• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Extreme paranoia, or real? (vent)

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mundz

Learning
Hey everyone,

I haven't been on here in ages due to final year of Uni getting in the way. I have decided to make more of an effort to post here again. I thought a good place to start again would be something that has been making me feel quite uncomfortable, lately in particular.

Often, when I am out and about I have situations where I feel like people are laughing at me and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. The thing is though, I am finding it increasingly hard to distinguish between what is inside my own head and what is real.

I remember a little while back I was on a placement at a place where my mum used to work and I remember talking to the boss about something and was smiling and talking with her. Suddenly when I turned my head I saw this girl looking straight at me laughing at me.

The thing that drives me crazy is that I know she was making fun of me even when my mum said "oh no she isn't like that". She wasn't just staring blankly laughing and no one was nearby. There was nothing else around to make her laugh. Her eyes were burning into me and she was doing this really over exaggerated "hahahaha" type laugh at me. It was like that typical sardonic playground bully laugh, really making a point of letting me know about it.

I lowered my gaze and my smile faded; I felt so self conscious. It later turns out that my mum didn't know this girl as well as she thought she did and now admits that she is horrible and is bullying a quiet, deaf girl within the team.

On another occasion a group of guys were laughing at me when I was at the beach so I tried to swim away from them and they made a point of saying "don't swim away from us". Another event close to this one, I was at an arcade and I could feel someone staring at me and a group of three people were staring at me laughing and one of them said "I can't believe he didn't notice us staring at him". So it is in my mind that I have been targeted in the past.

I feel like I am accurately able to define ill intention towards me but maybe I am looking too hard for it now. My brothers used to push me around a lot when I was younger on top of the bullying I received. One brother in particular would always make a point of pointing at me laughing even though I know he was just trying to annoy me above all else. Maybe this has stuck in my mind that I am a joke to people?

What doesn't help how I feel now, is that my younger brother recently made a point of humiliating me in a best mans speech in front of over 100 people and it wasn't even my wedding! I just feel like people's go to material when they want a laugh :(

The thing is a few outspoken people will put me on the spot about my appearance and say that I look like a deer in headlights all the time or that I look panic stricken and that I need to calm down? I don't know how to respond when they say this as it has literally become my baseline look now, it feels like. Could my fear be attracting laughter?

I know most of this is probably in my head....but if that is the case then the demons inside my head are beginning to taunt me from outside my head. It is a horrible feeling that I can't describe.

I feel so alone :(

Sorry for the long post guys.
 
Hey. It's ok. You feelings can be both, version of reality and not but because the issues you have experienced makes you more in tune and suspicions to your surroundings. Nothing wrong with it especially since you are aware. Encourage family and friends with you to acknowledge what you feel first and then calmly explain how they perceived it without discrediting your perception and feelings. You actively listen to them explain what they saw which shouldn't consist of telling you that these things didn't happen and you shouldn't feel this way. You will have to explain this to them in order to help you process it. They don't need to just blow it off or your feelings. But by then simply explain what they observed and heard without their interpretation and then allow you to process what they said and what you perceived and heard will help you to start processing things from a different perspective and allows your family and friends understand how you process to start to understand those things are fact vs your fears and they will start to see things from your perspective. I hope this helps and understandable.

Most people don't want to recognize your feelings as being valid which really hurts because they see things differently. Flip the script on them about something that bothers them and they don't like it either. It's about acknowledgement of a persons feelings as valid based on their interpretation instead of someone telling us how we should feel based on their emotions.

I hope things get better for you.
 
Hey everyone,

I haven't been on here in ages due to final year of Uni getting in the way. I have decide...

Let's see if we can help out here.

To validate, yes, this happens to me quite regularly. I tell myself the old expression, "Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you." There is a lot of truth in there.

When you described the person who gave you what we call in the military "the stink eye" you used the term "bully." Well, your observation is absolutely correct. You are rarely wrong. That person is a bully and you react to bullies the way they should be treated, with firmness and resolve that they are not going to instill fear in you, even when you know your knees are knocking. Just don't over-react. No yelling, screaming or punching, unless they punch first. Defend yourself verbally and physically. The word is assertiveness. Not hostility or aggression. Think of sentences that end in periods. not exclamation points. Never call them a name. Just let them know you will not tolerate that kind of treatment. You will find the words when the time comes.

It is not everybody that is laughing at you. Just know that if you don't assert your feelings, those that are meaning you harm, will continue.

The best....
 
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that because of your history, you may be sending signals to people around you. Instinctively, we pick up on things that our brains are oblivious to. It's like we're communicating in a whole other language.

For your curiosity, this might be worth running by someone who is well-trained in body language...
 
My antidote = f*ck em
Doesn’t sound like it’s in your head to me.
Vikings advice is dead on.
 
I just wanted to say that you're not alone in that. My mom and sister say I look confused, like I don't know where I am or what's happening.

Other people insulted my smile, and I smile often but feel the need to cover it. I worry that people are annoyed by my presence alone.

The best thing I've done to combat it wasn't actually to combat that alone. I worked on my self esteem and my ability to defend myself to others.

I'm sorry that there are awful people around. Try your hardest not to let them define you. You seem like a really nice person who likes their peace. Nothing bad about that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top