While this symptom can be the most confusing and complicated, it is also the rarest of all the main BPD symptoms. People will often link paranoia or suspicious thoughts with someone taking drugs that is not always the case at all and that is what this symptom does. Just by having the symptom causes others around you to have paranoia or suspicious thoughts about you, then in return, it causes you to have more of the same thoughts! While it might sound like two symptoms in one, they are indeed the same thing because of how they are caused. Let’s explain that a little better as well as learning how to deal with it…
What is the BPD Symptom of Feeling Suspicious or Out of Touch With Reality?
Many psychologists call this symptom ‘Psychotic depression’ as it is a lull on your own perception of reality. As long as there is no form of drugs in the person’s system this is usually what is happening. While it does sound like two symptoms in one what happens is the loss of contact with reality often comes in the form of delusions or hallucinations that often manifest themselves as paranoid thoughts that then result in the person having them feeling suspicious about what is going on around them. Yes, this symptom is complicated, but also logical in so many ways.
What Can Trigger the Symptom of Feeling Suspicious or Out of Touch With Reality?
This is not something that will happen overnight and it is not something most of us with BPD will suffer from, but it is something that can be initiated by almost anything. The easy answer here is that it is all about your brain overthinking, but there is also a large part of it that is linked to the symptom of ‘Fear of Abandonment‘ as that is where this symptom usually starts. Sadly there are no real trigger points to blame it on, more a combination of things, mostly liked to the other symptoms of BPD.
How Bad Can the Symptom of Feeling Suspicious or Out of Touch With Reality be?
The good news is most of the time people will only suffer from the mildest signs of this symptom. While they can easily cause distress to people they are mostly controllable and easily dismissed. Sadly that is not always the case and this symptom can grow and grow into something dangerous for both the person suffering from it and those around us. Things can even get to the point that they cause the sufferer to self-harm or even contemplate suicide. So yes, things can indeed get worse with this symptom, but that is uncommon among those of us with BPD.
How Can I Stop the Symptom of Feeling Suspicious or Out of Touch With Reality?
When it comes to this symptom the earlier you spot the signs of it happening, the easier it is to deal with it. While mostly controlled with medication rather than therapy you can learn with control it without medication with a lot of self-help and guidance. Even most talking therapies struggle to deal with this symptom as it really is the most complex out of all them. But even when this symptom is at its worse you can see learn to control it.
This is one of those symptoms you really need to talk to a doctor or mental health professional about as it could be caused by many physical illnesses as well as mental ones. If you do have BPD yourself maybe ask a friend or family member to watch out for the signs of it so you can then get help ASAP if they start to notice them.
Well, I hope this has answered your question. As always with any posts/pages on this site, we would love to hear from you in the comments below. Is this a question you wanted answering? Are there any questions you have relating to BPD that we have not covered? If so please leave a comment to if you want more privacy do please to get in touch with us via the Contact page.
