Paranoia

According to Webster’s dictionary, paranoia is a serious mental illness that causes you to falsely believe that other people are trying to harm you. I wanted to write a little about how I occasionally feel while hanging out with friends. It’s often very sudden, but I usually block out the thoughts that appear very quickly as well. Basically, I get this feeling that the friends I’ve made here are going to suddenly turn on me and say, “We never really wanted to hang out with you, we just felt bad for you.” It’s a terrible feeling and I know that I shouldn’t have it because the friends I’ve made here are all great, but I just can’t help it. I haven’t really been able to bond well enough with them.

For example, with the Insanity workout that we’re doing these days, I’ve been trying to do my best and when I tell others how I’m not doing as well as they are, they immediately turn to me and say something along the lines of “No, you’re doing great! You were MVP last night!” It’s very kind of them to say such things, but I can’t help but wonder if this is some elaborate rouse to try and get me to exercise. The others that I’ve been doing this exercise with are mostly athletic and fit so when I’m in there sweating like a maniac and breathing heavily, I just feel a little out of place. I know that this can’t be true and I feel like I’m being selfish for having such thoughts because there is no way that so many people would collaborate to do such a thing. Along with that, I know that one of the girls was planning to do this program by herself in the first place, so it’s very unlikely that this is all just a plan. I know that this doesn’t really count as harming me, but I feel like I have paranoia in these situations because I’m having these sorts of thoughts.

Anyway, midterms are coming up soon. In fact, I had my first math midterm on the 4^th! It was definitely a lot easier than I expected, so from now on I’m just going to expect the worst on tests and quizzes. I mean, it kind of worked for microeconomics and it sort of worked for physics in high school, so maybe it will work out for me again. Just over-study for everything!

-Sam Rho