Do you ever get paranoid about everyone hating you?

Sometimes I feel everyone around me dislikes me... or at least tolerates me. Whenever someone is being nice I assume he or she wants something from me, thus making me feel a deep distrust towards kind people. I feel this way even around close friends and family, and it makes me distance myself from them. I have lost many friends due to this, and even if I know it's probably all in my head I just can't help it. Also some days I believe I'm just plain stupid and everyone around me can see it. My brain always finds some evidence from past memories to back up my paranoia, even if I know it isn't real.

Also I can't seem able to forgive people who have wronged me, I never forget about it. Everytime I see them I remember precisely what they did to me like it was yesterday.

Can anyone relate? If so, how do you cope with it?

Yes I experience that sometimes.

I have a very hard time reading people, but I also tend to be hyper-vigilant in both my conscious and subconscious efforts to read people.

So I guess naturally that combination can create all sorts of issues.

A previous therapist I had also insisted once that I project my own self-loathing onto others, in that I feel hated but don't always consciously recognize that I hate myself, so my brain decides that the reason I feel hated must be because everyone else hates me. So there was that.

I think part of it is trauma-based. I grew up in a rather abusive environment, and my father was psychotic. So his rage and sadistic tendencies were rather random, and any explanation he ever offered didn't make much sense. So I am pretty sure deeper parts of my mind absorbed a false 'truth' that people are extremely volatile and can suddenly hate and attack you without warning and for no reason. That probably sets the stage for me to always be on the look out for signs that people have ill will against me. After that, it's probably not too hard for my mind to find the 'proof' it needs in order to take protective action.

I have a very hard time coping with it and suffer from a lot of "black and white thinking", which for me mostly means I have suffer a lot of anxiety over trying to figure out if someone is 'good' or 'bad' and what their intentions are, and I can also alternate back and forth between very extreme perceptions (i.e. they are wonderful vs they are evil).

I believe that this particular struggle of mine is not something that I can treat with medication, nor just self-awareness alone, but probably something that will take me a while to resolve via therapy.

You're right, it's probably trauma-based. I grew up in an abusive family too, and those who were supposed to protect me didn't do $#%^. How can I ever trust other people when I can't even trust my own family? I hate myself for being so weak and I hate others for having it so easy, all my life has been built around hate, and sometimes hate is all I'm able to feel.

I can definitely relate to this. I mistrust people a lot based on nothing but paranoia.

I cannot say mine was trauma-based from a certain situation or a certain upbringing. I tend to blame mine on the military...
Growing up with my dad in the military I really didn't learn the "friend-making" skill. It was more of a way of you are my companion for now until either you or I go somewhere else.
My father's job in the military kept us in areas for a long time so usually people were leaving me... including my father who was deployed many times.
As I told my fiance recently as he was leaving for Job Corps to learn a trade skill, "Baby I'm crying because it's hard for me to say 'I'll see you later,' it's not how my life worked... I always said goodbye, even to my father because when he deployed you didn't know whether he would come back, he went to many areas that were not safe, which is why we were not allowed to follow him."
My father was a combat engineer, and I suspect something more since he did not disclose much in his letters aside from things like "Haiti is humid but I'm still alive." or "Korea is cold, but I'm still alive."
I deduced after I found out he made some trips up to North Korea that he probably was building and connecting areas so our informants could follow.

This made my life hard I would say, a certain amount of secrecy and code words... a lot of Goodbyes...

Makes one detached and avoiding situations.

With us it goes from AVOIDING to picking out reasons WHY we should avoid these people. Such as thinking these people hate you, or tolerate you just to use you for something.

In the work place this caused me to be a very, for lack of a better term, bitchy.
I also was under the understanding that if I did JUST ENOUGH work and not too much then nobody would expect things out of me.

Then I got a job that measured accuracy ratings and at 99% accuracy I was constantly thrown into "special projects." Which, as you know, makes one with PPD think "What do they want from ME?"


My advice for you and me and everyone else is to remember they don't think like you do. I'm learning, from sitting back and watching, that it's simple how people think especially the older you get. In High School my two best friends I have now would just NOT be my friends...

As you get older it seems some social standing and judgement falls off the radar, such as how you dress or how smart you are. They don't hate you, judge you or use you, they just want your company.

