When you are in a relationship with someone who has Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD), it can feel as if they never see you for who you really are. It’s as if they have glasses on that distort the picture of your life together. Paranoid personality disorder overstimulates their fear response. They can go through their days experiencing an exaggerated negative spin on most events and interactions. It’s not that they want to believe that you might be sneaking around, keeping secrets from them, or otherwise betraying their trust. However, they do believe these kinds of things, regardless of the truth of the situation and your intentions.
The interaction of paranoid personality disorder and relationships can be a very sensitive. Close partnerships are built on trust, and those with the disorder find trusting others to be very difficult. While the difficulty introduces issues to address, it doesn’t mean that having a relationship with someone who’s been diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder is impossible. The problem is that many people with the disorder do not seek treatment. With professional care and therapy, both partners in a relationship can learn to bring compassion and understanding to the symptoms of the personality disorder. They can also start to redirect the experiences of fear in more positive directions.
Read some of the common signs of PPD below.
Negativity
The key diagnosis of paranoia isn’t necessarily that the person believes in conspiracy theories and invests in a tinfoil hat. It’s the presence of inherent suspicion about the motives of others. Even if it’s completely unfounded. That can express itself in a lot of ways. This includes taking innocent remarks as threats, interpreting impersonal social interactions as slights, and generally distorting all other people as likely to hurt them. Individual who are paranoid always on guard. They believe that others are constantly trying to demean, harm, or threaten them. They have a hard time seeing the good intentions behind words they may misinterpret.
Isolation
This is an unsurprising consequence of the condition that makes their interactions with other people deeply threatening. People with PPD have a tendency to isolate themselves. They may become hostile to people who threaten this isolation, such as family members, partners and friends. They will withdraw from social interactions, be difficult to draw out of their shell, and regard all attempts to entertain or persuade them as suspiciously motivated. Expect hostility if they refuse to come out and you try to persuade them.
Cannot Forget
The PPD sufferer is not in a condition in which any perceived slights or problems with others are easily let go. Instead, they brood on them. They will hold suspicions about the person and their motivations for the remainder of their time with them. This obsessive thinking is a form of anxiety. A paranoid individual is constantly fueled by “evidence” that other humans are intensely threatening. Their view of the world as a terrifying place is bolstered by any incident, real or imagined, in which their security was in any way threatened. People with PPD don’t understand the concept of forgiving and will persistently bring up this “evidence” as part of their “accurate” world view.
Defensive
Don’t underestimate the power of the distortion of PPD. Even if it makes no sense, they will defend their suspicions to the point of intense conflict. Part of this comes from the possible conditions in which PPD emerges. It can develop in response to a threatening environment in childhood in combination with various genetic predispositions. In that context, the paranoia is the only thing that appears real. Attempts to deconstruct it, however well-meaning, will result in chaos. Conversations to dispute their thoughts can go wrong. They might keep getting distracted by anger at their perceived slights by others, deny everything you say, be unable to see themselves as anything except the victim, or be unable to move forward from the argument.
Abnormal Suspicion
Anything that touches or potentially threatens a person with PPD is a source of malevolence. Their paranoia usually doesn’t extend to believing that inanimate objects are “out to get them”. If they’re dealing with a big organization, like a bank or the government, or people with superiority (like bosses), they’re likely to believe, without any justification, that they’re working to potentially hurt them and will use their power for ill. This is often the public picture of the paranoid person. However, the thing to remember here is that it’s usually centered on people and their “suspect” or “malevolent” motivations.
Jealousy
Interpersonal relationships with people with PPD are, understandably, difficult. A person who can’t look at other people without being inclined to believe the worst about their intentions is a fundamentally distrusting partner. As spouses or partners, they’re naturally inclined to jealousy, often without any evidence at all. They constantly want to monitor their loved one or question where they’ve been. Their distorted world view indicates that, even if somebody insists they’re loving and faithful, the possibility of betrayal is extremely real and very likely.
Are you or someone you love suffering from PPD?