Individuals who are suspicious and have serious difficulties trusting others, who see everyone except themselves as potentially dangerous, who remain constantly on alert against any possible attack and continuously take precautions, who want to keep everything and every situation under strict control, and who believe that their own method of evaluating events is the most perfect and safest one for themselves, are described as having a paranoid personality. Extremely rigid and unwilling to give up their beliefs, insisting firmly on them, these personality structures experience interpersonal relationships as highly anxious and threatening. Because of this, they cannot live life naturally, and since they believe the environment is unsafe, they live with the thought: “You must not let your guard down even for a second.”
They show serious incompatibilities in interpersonal relationships, and due to these issues with trust and adaptation, they tend to live alone — although this does not disturb them very much.
The primary characteristic of paranoid personality structures is distrust. Since they believe other people have malicious intentions toward them, they never stop being suspicious. They must never relax and must never lose control.
Being in a relationship with others and sharing personal information is perceived as extremely dangerous. Suspicion is the core feature of this structure. Sometimes they even doubt the honesty of their closest relatives. For them, anyone who is “other” — anyone who is not themselves — is someone who could potentially harm them.
Another characteristic of individuals with paranoid personality structure is their intense and deeply rooted jealousy. Because they even doubt their own suspicions, they constantly search for evidence to prove them, trying to find it within small details and eventually becoming lost in these details.
Due to their extremely sensitive and easily injured sense of self, when they feel insulted, they cannot ignore it and respond with excessive retaliation. Sometimes, even when there is no insult or humiliating situation, they may interpret the situation that way and create conflict.
Since they are always ego-centered in relationships, they cannot form any genuine closeness with others except through suspicion or constant monitoring of the other person.
They present themselves as rational, cold, and logical, and they resist evidence presented by others. Their sense of humor is underdeveloped, and they have difficulty expressing or experiencing positive emotions.
For these individuals, the world is a dangerous place where constant vigilance is required. They are preoccupied with thoughts that at any moment something harmful could occur from anywhere, and that they must protect themselves from such threats.
People outside themselves could harm, deceive, cheat, or betray them.
Just as we may feel uneasy in the face of an unseen, unknown threat, individuals with paranoid personality feel relieved when they find someone who “confirms” their suspicions, believing that the threat is truly real. To validate their feelings of distrust and to experience even a slight sense of relief, they need to find enemies. Therefore, they live with a constant need to find someone who verifies their suspicions.
Even if they suffer from jealousy, once they find (or believe they have found) “proof” of their spouse’s infidelity (even if it is forced or imagined), they feel significant relief.
Some forms of paranoid disturbances include paranoid traits, paranoid personality disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia (these are distinct concepts).
Some paranoid individuals can be compared to rulers who govern a state but are extremely afraid of being overthrown by their people. Such leaders tend to increase police measures, restrict freedoms, immobilize the population, and continuously introduce new prohibitions to prevent what they believe is a possible conspiracy against them — resembling dictators who impose excessive restrictions out of fear of a coup.