And I am very straightfoward with people and tell them that sometimes I will go months without talking to them and that it's not because I dislike them but it's because I get scared and doubt their loyalty.

Kally wrote:Sometimes I feel everyone around me dislikes me... or at least tolerates me. Whenever someone is being nice I assume he or she wants something from me, thus making me feel a deep distrust towards kind people. I feel this way even around close friends and family, and it makes me distance myself from them. I have lost many friends due to this, and even if I know it's probably all in my head I just can't help it. Also some days I believe I'm just plain stupid and everyone around me can see it. My brain always finds some evidence from past memories to back up my paranoia, even if I know it isn't real.

Also I can't seem able to forgive people who have wronged me, I never forget about it. Everytime I see them I remember precisely what they did to me like it was yesterday.

Can anyone relate? If so, how do you cope with it?

Relate? I could have written every word with no edits. I'm sorry you're in this horrible situation. For me, the worst thing is not really knowing what's going on. How are we to make decisions? I can't even figure out where I stand most of the time. I hope you find some answers. Sorry I can't offer any.

-- Tue Dec 09, 2014 12:28 am --

Kally wrote:You're right, it's probably trauma-based. I grew up in an abusive family too, and those who were supposed to protect me didn't do $#%^. How can I ever trust other people when I can't even trust my own family? I hate myself for being so weak and I hate others for having it so easy, all my life has been built around hate, and sometimes hate is all I'm able to feel.

My upbringing wasn't abusive, but I'm autistic, and the emotional climate wasn't healthy at home. I loathe myself for how I just hate everything and everyone all the time. I'm supposed to be a Christian and it's just another thing I've failed miserably at. Sorry to spew, but you've struck a chord.

I can relate to this very well. The way I cope, (and of course, it's not perfect) I have constant reminders written in various places to check my perception. When I see one, I try to remind myself to not get caught up in what I'm perceiving, because most of the time, I'm perceiving inaccurately. I save work emails where I'm praised, not to gloat, but just so I can remember, because even remembering facts can be faulty.

I try to step back map out the situation logically in my head. My gut reaction might lead me to believe I'm being backstabbed, and undermined because people hate me. I have to exit my emotions and put logic forward, what are some possibilities for their motives, etc. This can get exhausting to do this all the time, so there are times I fail at it, but like I said, it's not perfect.

yep. I have this problem.

I always end up thinking that my friends don't like me and are ridiculing me when I am not looking. I become scared immediately and in some cases, try and hide from them

no idea where it came from. I think I saw it happen to someone else before and I got hyperalert to it.

I've had that exact paranoia all my life. I always think people are talking about me when they are whispering, among other things. It has made me incredibly shy especially as a teenager.

Absolutely. I feel that a lot of people are really out to make a fool out of me, blackmail me, spread rumors about me and laugh behind my back. The "whispers" are pretty much a recurring theme among us people with PPD. That feeling that people are whispering things about you. What got to me was that feeling of being hated behind my back through those whispers.

It happened for real in elementary school but it hasn't left me since even though I'm an adult now. My parents were never abusive, only sometimes neglectful but nothing serious. Elementary school is when it started. You can bet high school sucked, the constant drama and gossip really got to me, not particularly aimed at me but by others talking smack about friends and other people in my presence. I immediately rationalized it as "if they do it to others...they probably do it to me".

Walking through hallways as people glance up at you, turn to eachother, whisper a few things, giggle. I was so fed up of this BS that I'd smoke a joint or two before school and the same during lunch to calm me down a bit and make me care less. Ended up getting kicked out for that.

I would rarely invite people over. If I did, I would never leave them alone to their own devices. I was afraid they'd find embarrassing things. That they'd think I'm a disgusting slob if my room wasn't as clean as a hotel room. I'd insist on going over to their place or somewhere public on the not-so-often occasion where I would go out.

At people's houses, I was almost always extremely polite because I thought the moment I ###$ up, no matter how slight, I'd get kicked out.

np01 wrote:I always end up thinking that my friends don't like me and are ridiculing me when I am not looking. I become scared immediately and in some cases, try and hide from them

I feel you there dude. Sometimes I just want to hide in a corner.