Is it normal for aspies to be paranoid?

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Joe90
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10 Dec 2011, 8:00 am

I have social paranoia. I keep thinking that everybody's laughing at me, looking at me, commenting about me, watching every move I do, noting down my expressions and passing me off as weird and stupid without any proof. Maybe people aren't, but it just feels like they are. ''People stare at me'' sounds very negative, and the whole point of trying to be normal and dress presentably is to not be stared at, exceptions are people on the opposite sex being attracted to you. But otherwise, there is no need for staring, and surely NTs should know better that staring at somebody causes them to feel paranoid or uncomfortable (or both, in my case). I mean, all these threads we make here that ''Aspies only tend to stare'' and ''NTs know better not to do this and not to do that, and this is socially inappropriate and that is socially inappropriate'', well, staring at a stranger (on the same sex) is, I thought, was one of the socially inappropriate things to do, being that lots of threads here imply that.

So the ''it's OK if NTs do it but if an Aspie does it is completely wrong'' thing causes me to be extremely paranoid because I know that whatever I do is wrong, even if it's something what NTs typically do and is appropriate social behaviour, I still wonder if it is wrong. Then people wonder why I get so angry all the time! Somebody explain (in English!) to me the proper answer to this!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !


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Last edited by Joe90 on 10 Dec 2011, 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

felinesaresuperior
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10 Dec 2011, 8:38 am

i'm a bit too paranoid too, and at times too trusting. we just don't know who to trust because we can't read clues NTs can, so we end up trusting those we shouldn't and not trusting those we should.



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10 Dec 2011, 9:20 am

Is it normal? I'm not sure, but it's certainly common.


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MagicMeerkat
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10 Dec 2011, 9:35 am

My parents have always said I was as a child. As an adult, I still am sorta. I think it's because of being bullied all the time as a kid.


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NathanealWest
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10 Dec 2011, 11:12 am

Yes.



Sweetleaf
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10 Dec 2011, 11:22 am

Well I already responded to this but I am still paranoid so yeah.

but paranoid=better safe than sorry, so its not a totally bad thing....speaking of which I wonder if I should spend that birthday money from my grandma on a awesome taser disguised as a flashlight(yes the flashlight works.) that I found then if anyone messes with me I can easily defend myself.


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10 Dec 2011, 11:24 am

There's nothing to worry about. Nothing's out to get you.

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mar00
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10 Dec 2011, 12:28 pm

^^ :D
I think I become more and more paranoid when I become more aware of the outter world. Of all the cats.



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31 Jan 2015, 6:48 pm

Manguy89 wrote:
Hey guys the reason I'm asking is in my family my and my younger brother have aspergers. Our dad can diffinatly get diagnosed because he's stranger then us. But anyway I'mvery paranoid. I some days feel like everyone is staring wig evil intent hat everyone is plotting againsts me. I also have a hard time understanding spoken language which causes me to assume they are talking I'll behind my back or worse. But my brother is complete opposite he seems to think e everyone is a friend. I had to sit him Dow. One day after I found out his so called friends were spitting on him... Kids suck and I was tourmented as a child as is my brother. Only difference is I've taken a semi psychotic stance on himanities intents while my brother is way to trusting

So is my paranoia normal? When it's bad I don't even trust my parents.


I totally get this and feel the same way sometimes. Especially the part about everyone staring at me with evil intent and talking smack about me behind my back. And yes it's been this way at least since middle school. I remember when a group of misfit friends I was loosely part of each picked a pronoun to use as a nickname--you know, the Queen Bee was "I" and her bestie was "you" and the rest of us went by something else--I chose to be classified as "them" because I knew myself to be the Outsider even among other misfits; the one everyone was always talking down about, the one who was otherized and marginalized and ostracized and every other kind of unkind -ized you could mention.

These days I'm most likely to feel it in church--I feel like everyone is looking at me and judging me and wishing I wasn't there because I'm a reminder that Christians aren't all perfect holy people who never make mistakes. We are in fact all sinners in need of saving grace, because no matter how hard we try to present a respectable face in public, nobody's perfect. And no matter how bad my personal sin might look to everyone else, God looks on all sin as equally deserving of eternal separation from life and light and love and peace. That's why Jesus died--to restore relationship with the Creator so we can live eternally in a state of perfect love and joy. And no I don't believe heaven means sitting around on clouds playing harps and being bored out of our gourds. I believe it is immeasurably more wonderful and delightful than anything we could ever imagine.

Yeah, so I rabbit-trailed a bit from paranoia there. But church and Jesus and heaven are very important to me so they sort of color everything I think and say and do...


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nick007
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01 Feb 2015, 3:31 am

I've been alittle paranoid in the past when my anxiety & OCD were really bad but I haven't been paranoid in a long time except I had alittle related to worrying about a celebrity I had a mega huge crush on that may of developed into alittle bit of a delusional disorder. I take Haldol/Haloperidol for it & it's OK now.


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SickPuppy
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01 Feb 2015, 3:53 am

There is a fine line between being paranoid and over-anazlying things and feeling uncomfortable to the point you may appear paranoid to someone that doesn't know better. It's important to differentiate between the two as they would be two completely different things.



avhärda
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01 Feb 2015, 3:59 am

I have an unfortunate combination of problems, in that I am paranoid about other people (meaning I over-analyse the intentions of people who are in any way friendly to me) but at the same time I have a strong tendency to cling and become dependent of others. :|


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Peter_L
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01 Feb 2015, 4:46 am

Yes and no.

