About Paranoia...

They follow her everywhere.

Frozen hippies smirk at her from between the shadows. Little laughing pixies skip through the dandelions and whiskey. They serve as itty-bitty informants for the Spur Mafia. They creep under her bed. They listen to her as she dreams. They gather her sleep secrets. They raid her underwear. And they bring it all back to the beer bandits. A psycho killer probes her pajamas. The pussy cat ones, they're his favourite.

They all follow her home, break into her house, steal her pajamas and spare not one delusion. Bitter gigolos rummage through her dresser drawers.

Beer bandits follow her from the Rose to the Spur conspiring to make her drunk so she'll drink all of her delusions away. This is real, people. Real. The hippies really are out to get her. The evil folk pub open mic singers really are stalking her. The lost sons of Bob Dylan slink about the clubs and coffee shops unheard and unseen. They plot to make a thrown-away Beatles cover of her life. But she doesn't see and hear them because they are not even there.

The rustling of leaves is the savage woman-eating of the evil folk pub open mic singing cannibal, the approaching of death.

Hippies huff. Punks puff. The evil folk club singer blows her house in. It's the end.

That's really frighteningly paranoid thinking. And everybody's ostracizing her because they're scared. It must confirm for her that her paranoia is true. But she really needs someone to reach out to her when she's at her worst. But nobody wants to because she's frickin' scary when she's at her worst. So right when she needs a friend the most, that's when she sees one least. You know damn well that they're all avoiding her; she's scaring the shit out of everybody. And this alienation only proves what her paranoid mind already believes: that she is the target of some kind of alienation. Subjugation. Conspiracy!

 What makes people like this? Low self-esteem? Is she on dope? Has she been drinking a lot lately? Is she crazy? I've seen her mumble away to herself but that means nothing; I do that sometimes.

Self-esteem versus insanity - Not everyone who has little self-esteem is insane.

A low self-esteem child isn't paranoid. She just thinks she's ugly and stupid and that nobody would ever like her… like that’s so unusual for a 17-year-old. She has no delusions that she's being persecuted, or that everyone is out to get her. In fact, she feels the opposite: that nobody wants anything to do with her, that she would go and hang out by herself and leave by herself. And that's normally what happened. So it's no delusion. A low self esteem child is too shy to get to know people, to let them know that she's just as good as they are. But that's only because she thinks she isn’t as good as they are. She thinks she's too ugly and stupid for anyone to have anything to do with her. She has no delusions of grandeur. In fact, she feared nothing was ever going to change and she'd live in poverty forever. And that was a very rational fear unlike the irrational fears of paranoia. And given her shyness and sensitivity, her fears almost came true: She was impoverished for the longest time - landing and quitting jobs all through her twenties and all over the place, wondering if she could do anything. She was too shy and sensitive to fulfill the very public requirements of many jobs. And then she found a job taking care of an old man and she found her niche. Her rational fears reversed.

There are different kinds of mental illness. Some are withdrawn. Some are outspoken. Some are sensitive. Some are aggressive. But all are in need of a very brave love. And then there's hard paranoia. Everyone just tends to avoid you when you're that kind of mentally sick. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is not. It's terrible to avoid people right when they need you most: when they are sick. But the search for reason just thinks the failure to find reason is scary. Hence, it seems ironic that those who fail to reason should think that everyone is out to get them because no one wants to even get near them. Perhaps then, the entire world can be out to get anyone unless they are crazy.

Elaine 06