Dealing with Paranoia
February 1st, 2004NOTE: This is a humor article and not a serious resource on how to deal with paranoia. If you're looking for real information, you can find some at Wikipedia, Schizophrenia.com, MindDisorders.com, or Mental Health Care. Take care.
Today's self-help topic: Dealing with Paranoia.
It's not everyday that you hear a grown man in the bathroom say (I really heard someone say this):
"Please go outside. I cannot make pee pee while you stand there."
What would make a grown man say that? What is he afraid of?
Is he afraid people will point and laugh? Is he afraid of the pressure of impatient eyes? Is he afraid the others will offer to help him "shake it off" with their dirty, unwashed hands, thereby passing unto him tiny gonorrhea bacteria that'll cause painful urinary discharges? Is the point of this whole paragraph merely so that I'll get the chance to write, "painful urinary discharges"?
Yes. But more importantly, this is a result of Paranoia.
Paranoia is defined by AllRefer.com as: "A term denoting persistent, unalterable, systematized, logically reasoned delusions, or false beliefs, usually of persecution or grandeur."
In other words, as you read this piece, my web server is tracking your every move, your every eyeball movement, your every thought. Tiny intelligent harvester nanobots have traversed the connection via HTTPS to your local machine and are following your monitor emissions directly into your brain, whereupon they implant themselves and multiply to enhance covert government communication and intelligence tracking networks, until you all become mindless drones that will help build the new world for our alien overloads, who have secretly taken control of our government offices by wearing "human" masks and red uniforms because, underneath, they look like lizards.
But don't that thought deter you from the real threat. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. The threat of the Africanized killer bees who, as you sit here and read this, are traveling north across the United States, ravaging everything in their path. Their meat-eating appetite for human flesh is growing, oh yes, it is. Soon, there will be nothing left that can stop them. For they are becoming sentient, you know, and will soon reach a level of intelligence that will enable them to open doors, drive small Japanese import cars, and parallel park in the streets of NYC. By then, they will be an enormous threat that not even our alien overlords will be able to stop them.
But really, don't let any of this frighten you. Because it's not real. None of it is. It's all in your head. We're really naked living batteries sitting in a pool of pink goo with wires attached to various parts of our bodies, so that our true overlords, the sentient robots from Zero-One, can run their darkened world.
So as you can see, there's really no point in paranoia. We're all already in an unalterable, systematized, logical and reasonable reality of true beliefs where we're all being persecuted in grand ways.
So succumb to your paranoia. Embrace your paranoia. Be one with your paranoia.
Really. There's no point in worrying about anything at all. Except, maybe, for those painful urinary discharges.
How do you deal with paranoia?
September 11th, 2007 at 2:41 am
What the hell is all that about? My friend has paranoia, it's not really that bad but she has major issues. I got to this site by typing in 'getting over paranoia on google'. Now if this was my friend who had clicked on this link, you would have made her feel stupid, and that can make people who have paranoia worse. They already feel inadequate, not connected to the rest of the world and so on and your saying all of this. Paranoia is not as simple as 'be with one with it'. If you have never suffered from it how can you know anything about it? YOU DON'T. It's a condition, and can be very serious. You should try thinking about other peoples feelings. Just think, someone could have bad paranoia - try to research how to get over it - get to this 'pathetic excuse of a blog', and end up in a worse state they were in before.
Hope you can life with that. If you don't know what your talking about, don't talk about it as if you do. Try having some respect and understanding for the people who have this condition.
Missy.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:05 am
sorry for my last reply. it was a bit harsh. but you upset me by saying what you did. l should not have been as blunt as i was, but this is a sensitive subject to people who have it, so please just take that into consideration next time. Thanks
Missy
September 11th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I'm sorry you found my site while looking up this issue. It definitely is a serious issue, and this piece, in no way, is meant to be a research or therapeutic article.
I wrote this piece as an exercise in humor writing. It wasn't meant to be found or seen by people seeking serious information about paranoia.
I sincerely apologize to everyone who's read this and been offended. That wasn't my intention at all.
I'm kind of surprised that this piece is even showing up on search engines. I didn't find it by searching for "getting over paranoia" in Google, but DID find it with "dealing with paranoia". Damn. Google can be a scary thing.
I wonder how I can remove this piece from Google… I definitely don't want others who are seeking serious information to stumble across this piece too.
September 11th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I just updated my robots.txt file so hopefully this entry doesn't appear in Google anymore. I'm sorry again for any trouble this has caused.
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I hope the above disclaimer and additional links helps others who are looking for serious information on this topic.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:11 am
it made me feel better
thanks mike
June 10th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
i'm a very paranoid person (diagnosed, along with other things) and i found your piece funny
i know i still have a pretty good grasp of reality, at times, and this made me laugh which is exactly what i needed at the moment.
so thanks!
June 10th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Whew, thanks! I'm glad you found this piece funny! For a while there, I was feeling really bad that I was hurting people.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Hi Mike. Try not to feel too bad. I'm a very paranoid person… Like I'm 23 years old but terribly paranoid of just driving! But thats a story for another website… Lol. Anyways I stumbled across this webpage this evening and it really put a smile on my face! I know how difficult it is to live with such paranoia, but i also know that life is too short and it helps sometimes to try to forget the serious stuff for a while… At least to be able to sleep at night. So I think this article was good fun and I will sleep easy tonight
Kind Regards.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Thanks for the reassurance, Sanusha! It makes me happy to hear that this put a smile on your face.
I agree, life is way too short sometimes.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:36 am
This is sooooo funny! I stumbled on this by accident, looking for more serious stuff for an article, but this made me laugh.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Hi Mike,
Well I was amused by your writing some what yet it did make me feel very alienated from those that don't understand this condition. Paranoia scares the hell out of me. It controls my life to a degree that unless your in our team, you will never grasp the true effect it has on us. It controls my conversations, limits contact with any new people other than those that can be "verified" by real long term friends (imagine how this can isolate, and forget about meeting new partners!), inhibits the seeking of help because you possibly can't trust any therapist-they are all part of the conspiricy. This is something that you never really learn to live with, you just can't. We cope, we act and we try but it surfaces in strange ways; fear and survival are what has become best friends to so many if not all of us.
Yes your little bit did put a smile on my face. Yes you did warn us at the start of the article that you were writing a funny piece and I guess to some degree thank you for writing it. People need to know more about this condition and by putting a funny spin on it, people that stumble upon your piece may stop and think about the truths you have written.
So thank you and good luck with your writing. Cheers, Stewy
December 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hi Again Mike,
I just read my post. It was heavy but i hope it doesn't discourage you in any way. Or maybe the voices in my head are forcing me to write this. Arghhh!!!
Stewy
December 10th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Thank you very much, Emylou and Stewart. It warms my heart to hear that this article made you laugh, if even just a little. I hope you both, and everyone else who's written or read this piece, find the peace that you are seeking. Thank you again!
And hehe, don't worry Stewart, I didn't find your comment heavy at all. It was a very kind note and I thank you very much for taking the time to write it!