Do You Know Someone With Paranoid Personality Disorder?

The essential characteristic of paranoid personality disorder is a pattern of general suspicion and distrust of others. Other people’s motives are interpreted as malevolent. This pattern is usually identified in adulthood, although there may be signs earlier, and it is present in a variety of settings. Individuals with this disorder assume that other people exploit, harm or deceive them, although there is nothing solid to support this hypothesis.

People with paranoid personality disorder suspect, without evidence in favor of their idea, that other people are plotting against them. They may also think that other people may attack them suddenly, at any time and for no reason, hence they always show a defensive attitude.

The world is a hostile place and I must protect myself

They often feel that they have been deeply and irreversibly damaged by one or more other people, even when there is no evidence of this damage or that this damage was intentional. They are preoccupied with unwarranted doubts about the loyalty or fidelity of their friends or acquaintances. For them the world is an unsafe and very threatening place.

People with paranoid personality disorder scrutinize the actions of those close to them to discover hostile intentions. Any perceived breach of honesty or loyalty serves to support their hidden assumptions. If the rest of us have a confirmatory bias when it comes to highlighting some aspects of reality compared to others, they have this much more pronounced bias.

These people are surprised when a friend shows loyalty and cannot trust or believe it to be true. If they get into trouble, they expect friends and family to attack or ignore them. If they perceive help, they will not stop thinking that there is a hidden and selfish interest on the part of the person who gives them that help.

Individuals with paranoid personality disorder are reluctant to trust or maintain a close relationship with others because they fear that the information they share will be used against them. They may refuse to answer personal questions, saying the information is nobody’s business. They see hidden meanings that are demeaning and threatening in non-malicious comments or events.

For example, a person with this disorder may misinterpret a mistake by a store clerk as a deliberate attempt at deception. They may also perceive an informal funny comment from a coworker as a targeted and premeditated attack. In addition, praise is often misinterpreted and they may perceive an offer of help as criticizing their way of acting or they may feel that the other is helping them because they believe they are incapable.

You better treat me well or you will suffer the consequences

People with Paranoid Personality Disorder are loaded with resentment and are unwilling to forgive insults or slights they think they have received. Even small slights arouse great hostility in them. Also, feelings of hostility last a long time.

As they are always aware of the bad intentions of others, they very often feel that their character or reputation is being attacked or that they have been belittled in some way. They are quick to fight back and react with anger to insults they receive. These people can be pathologically jealous and often suspect that their partner is not faithful without any real clue to this suspicion.

The 7 main symptoms of paranoid personality disorder

As you can imagine, individuals with paranoid personality disorder are generally difficult to get along with and often have problems in their close relationships. But this is not all … At this point it is worth asking the following: what are the main symptoms of this disorder? The main symptoms of Paranoid Personality Disorder are as follows:

• Suspicion, without sufficient basis, that others exploit, cause harm or disappoint the individual.
• Preoccupation with unwarranted doubts about the loyalty or trust of friends or colleagues.
• Little willingness to trust others due to unwarranted fear that information will be used maliciously against them.
• Covert reading of denigrating or threatening meanings in comments or acts without malice.
• Persistent resentment (that is, does not forget insults, insults or slights).
• Perception of an attack on their character or reputation that is not appreciated by others and a willingness to react quickly with anger or to fight back.
• Recurrent suspicion, without justification, regarding the fidelity of the spouse or partner.

Suspicion and hostility by flag

The excessive suspicion and hostility of people with paranoid personality disorder can be expressed by discussing everything openly, by recurring complaints, or by being distant and seemingly hostile.

Because they are hyper-vigilant for potential threats, they can act in a cautious, covert, or malicious manner. Thus, it seems that they are cold and lacking in feelings of tenderness. Their combative and suspicious nature can provoke a hostile response from others, which in turn will serve to confirm their original expectations (self-fulfilling prophecy).

When controlling everything around you is not enough

Because people with paranoid personality disorder lack confidence in others, they have an inordinate need to be able to cope with everything on their own. This gives them a strong sense of autonomy.

They also have to have a high degree of control over their environment. They tend to be rigid, unable to collaborate, and hypercritical of others. This is paradoxical, since they themselves have great difficulty accepting criticism.

Everyone is to blame except me

People with paranoid personality disorder often blame others for their own shortcomings. Due to their quickness to counterattack by responding to perceived threats around them, they can become involved in legal disputes.

They seek to confirm that others are the culprits by attributing malicious motivations to them. This attribution of evil is a projection of your own fears.

Power fantasies

People with paranoid personality disorder often have grandiose and unrealistic hidden fantasies. They are often attuned to aspects of power and rank. They tend to develop negative stereotypes of others, particularly of population groups other than their own.

Attracted by the simplistic formulations of the world, they are often very wary of ambiguous situations and hardly take risks. They may be perceived as fanatics and may firmly adhere to cults or groups of other people who share their paranoid belief system.

In short, people with Paranoid Personality Disorder have great mistrust and suspicion of others. Their motives are interpreted as malevolent and they blame them for all their ills. These people exercise their sustained attention a lot because they feel the need to monitor the environment very frequently to detect possible attacks or threats.

In this sense, they too have a hard time and need help, but think about how you would feel if you perceived reasons to suspect that the people around you want to harm you.

Bibliography:

American Psychiatry Association (2014). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), 5th Ed. Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana.