I mean like people like parents/siblings/spouses/significant others/kids/roomates/housemates…
I mean, I have paranoia about other things too (such as germaphobia/mysophobia), but specifically on this issue of people snooping, is amongst one of my top fears, and I’m just curious if other have this similar fear/paranoia.
Like every time I wake up, I wonder if my parents or brother put some malware/spyware on my phone because they think its a funny prank or whatever.
Every time I enter my PIN for my phone, I always cover the screen before entering it in case my parents have cameras in the house. And even more so in public, I’d fear CCTV getting my PIN.
[No, I have not been diagnosed with schizophrenia, I don’t hallucinate or anything like that. (But I do have a diagnosis of depression.)]
[This is distinct from the common fears of government surveillance or whatever. That, strangely enough, I fear much less, since I’m just one in hundreds of millions of people that they would care about, so I’m not so worried about that.]
This reminds me of OCD, tbh. OCD works like this: The Obsession: it’s a persistent thought that you can’t stop thinking about. That you ruminate over and that causes you anxiety. Such as, “someone poisoned my food” or “I left the stove on at home” or “my actions will cause a butterfly effect that will lead to somebody’s death” or “someone could have bled on that sink handle and they had HIV”. Some thought like that, that is sometimes completely illogical. But you cannot argue with how illogical it is, because you feel anxious regardless. Your fear exists separately from what you know is logical.
The there is the Compulsion: you try to alleviate this anxiety/fear by doing an action. Whether it’s praying, or counting, or whatever. If you fear poison, you might only eat in tiny bites. If you fear you left your stove on, you might check it 10 times in a row. If you fear the butterfly effect, you might wait to walk out of your door until it “feels right”. Doesn’t matter what it is. It’s often not logical either. But it makes the anxiety go away.
The the D in OCD is Disorder, because it negatively impacts your life and wastes your time in a significant way. Like, everyone might worry that they left the stove on once in a while, but not everyone is consistently going back to check it 10 times. Or 30 times. Etc.
The reason this sounds like it could possibly be OCD to me is because you have the Obsession that you are being spied on. And you presumably do Compulsions like covering your phone or checking for malware like, all the time. In order to alleviate the anxiety of the Obsession.
So. Not schizophrenia imo. You clearly know it’s not logical of you to be so paranoid. But perhaps OCD. Idk! Only you and a doctor can figure that out.
If I were you I’d ask myself if there are any other things you do that follow this pattern. And that negatively affect your life/mood. People with OCD usually have multiple obsessions and compulsions in response to those obsessions. And these can be observed to change over time too. Think about your childhood. Think about your present.
No.
This isn’t OCD at all.
They’re not describing a need to perform specific tasks in a specific way or number of times which they feel anxiety if they do not do.
They do not describe any rituals that they feel they need to do to alleviate anxiety.
They don’t describe anything like needing to check if a door is locked 10 times or checking if an oven is off 10 times, you’re just making that up from nowhere.
…
They’re describing a generalized, heightened sense of anxiety about the security of their digital devices from people they are in close proximity to, as well as just a general fear of being spies on by cameras.
As well as germophobia and mysophobia.
None of these fears are entirely factually unfounded or without merit, germs can harm you, digital devices can be covertly spied on.
They then go on to detail how their family is emotionally manipulative and abusive.
…
… IM(unprofessional)O, this is CPTSD.
That will manifest as heightened general paranoia as well as any number of specific paranoias… because it makes sense to be extra worried about trusting things when you are constantly surrounded by duplicitous assholes who lie about things constantly, and cause you to fear things like footsteps and knocks on doors.
If your baseline is: I am normally lied to, spied on, have my words twisted against me by people I am forced to be around constantly, you’d likely become generally untrusting and paranoid too.
Germo/Mysophobia could come from being stuck in an unclean environment where people rarely or never excersize sufficient hygeine and cleaning, don’t throw out moldy food, etc, which has gotten this person sick multiple times, so the compensation is to have a heightened awareness and aversion to potential sources of sickness.
I am not saying it is OCD, I am saying it could be OCD. Especially if they left details out of their post, which they may well have. The things I made up are examples of real symptoms someone might have. I am not saying they have any of the symptoms. The only reason I made this post with a detailed explanation of how OCD works, is because the majority of people think OCD is about washing your hands and being clean, because the contamination obsession is one of the most common obsessions. Therefore, if this person did have OCD, my post is a good introduction to realize it. If they do not, they will not relate to anything I wrote, and in that case they can ignore my post.
You may well be right about the CPTSD as well. They should look into it too.
I don’t feel comfortable diagnosing them based on one post they made lol. That’s not what I was attempting to do. I am also uncomfortable with you definitely saying “this isn’t OCD at all”… we cannot tell what this person is truly experiencing from one post alone. So giving potentially useful knowledge to them, such as a more accurate rundown of how OCD works, is only logical imo. It’s better to have information than to not have it.
My sibling was initially walking around with undiagnosed OCD for years because of the hand washing stereotype. And the neat freak stereotype. “I can’t have OCD! My room is a mess!” type of deal. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. That’s all.