I think the question comes down to hyper‐systemising. If you hyper systemise generally then you'll think things through and see problems coming, and take action to avoid negative consequences. A positive way of describing this would be rationality, a negative way of describing it would be paranoia.



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01 Feb 2015, 9:25 am

I don't think I'm paranoid. I worry a lot, but not about people plotting to harm me. I'm possibly a little over-vigilant when outside the house at night - very aware of any approaching person who looks remotely hostile, but mugging isn't exactly unknown where I live, so it's hardly irrational of me. I think I'm just too concerned with coming to harm, and most of my anxieties are about that happening as a result of my own behaviour in a society that doesn't care for and protect me as much as I'd like it to. I really don't believe people are so interested in me that they're planning to attack me. I'm very suspicious of the government, police force etc., but I don't think they'll be going in for genocide in the near future, at least not where I live. The worst they're likely to do is to take some of my money or change the law in a way that makes me less powerful or comfortable. It angers me that they disregard me and my kind so much, but that's not paranoia.

When I had a job, I used to worry that certain individuals in management might try to bully me out of it or get me sacked, but there was evidence that such a risk existed. They were shoehorning people into new roles regardless of their ability to fit those roles, and they were pretty brutal and sneaky about it. It was widely believed that a colleague of mine was bullied out of his job, and I saw evidence for that.

The only time I've been called paranoid was once, by the head of department. He'd told me that I'd been identified by colleagues as one who could do more for this new work in terms of enthusiasm and initiative. When I asked him who had said so, and what they'd said, he said "no, no, you're being paranoid," and assured me that he didn't mean his words to be a complaint about my performance. But he had secretly emailed my line manager, telling her that he'd heard I wasn't doing much work, and that what I did, I did with little willingness. He told her that I'd blamed it on her for overworking me (I may have let it drop at some point that she tended to ignore the new work when she set my tasks, which was true, because she had no interest in it), and he asked her to take the pressure off me and to urge me to do more for the new work. Luckily, she sided with me, showed me the email, and replied saying that she was perplexed by it as she'd always found me to be a very good worker, and asked for details of my misconduct, if there were any. He backed down and told her that he'd just been trying to whack up support for the new work. She'd also told him that she always planned my work with the new work in mind, which was a blatant lie, but under the circumstances, I didn't challenge that.

A couple of years later, our next head of department called me in and again insinuated that I needed to do more with the new work. This time I just denied it, saying that there was no difference between my performance and anybody else's. He said "OK, I'll talk to them again." I never heard any more about it. Nobody ever gave me any specifics about what I was supposed to be doing wrong, and whoever made the original accusations was never identified.

A few years later I noticed that the boss of the new work seemed annoyed with me, and once when I walked in on my co-workers, they suddenly shut up, and I think they'd been talking about my performance. I was becoming aware that I may have AS by then, and beginning to see how the condition impacted on my performance (it was very Aspie-unfriendly work). I knew they wouldn't believe me without a diagnosis, so I was pretty anxious until I got one. When I told the boss of the new work, she said "that explains everything." Strange how nobody had ever asked me to explain anything before.

Please excuse the long story. My conclusion is that backstabbing wasn't uncommon in that workplace, even at the highest levels, and that it was entirely reasonable of me to be somewhat afraid of being stabbed in the back.



Joe90
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01 Feb 2015, 6:51 pm

Often when I'm out in public and I hear people laughing (mainly girls) I automatically think that they are laughing at me. Especially when I can't hardly hear them talking, but can hear them laughing quite clearly, I think that they are whispering about me what must be so outstandingly hilarious that they laugh out loud. My rational thoughts tell me that there is nothing funny or odd about me to make them whisper and laugh like that, but the irrational thoughts always win. If it is really true that they are laughing at me, it would be a lot more respectful for them to make it less obvious to me, just for the sake of my dignity. We Aspies are always being told to consider other people's feelings and everything, so we would like a bit of consideration for our feelings in return. Nobody likes being laughed at, so I'd thought it would be a social standard to keep your childish opinions of a random stranger at a more discreet level.


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LyraLuthTinu
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03 Feb 2015, 9:26 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Often when I'm out in public and I hear people laughing (mainly girls) I automatically think that they are laughing at me. Especially when I can't hardly hear them talking, but can hear them laughing quite clearly, I think that they are whispering about me what must be so outstandingly hilarious that they laugh out loud. My rational thoughts tell me that there is nothing funny or odd about me to make them whisper and laugh like that, but the irrational thoughts always win. If it is really true that they are laughing at me, it would be a lot more respectful for them to make it less obvious to me, just for the sake of my dignity. We Aspies are always being told to consider other people's feelings and everything, so we would like a bit of consideration for our feelings in return. Nobody likes being laughed at, so I'd thought it would be a social standard to keep your childish opinions of a random stranger at a more discreet level.


I do this too--to the point where hearing laughter doesn't make me smile, it makes me cringe.


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Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 141 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 71 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)
Official diagnosis: Austism Spectrum Disorder Level One, without learning disability, without speech/language delay; Requiring Support