Paranoia Will Kill You.

As someone who has kept a journal for over 15 years, I like to look back and remember where my head was at and most importantly how I felt then versus how I feel now. I’d like to think I’m always growing, teaching myself how to be a better person and not repeating past mistakes (which conveniently are all documented in case I need a reminder). Something I started doing the last 2 years is having a quote or some words that resonate with me at the very first page of a new journal. I feel it sets the tone for the beginning for that particular journal and is indicative of where I am at when I start my first page of many. For instance, last July (right after I celebrated my birthday and had met a certain someone), I simply wrote, “Fuck Yeah!” Looking back now it seems juvenile to write something so crass but it made sense to me. It still makes sense to me. That “Fuck Yeah!” represented how I felt that day. I remember feeling motivated, like the world was my proverbial oyster and nothing could take me down. Of course feelings like these seldom last and when I started a new journal this past month, the first page had the following written: “I’ve had thousands of crises in my life and most of them never happened.” I read it in a magazine and it really stuck with me for the simple reason that I would categorize myself as a part-time worrier of what may go wrong. I blame my conservative European mother who raised me in a quasi-coddled, you never know what may be type of environment. For instance, when I was a little girl I feared roller-coasters like the plague. Having been convinced by my mother that they may literally give an 12 year old a heart attack I didn’t go on them. Rather, I watched my friends scream and giggle as they got off one chanting "That was amazing, we have to go again" while I waited at the exit (yes, I was the wait-at-the-exit-kid, you can laugh now).

My mother always meant well and though her over-protectiveness came from a place of love, now as a grown adult I sometimes wonder if I do not pursue things or people as much as I should for fear of being hurt or like a fast roller-coaster, them giving me an early heart attack. Being afraid of the unknown and having anxiety for what can go wrong versus what may go right is something I think every person struggles with. Some I have seen it to the point of being delusional. You know that saying, “When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for others.” Well, it is also the same when you live with paranoia. You sound irrational, most times things don’t add up and a lot of times you may even come off as stupid. Sometimes I think human beings find comfort in being worried and not doing certain things for fear of those crazy thoughts in their head actually being true. That way you are in a forever state of safety. Missing out on the joy of being a giggling 12 year that just got off a roller-coaster but nevertheless safe and in the waiting/exit side of the ride.

With that said, let it be known that I have been on a few roller-coasters in my life (peer pressure is one hell of a thing when you are 12) and what I realized only after the ride was that the 30 plus minute line-up on a hot teenage infested Canada’s Wonderland Saturday was more terrifying than actual Vortez itself. The rapid dips over the pond were nothing compared to the endless “I’m gonna have a heart attack, my mom was right” thoughts that ran through me and beat all the adrenaline and speed that was involved in the ride. Being paranoid is similar. It overtakes you, it consumes whatever positivity you had or have and above all, it drains you.

The belief that paranoia will diminish your mental capacity to think logically, unbalance your emotional sanity and drain you spiritually is something I have seen first hand.

I have seen people that I would describe as highly likable say things like, “I don’t want to go out, I know people talk about me and generally do not like me.” I have seen men and women go through phones that have nothing on them for the simple fact that they live in paranoia and I have seen what could have been amazing Friday nights turn into shit shows because someone looked at someone the wrong way and they were convinced that it was a sign that they were about to be disrespected. In other words, paranoia will kill you. It will take everything that is good or can be good and it will turn it into something bad.

I sometimes ask myself if I took all the time I spent being worried about something or someone and do something that actually benefits me, how much more would I achieve on a daily basis? How much productivity is consumed because one spends their energy on worrying versus living? How much creativity is lost because your brain is set on paranoid/negative versus hopeful/positive? And lastly, how much richer would our lives be if we focused on what needs to be done and completely disregarded all the possible things that can do wrong?

I am not immune to feeling like the number of things I have described in this piece and what bonds us as human beings is that we all feel a multitude of similar things. We all fear that those who act friendly to us in actuality don’t like us. We fear that that person we held on Friday will be holding someone else on Saturday and we all fear that everyone sees that we are all scared and just doing our very best on this super fast, will give you an early heartattack if you aren’t careful roller-coaster called life.