anxiety making me paranoid

[Justin51]

Hello 

I'm new here, so I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

I suffer from social anxiety and recently this has become far worse than it has ever been. I think this is because of other recent stressful events in my life. However, I've found that recently, every time I get stressed or worked up, I start getting paranoid thoughts. These really scare me. They're normally along the lines of people are out to get me, or are watching me/tapping my phones/following me etc. it's actually the fact that I think these things that scares me more than the actual thoughts themselves. Once the stress drops a bit the thoughts lessen and eventually stop. However, everytime it happens it takes longer for them to stop and I find myself believing them more and more. I'm not quite sure how to deal with these thoughts and was wondering if anyone had some advice on this? 

 

[Data]

Welcome to the forum Justin :).

 

I have had social anxiety in the past, it can be crippling.    It makes sense that paranoia comes with stress to me.  I think that if you are prone to paranoia, then you will be more vulnerable when under stress as your mind doesn't work properly and you can't logically out-think the paranoia.  If your mind is on overdrive and you think someone is looking at you, you may be too stressed to assess whether that is a realistic worry or paranoia.

 

Have you been diagnosed with psychosis?  Like any mental health condition, I guess stress makes this worse also.

 

Some people find relaxation techniques helpful - meditation, soothing music, or mental routines such as visualisation.  Others find distraction helps, e.g. read a book or go for a walk.  When I get anxious I tend to listen to music.