Depression and paranoia

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SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
Also visit the online treatment locator.

SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357) (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service), or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service, in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders. This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations.

Also visit the online treatment locator, or send your zip code via text message: 435748 (HELP4U) to find help near you. Read more about the HELP4U text messaging service.

The service is open 24/7, 365 days a year.

English and Spanish are available if you select the option to speak with a national representative. Currently, the 435748 (HELP4U) text messaging service is only available in English.

In 2020, the Helpline received 833,598 calls. This is a 27 percent increase from 2019, when the Helpline received a total of 656,953 calls for the year.

The referral service is free of charge. If you have no insurance or are underinsured, we will refer you to your state office, which is responsible for state-funded treatment programs. In addition, we can often refer you to facilities that charge on a sliding fee scale or accept Medicare or Medicaid. If you have health insurance, you are encouraged to contact your insurer for a list of participating health care providers and facilities.

The service is confidential. We will not ask you for any personal information. We may ask for your zip code or other pertinent geographic information in order to track calls being routed to other offices or to accurately identify the local resources appropriate to your needs.

No, we do not provide counseling. Trained information specialists answer calls, transfer callers to state services or other appropriate intake centers in their states, and connect them with local assistance and support.

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Last Updated: 08/30/2022

Can Depression Cause Paranoia or Vice Versa?

Depression is a common mental health disorder that is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. While depression can refer to a variety of symptoms and daily living disruptions, there are several clinical subtypes of depression. Each subtype can exhibit different symptoms and affect the patient in a multitude of adverse ways. One of the symptoms that is present in a few of the depression subtypes is paranoia. This symptom can happen during psychotic depression or in postpartum psychosis. People who suffer from comorbid anxiety and depression are more likely to experience paranoia thoughts as well.

What is paranoia?

Paranoia is a symptom that refers to intense, overwhelming thoughts of anxiety or fear regarding threats, persecution, or a conspiracy. Paranoia can occur in other mental health conditions, not just depression and anxiety. People with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia can often exhibit signs of paranoia. Although people with depression and anxiety can become paranoid, paranoia is most common in psychotic disorders. In some cases, a person can experience delusions stemming from paranoia.

Delusions happen when a person’s paranoid thoughts become so fixed and deeply entrenched in their belief system that nothing can convince them of the truth. They will dismiss contrary evidence and may even become hostile to those who present them with contrary evidence. When a person suffers from paranoia and delusions, but they do not have any other symptoms of a mental health condition, they may be diagnosed with delusional disorder.

Paranoia and depression do not usually occur together. But if they do happen simultaneously, it can be a sign that a person has a severe mental health condition. Paranoia and depression together can be indicative of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or psychotic depression.

What are the signs of paranoia and depression?

Depression can affect people differently, depending on their personality traits, and even their age. For example, teens with depression are more likely to feel irrationally angry and lash out at people. Adults with depression are more likely to feel sad and lethargic. Some of the most common symptoms of depression include:

Changes in eating habits
Sudden weight gain or loss
Feeling fatigued and lethargic despite getting a good night’s sleep
Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
Irritability
Becoming socially withdrawn

Losing interest in usually enjoyable activities
Unexplained aches and pains
Failing to engage in self-care, go to work, school, or fulfill their responsibilities
Feeling excessively guilty or becoming self-loathing
Abusing drugs and alcohol to cope with symptoms
Suicidal thoughts and gestures

The signs of paranoia can include the following behaviors and feelings:

Being suspicious of other people.
Thinking that others are plotting against you
Becoming isolated and withdrawn socially

Feeling detached or hostile toward other people
Having low self-esteem

Several of the symptoms present in paranoia can overlap with depression symptoms. For example, people who are depressed will typically become isolated and withdrawn socially. Paranoid symptoms can worsen this part of depression. Low self-esteem is also common in depressive disorders and can become worse if a person starts to develop paranoid thoughts and feelings.

What are the risk factors for depression with paranoid symptoms?

