Instead of moping around waiting for the grade to come, he takes immediate preemptive action. The report card is potentially hurtful only as long as the paranoid respects its validity. The easiest way to disable this potentially threatening message is to attack the messenger-- preferably before the message has even been delivered. Given the slightest provocation, the paranoid blows up at his teachers. They are corrupt, he charges. They are worthless, stupid people and at the same time clever conspirators who are actively trying to defeat him. To support these charges, the paranoid has already stockpiled an overwhelming body of evidence--because that's the first thing a paranoid starts to do when he enters any relationship. One day, seemingly out of the blue, he dumps all his collected grievances on the startled faculty, then storms out of school vowing never to return. Faculty members may themselves feel hurt by the student's unexpected outburst. "What did I do?" they ask. They wonder, privately, if any of the charges might be true. If the student claims that the teachers were dishonest or discriminatory, then the they might be tempted to respond to those charges directly. If a loud public debate erupts over the validity of the student's claims, then he has succeeded in his intended goals. The teachers are placed on the defensive; the value of the report card is thrown into doubt, and the student's delicate inner equilibrium is restored, at least for the moment. This strategy for preserving self-esteem, when used over and over, eventually evolves into an entrenched paranoid world view. One preemptive act leads to others and is supported by a complex system of evasive thinking. The paranoid cannot admit his past mistakes because this would threaten the sensitive inner self, so he must interpret the outside world in such a way that other people are responsible for all of his failures. After the outburst in the classroom, the student may not have the internal strength to admit, "I was wrong." Instead, he must create an defensive system of beliefs which support the idea that the teachers are out to get him. This is when complicated conspiracy theories begin to form. "Those kind of people are all the same," the student concludes with cynicism. "They are all trying to take advantage of me and use me to advance their own selfish goals." When the student enters a new relationship with a different teacher, he brings his preconceptions with him. No matter what the new teacher is really like, the student is prepared to see only a threat. He immediately starts collecting evidence of abusive intent. The evidence, it seems, is always easy to find. With careful editing of the video tape, any word, gesture or innocent act can be seen as deliberately demeaning. Once he finds his evidence, the paranoid looks no further. He sees in this teacher the same threat he saw in all the others, and given the possibility of another unfavorable grade being issued, the student will not hesitate to take preemptive action once again. The ultimate joke of paranoia is that the unfavorable evaluation that the student feels certain is coming may be only in his mind. Maybe there was an "A" on that original report card and all the attempts to devalue it were unnecessary. Maybe the teachers initially liked this student and were willing to go out of their way to give him special opportunities. After he attacks them, however, they may indeed come to hate him just as much as he thinks they do. Paranoids DO have enemies because their preemptive attacks actively create them. ----- PROGNOSIS ----- In the mental health profession, Paranoid Personality Disorder is considered among the most intractable of diseases. Most of these people never "get better." They are paranoid until the day they die, and no amount of love or sensitive therapy is likely to change them. They cannot change because they refuse to admit that anything is wrong. If all of their human relationships have crumbled, it's the fault of the other people, not them. The paranoid may live an uncomfortable life of social isolation and unmitigated fear, but he sees his own behavior as an entirely logical response to the circumstances around him. To acknowledge that he might be personally responsible for any of his current grief is impossible for the paranoid, almost by definition. The paranoid prides himself on his impeccable "logic," and because he perceives no flaws in it, he is rarely willing to enter into any kind of therapy or introspection to repair it. For the most part, he will not be changed by any drug or by the selfless devotion of any misguided spouse or missionary. Paranoid reasoning is integral to his thought processes and is supported by many years of cumulative emotional investment. Even if you flood him with endless love and unconditional support, the paranoid will always suspect that your intentions are selfish and devious. He will ask, again and again, "What do you want from me?" and he will do his best to reposition you as both a perceived and real threat. At least that's the case with the lifelong, clinically recognized victim. The rest of us who are only partly paranoid may show greater hope. Most of us are not yet so far gone that we can't admit our own failures, at least in the distant past. Our inner child, while still very sensitive, may be tempered by a disciplined intellect with the power to overrule at least the kid's most absurd demands. Those of us who are only partly paranoid are also partly sane. You can't cure paranoia. It's there for life, always putting pressure on us to take preemptive action. We can learn to recognized this impulse, however, and to disregard it in the formulation of our worldly decisions. One key to keeping paranoia in check is to adopt a code of ethics regarding our own behavior. In any circumstance we encounter, we need to follow a set of rational rules--and stick to them no matter how loudly the inner brat is crying for blood. Paranoia is a set of fundamental flaws in the processing of information. We can counteract it by adopting rigorous rules for the admissibility of evidence not unlike those used by a court of law. Don't jump to conclusions without reliable facts, and don't make important decisions about your life until the case is proved "beyond a reasonable doubt." Paranoia is also defeated by curiosity. Is that van across the street a government observation vehicle? The best way to find out is to go over and look. The only lasting, effective way to deal with a fear of something is to study that object more closely. Try to look beneath the surface to understand how the object works, and soon your paranoia will dissolve into knowledge. TO BE CONTINUED.... ----- SUBSCRIPTION AND COPYWRITE INFO ----- (c) Glenn Campbell, 1994. The entire contents of this on-line newsletter are copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any form without permission, EXCEPT FOR THE FOLLOWING: For six months following the date of publication, you may photocopy this text or send this document electronically to anyone who you think might be interested, provided you do it without charge. 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