What is anxiety vs. paranoia?

I have a chronic fear of being fired even though managers have never given me bad feedback. My mind makes up things to support this fear. Like I'll think someone said something that hints I'll be fired.

I hear people say bad things about me all of the time. But I don't know if I'm really hearing them say these things or I think I hear something they say and weave a big negative story about it.

After I hear these things, I ruminate on them, which makes my depression worse. I spend most of my life trying to figure out what reality is. It's exhausting.

Are these symptoms part of SA disorder, or are they simple anxiety? I was just diagnosed with SA disorder and wonder if the diagnosis is true.

Well... personally I can't give you an answer to this. It's a complicated situation & one that I think would be best delved into with a counselor or therapist, if you see one. However, here are links to a couple of articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on the subjects of social anxiety & paranoia. Perhaps some of the information in them will be of some help to you in sorting this out:

https://psychcentral.com/disorders/a...iety-overview/

https://psychcentral.com/disorders/a...rder-symptoms/

https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/delusion/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to...iety-paranoia/

Idk sounds like anxiety but then some people belive psychosis is just an extreme form of anxiety. Paranoia generally has a weird component like someone is out to get you. Like if you thought your boss were specifically targeting you.

Hello,

I can provide only what I believe the differences to be. Anxiety is indicated with elevated heart rate and adrenaline. For me, anxiety is related to racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and an inability to calm down. For me, anxiety manifests with constant physical pain: neck pain, shoulder pain, and back pain. My back pain can get particularly severe. Such pains stems from the inability to relax which results in muscle tightness. I take muscle relaxers as needed. I often live with it without taking the muscle relaxer because I don't want to get addicted and also because the pain comes back even stronger once the muscle relaxer wears off.

Paranoia is the preoccupation with irrational fears that, in many cases, results in behavioral modification. One may feel that he or she is being monitored through the television and therefore avoid televisions. The paranoia may become so severe that they respond violently to televisions and may break them. One may feel that everybody is out to get them and so they isolate themselves from others. OCD is an extreme example of how paranoia results in behavioral modification. Someone may have an irrational preoccupation with being killed and therefore the person may check locks a defined number of times. In these cases, they are compelled to do so. Paranoia, in my opinion, is a greater severity of anxiety.

I hope this helps. I want to add the same disclaimer I did at the beginning: these are my opinions.

Thank you, that was very helpful.

Interesting post jvklaus