Paranoia or reality?

Have you ever thought to yourself why are people staring at me?

Think about this, what if people weren't staring at you and it was all in your head. What If you thought someone was staring at you but then they were really staring at something behind you, but you didn't realise that because it was all in your head. 

So the question I initially wanted to tackle was: how do you differentiate between paranoia and reality? But I want you to think about this, how do we beat paranoia?

Define paranoia: a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically worked into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality. 

Furthermore, that leads us to ask how to cope with it? First and foremost do not act on your paranoia. Meditation, sports and activities that help you keep calm and release stress is good as a release, as well as keeping your mind and yourself occupied. Support is a big thing as well, but this doesn't only apply to you asking for it, it applies to those who you ask from. The people you ask need to know that you shouldn't just brush is off and say "you're being silly" or "you're making things up" or even "it's all in your head". The supporters need to deal with it sensibly and try to see it from the persons angle who needs help, they need to be understanding and considerate when helping that person or even anyone. 

Ultimately, I believe that self esteem and how you view your self has a big part to play, I've mentioned before but I went through a period where I wouldn't eat in public and hated buffets because of what people would think of me. YOU have the will power to beat things like paranoia and YOU need to take control, you can have help but YOU need to do it for yourself. I believe in order to to tell paranoia from reality you need to worry less and concentrate on your well being rather than others, because they don't matter in  YOUR life, YOU do. Therefore with mild paranoia to differ from reality in cases like that it doesn't matter as do what makes you happy. But when it gets to the point where you wake up and you can't tell what is reality due to paranoia being severe, that's serious and a different story. 

Always supporting and voting for you.                         

 Josephine Beth-xx