Paranoid delusions are false beliefs that create fear or anxiety, often associated with schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and bipolar I disorder. Treatment may involve antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and counseling. In severe cases, emergency psychiatric services should be contacted.
Being paranoid means having great fear or anxiety about something. Having delusions means believing something that is not true and perhaps far-fetched. Taken together, paranoid delusions create fear or anxiety, amplified by hearing/believing false things. These delusions are often thought to be present only in diseases such as schizophrenia, but other conditions can characterize them. The most common diseases associated with this symptom are schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder and bipolar I disorder, which can show such symptoms during mood swings.
Some examples of paranoia include when people believe that others, including government agencies or extraterrestrials, are trying to harm them; that people regularly say nasty things about themselves behind their backs; that other people are trying to cheat them; or that a specific person deliberately hurts them with behaviors such as infidelity. These delusional positions exist despite repeated evidence to the contrary. While there may be some chance that such behavior could be true—the person’s spouse might be cheating, for example—the paranoid person’s belief has no real basis in reality.
Paranoid delusions can lead people to act in a variety of self-defeating ways. Paranoid jealousy could destroy a relationship, for example, or someone who thinks aliens implanted a tracker in their mouth might pull their teeth out in an attempt to remove it. Other features may be present with delusions, making life much more difficult. Depending on other conditions present, a person may hear voices, hallucinate, have additional phobias, or be unable to function at all in most cases. While often laughed at because these beliefs can seem so outlandish, paranoia is no joke and can destroy a person’s ability to live normally.
How these delusions are treated may depend on the underlying condition. In many cases, drugs called antipsychotics are used to help tame them and other symptoms such as hallucinations, which may or may not be present. Mood stabilizers are used in the treatment of bipolar disorder to prevent cycling moods that could produce paranoid states.
You also need additional support through counseling. While there may be a biological component to paranoid delusions, they can also stem from traumatic experiences which, when processed, help produce more normalized thinking. No single treatment or medicine is appropriate for all cases, and meaningful work in therapy requires the cooperation of the person suffering from these delusions.
People suffering from what they believe to be paranoid delusions may want to start by talking to a psychiatrist, who can prescribe medications and provide initial or ongoing therapy. If a delusion is so severe that it suggests that a person might die or self-harm, he should contact 911 or emergency psychiatric services in his community immediately for help. Of course, people who suffer from delusions believe in them a lot and may not be willing to take this step. When danger is suspected, friends or family are advised to try to help by contacting professionals for advice.
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