Aspergers/High Functioning Autism and Paranoia, A LOT of it

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I know recently I have been on an un controlled issue that seems to bug me and it involves Aspergers with Paranoia, apoparently many people I have talked to see me as a troll because my "Paranoia" has been getting out of hand,

I need to know how many of you guys tend to have a lot or too much paranoia due to having Aspergers?

Also I guess it seems if I get no responces, I fear Paranoia and Aspergers are not making any sense to most on here, well to solve that, here is another board article that discusses this issue,

http://www.psychforums.com/asperger-syn ... 34058.html

I could see it as being an issue with many people with AS. I'll explain why.

Often since we don't have the social skills to truly understand how people are thinking or feeling, we will assume the worst possible intentions. For example, we will think that people will automatically hate us or feel that just because things are going a certian way that they will turn out very badly.

It makes us untrustworthy of people and the ways of the world, which could explain why some people on the spectrum get into conspiracy theories...not because they are TRULY paranoid, but they have been rejected from people and society so much that they simply cannot trust the world anymore.

I think too, that the word paranoia is very misleading.

especially because there are so many words that are similar but with specific detailed differences that distinguish the real emotion,

I think being paranoid turned into a folk tail saying, like killing two birds with one stone etc.

My thought is, in Y2K should they have diagnosed everyone who believed the world was ending as paranoid? (I personally did not believe)

Also too, is parts of religion not paranoia? It seems very difficult for me to believe water was turned into wine, and the devil is out to get me.

I'm not sure I've ever been paranoid tho, so I can only describe it through knowledge by description rather than knowledge by acquaintance.

Although one time my water cooler made a noise late a night as I was walking to the bathroom and I jumped pretty damn far! lol :p

The thing is that we dont have good social skills, so this sets us up for offending a lot of people and ruining a lot of relationships. So its pretty natural, if you have a bad streak then your gonna become very paranoid of ruining things all the time. Sometimes the paranoid is not justified but sometimes it is because we cant always see our mistakes.

What anneurysm said.


I can be pretty paranoid, for all the reasons already mentioned by the other posters on this thread.

I have always been bested by the violent (to me at least) competition in life that NT's seem to love, especially the ones good with money. Competition flusters me and makes me unable to think straight. I have seen this competition lead to horrible things, just horrible - so I am naturally suspicious of a lot of stuff in our society.

The monsters outside my window and hovering over my bed make me touch paranoid. I'm actually being serious. I should maybe stop watching science fiction. Ha, fat chance that is ever going to happen.

The type of paranoia on that site is anxiety. I've been there too. Thinking people are thinking awful things about you or even saying those things out loud. Or people that pretend to be nice to you out of pity.

I think it is due to a poor theory of mind and having bad experiences with people. With me hearing about violence in the news is enough to make me distrusting to people I see on the street.

Right.....where shall I start?

Hmm, OK, I will start by saying I suffer from paranoia, not just a little bit, but a lot. It's actually overtaking my mind and my life. Let's put it like that.
I worry too much of what other people are thinking of me. And being a young female with AS is the worst possible position to be in (socially) because woman are very critical of eachother's appearence, so I've got to be careful with what I'm wearing - if I don't want to be judged, which I don't. Also being in my early 20s is a difficult time, because you really do stand out of you're anything different, and people comment on you. And having AS, makes it 100 times more difficult because I haven't quite learnt all the conformism rules, although being female means I can use intuition, which is normally right, so I just have to rely on that. But sometimes when I'm stressed, my intuition is hard to get to, so I have to figure everything out all by myself.

But anyway - so my paranoia has got worse. I fit my whole life around trying too hard to impress other people and not make a fool of myself, and it's gotten a bit out of hand now, and now I don't know how to go back. It's because I know how awkward I look all the time, and I always seem to be confused or bored or anxious when I'm out, which results in me just standing about looking awkward, and people aren't quite sure what I'm doing so I often get asked if I'm in the queue or whatever, and that means my thoughts gets disrupted by having to keep looking round at people and saying, ''no.'' It's really annoying.
Or when tiny little things happen to me, I always think that everybody saw it and is thinking something of me, Like yesterday when I got on the bus, my handbag slipped off my shoulder as I was walking to a seat, and although nobody probably even noticed or thought anything, I kept on thinking that everybody saw it and turned to eachother and said, ''oh that girl's bag fell down - pfft! She's so stupid!''

But I know the reason why I'm paranoid. It's because I've been told (ahem, on WP), that all Aspies give off vibes, no matter how normal you act or how dressed up you are, and it negatively attracts people and makes them have to think something and look at me and say horrible things and, one day, want to get me. I worry about this, because I can't help but wonder and worry what will happen to me when I start a job and meet new people, knowing I give off these vibes and making people run the other way as though I'm some freak. And I worry about what this would mean once I get further out into the big wide world, and later on in life. I don't like that thought. It's so upsetting for me, and I haven't got low self-esteem - I've got no self-esteem. I think everybody's got at least a tiny bit, but I've got none. Not anything to make me feel good about myself. Just hopeless. So knowing I give off vibes puts me off from meeting new people, makes me feel sensitive, makes me feel awkward, and makes me think that I'll be better off if I never existed.

My take on it....

"I think someone is out to get me" DOES NOT = paranoid.

"I think everyone is out to get me" DOES = paranoid.

My psychologist called it "hyper vigillance" which feels more accurate than paranoia. I am hyper vigillant about everything from how I smell to what I'm wearing, to spotting abnormalities in the sidewalk so I don't stumble when I'm walking and embarrass myself....and that's just the very tip of my hyper vigillant iceburg. I think when people feel different they are hyper aware of the things around them that could call attention to that difference. I have spent my life trying to blend in and it's exhausting.