how does someone deal with paranoid thoughts?

Question:

Answers:
Give yourself reality checks throughout the day. Decide what thoughts and behaviors are smart and which ones are just plain silly.

Other Answers:
Paranoia
From Jerry Kennard,
Your Guide to Men's Health.
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Fear and Anxiety Underpins Paranoid Thinking
If you've ever had suspicions about the motives of people around you and particularly that they are deliberately trying to upset, irritate or harm you, then you have experienced paranoid thoughts. Such thoughts are probably as common as everyday worries and anxieties but we tend not to discuss them. For most people suspicious thoughts are fleeting and don't seem to cause much distress. For others they can be a problem in that the strongest form of suspicion, the persecutory delusion, signifies mental health problems.

Paranoid Thinking
There are two central features of paranoid thinking. The first of these is that harm is occurring, or is about to occur. The second is that the target of paranoid thinking, the persecutor, is out to deliberately cause harm. The most obvious way of knowing that someone has paranoid thoughts is to listen to them.

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Very often they will use phrases such as, "he's definitely out to get me", or "they're always talking behind my back". It is estimated that somewhere between 10-25 per cent of the population at any one time has persecutory thoughts. Suspicion can be a useful strategy and rather like anxiety could be viewed as a normal mechanism to help us steer clear of danger. People who have high levels of anxiety and interpersonal sensitivity tend to have more suspicious characteristics which in turn makes them feel more vulnerable.
Persecutory Delusions
In some people their suspicion becomes so embedded that they truly believe others are hostile towards them. Delusions are fixed false beliefs that don't change even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Persecutory delusions are so called when:

most people find a total lack of credibility in the beliefs

the belief is not shared by anyone else

in the face of contrary evidence the belief does not change

the person finds difficulty avoiding thinking about it

the belief is self-referencing

the belief interferes with work routines or social functioning

the person makes no attempt to resist the belief*
Delusions represent a person's attempt to make sense of the events around them. Very often the person's internal state is highly influential in leading to paranoid thinking. For example, states of high arousal, having the feeling of not really being there (depersonalization), sounds or colors appearing intrusive, hallucinations are all experiences known to be associated with certain thought processes and paranoia in particular.

Paranoia and Life Events
Suspicious thinking often occurs in the context of emotional distress. Stressful events such as a partnership breakdown, being bullied or feeling isolated all make people feel vulnerable and others, and the world, become bad.

Treating Paranoia
During psychological therapy suspicous thoughts are made understandable by attempts to explain alternatives. The ideal is to develop a less threatening, more controllable, non-self blaming account of experiences. Therapy cannot stop the thoughts occuring but it offers a way of understanding where they come from and helps prevent preoccupation and further di

taken from:http://menshealth.about.com/od/mentalhealth/a/paranoia.htm

Watch an intense action movie. Your mind is so busy with the adrenalin rush, it doesn't think.

hey dont worry! your not a freak! its ok to worry, but worrying to much, can cause you to have a nervouse breakdown. you may think that your the only 1 with this problem. trust me your not. im the exact same way. with me it only happens at night. like last night for instant. i was watching a thing on alligators on the national geographic channel, and i wuz so freaked that i thought that there was going to be an alligator under my bed. COMPLETLY stupid!! I know! and im 16! you would have thought i got over it when i was like 4! but now that im wide a wake, i think i sound so childish!! but trust me, your not the only one. i would do what she said. give yourself reality checks. thats what helpes me sometimes.

I depends what kind of thoughts your are having.

Do you feel your life is in danger?
If the answer is yes, then you need to see a counselor. Paranoia often comes as a fear of death; of ones own death. I think you might have had an experience in which you felt that your life is at risk and now you fear very deeply to loose life. If there is one thing that is certain and that needs no planning is that we all die. This fear that you have is perhaps a defense mechanism to prevent yourself to be alive by continuously reminding yourself of death and bad things.

If you feel people are watching you or judging you?
Then this means that on some level you are experiencing these thoughts and projecting them on other people. Again this means that you have an issue with accepting yourself and loving yourself and you project these negative feelings onto other people and in someway you are creating the situation by acting out as a victim.

It's really important that you talk about whatever is making you feel afraid for your life. People need to talk about what they are living to feel a release and to express their emotions. By keeping it all in your are creating a toxic environment! So please don’t be afraid to get some help, before this situation gets worse!

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how does someone deal with paranoid thoughts?

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