Paranoia

Use your imagination!  Just don’t kill yourself.

I have an overactive imagination.  I can start day dreaming and make up this entire, complex story and then forget all or most of it as soon as I shake myself out of it.  I’m sure I’ve written lengthly novels in my head that are gone forever.  Then I experience this “woah” feeling wondering what just happened.  There’s been times where I’ve been thinking about a memory of mine, something I did, and I can’t remember when, where, or who I was with.  Certain details had escaped me and usually I’m one to remember every little thing.  It would bug me for some time until I realized, “That was a dream I had once.”  I can’t believe how dreams can be so real sometimes that I could actually think it actually happened.  You know the feeling of waking up from a dream and thinking it was real?  Within a few seconds, you realized it wasn’t because, obviously, you’re still in bed.  Well the eerie part of it for me is months later I think I had some kind of experience and I’m stumped because it’s a little fuzzy and don’t realize it never happened.

The thing about an overactive imagination is that it can make me a little paranoid.  I think paranoia is an interesting topic.  And not the mental illness.  The little suspicious, slightly irrational distrust that everyone has about someone or something, real or imagined.  I never ever “see” anything I imagine.  I can kind of project it onto the back of my eyelids, but any images still seem fuzzy or transparent.  I think everyone gets a little paranoid about certain things...at least I hope so.  Otherwise, I might be delusional, folks! ;)

I can be paranoid in a safety way.  As in, is that guy lurking around (course he really isn’t lurking, I just think he is...my imagination) just waiting to pounce on me, tie me up, gag me, and dump me into the back of a big white van with no windows?  (Yep, all big white vans without windows might as well have “We have candy, kids,” written on the side.) 

I always feel like someone’s watching me.  I feel like there could be someone sitting in the tree in my backyard with a pair of binoculars staring at me.  It’s not an intense feeling; just creepy, and makes me look out the window to see.  I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be kidnapped and then escape or somehow come out of it alive.  Not enough to wish it would happen though!

When I was younger...

One cause of it I think is my dad.  He’s always telling me to be aware of my surroundings and be cautious and careful.  I know he’s just trying to be helpful. Be careful of dark alleys; that sort of thing.  One time he told me that if I ever came across a squirrel that was acting funny, unusually not startled by a human, and foaming at the mouth, that that squirrel had rabies and I should get away from it.  Now, I was one of those kids that obnoxiously ran after squirrels like a dog screaming at the top of my lungs.  So I was pretty freaked out that there could be a dangerous squirrel out there that would start chasing me!  For weeks I wouldn’t go outside to play.  Or I’d forget, go out and start swinging on our swing set, realize there could be a squirrel hiding behind a tree somewhere waiting for me, and run like mad back into the house.  Yes, I realize that was crazy; that’s why it’s called paranoia.

I’m never letting my kids watch something scary on TV while they’re young.  Like the red-eyed bear in Fox and the Hound scared me--and it was only because of the fact that he had red eyes.  I would cover my eyes during that part of the movie.  So, I never watched horror movies or anything, but the slightly scary parts of normal kids movies would freak me out.  When I was little, I watched a movie once that was about a family living in the wilderness.  They kept having these frequent run ins with this angry, bold wolf with a scar running down his face.  I realize now that that movie was what made me scared at night sometimes.  I had to have the windows shut and the blinds closed because I was afraid wolves were going to jump through my window.  I knew there were no wolves that lived in our area and that they couldn't possibly break through my window or even want to, but I was still afraid.  An irrational fear of my childhood.  Surprisingly, I never thought monsters were in my closet or under my bed.  Instead, I would imagine shadows moving on the walls and that snakes and alligators swam in an invisible sea under my bed and would snap at my toes if my legs hung over the side.

Was that really a joke?

Today, I tend to be paranoid about what people think...particularly of me.  I hate it when people joke with you and you’re not sure if they’re being mean and just won’t commit completely to the insult.  I’m not saying I don’t like joking around with people.  I can take a joke directed at me and probably retort one right back.  But sometimes I just think about it and wonder if it’s true.  Why would he/she even think that if they didn’t think it was true?  I can tell when someone is honestly just playing with me.  But then there’s the moment when I don’t know if a person is really joking with me or saying something mean and laughing it off with a, “Just kidding!”  Sometimes sarcasm can be used the wrong way--which is, sadly, cruel.

My paranoia--or imagination--has never escalated to become a problem.  It doesn’t control me and it doesn’t prevent me from living my life.  2 Timothy 1:7 says that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.  God doesn’t want me to be afraid.  Satan does though, but I will not give him the satisfaction.