Mental health disorders are complex and vary significantly for each person. There is no known, single cause of mental health disorders, but there are certain risk factors. Having a close relative with a mental health disorder can increase a person’s chances of becoming mentally ill. When it comes to paranoia, the following risk factors for paranoid thoughts are often present in the patient:

Having confusing, or conflicting feelings that a person cannot easily explain
Having certain temperament traits, such as worrying about what others think
People who come to conclusions quickly, or who believe things strongly and do not readily change their minds

Being socially isolated
Experiencing past trauma or toxic stress

Also, certain health conditions can increase a person’s chances of experiencing paranoia with depression. Abusing drugs or alcohol can make a person suspicious and distrustful, as can a lack of sleep. People with depression will often exhibit insomnia and trouble sleeping during an episode, which can trigger paranoid thoughts. Drugs that are most likely to trigger paranoid, suspicious thoughts include:

Alcohol
Marijuana
Cocaine

Ecstasy
LSD
Amphetamines

Studies on paranoia have found that people who have felt vulnerable, isolated, or toxically stressed in the past can have low self-esteem and become easily paranoid. Victims of bullying or violent crime are also more likely to experience paranoid thoughts and suspicions that can worsen or trigger depression symptoms. Trauma during childhood can also make a person believe negative things about themselves and to think that the world is an unsafe place, which can all increase the risk of someone becoming paranoid and depressed as an adult. People who are already anxious, depressed, or who have low self-esteem are more likely to become upset by paranoid and suspicious thoughts. They are also more likely to interpret events negatively, which can worsen paranoid feelings.

What are the treatment options for people with depression and paranoia?

Left untreated, paranoia and depression can be debilitating, with each disorder worsening the symptoms of the other. Patients who isolate themselves and suffer from low self-esteem can quickly become stuck in a negative feedback loop that is difficult to break without outside therapeutic intervention. Fortunately, people with paranoia and depression can find relief from their symptoms with help from a qualified therapist, and a combination of medications for anxiety and depression.

Antidepressants can alleviate depression and anxiety symptoms, while antipsychotics can break the cycle of suspicious, Paranoid thoughts and help patients take back control of their lives.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is often extremely beneficial for patients with paranoia and depression symptoms. The key to effective treatment for paranoia is for the patient to build a trusting, collaborative relationship with their therapist. Therapy for paranoia and depression is based on the patient’s ability to improve their social skills and learn how to decrease the damage that fearful, and suspicious thoughts have on their ability to interact with others and function in society. Using deep brain stimulation techniques can help with depression and as a side effect, may improve paranoia when the depression symptoms have been alleviated.

If you or a loved one are struggling with paranoia and depression symptoms, it’s crucial to reach out for help from a qualified team of mental health professionals. The doctors and counselors at Pulse TMS are standing by to answer your questions about fast and effective depression treatment options. Please contact Pulse TMS today to explore your options.

What is paranoia?

Paranoia is a severe psychiatric illness characterized by the development of logically constructed delusional ideas. This is one of the first diseases that began to be dealt with in modern psychiatry, along with the treatment of schizophrenia and neurosis. With paranoia, the patient does not progress negative symptoms, to some extent the integrity of the personality is preserved and there is no disturbance in perception - hallucinations.

The term "paranoia" was coined by the German psychiatrist Carl Ludwig Kahlbaum in 1863. Later, another psychiatrist, Emil Kraepelin, described paranoia as an independent disease. For a long time, paranoia was considered in classical psychiatry as an independent mental disorder, and in Soviet and Russian psychiatry it was customary to distinguish paranoid syndrome from paranoid delusions.

Symptoms of paranoia

The main signs of paranoia are delusional ideas and, as a result, negative emotions in relation to others (touchiness, hostility, pathological jealousy), as well as megalomania and the inability to perceive criticism and adequately evaluate oneself. The delusion of persecution, which all patients with paranoia suffer from, is an inadequate perception of reality, some fixed idea that constantly accompanies a person in his daily life and is not questioned. With paranoia, a person is convinced that someone is following him and wants to harm him. This disease differs from other diseases, such as paranoid schizophrenia, in that the person suffering from this disorder does not withdraw into himself and does not lose himself as a person. People suffering from paranoia are characterized by unhealthy suspicion, a tendency to see the intrigues of enemies in random events, to build complex conspiracy theories against themselves. However, in another they retain the logical thinking.

Paranoia can coexist with other illnesses such as anxiety and depression.

If such a person is sufficiently socialized, that is, other people continue to communicate with him, he can work at the same job for many years, he can have acquaintances and friends. As a rule, those who suffer from paranoia do not have close friends. However, a paranoid patient may well have a family that will stay with him until the moment when the paranoid delusions intensify and the patient becomes a danger to himself or others.

Causes of paranoia

As in the case of other mental illnesses, the causes of paranoia are a genetic predisposition and some external trigger that launched the development of the disease. At the moment, science does not know exactly which genes are responsible for the development of paranoia and what specific triggers turn on this disorder. Paranoia can coexist with other illnesses such as generalized anxiety disorder and depression. Sometimes depression is a consequence of paranoia, as it becomes difficult for a person to live with the current picture of the world, according to which he is constantly being persecuted and they want to harm him.

The paranoid patient accepts for himself a certain axiom that is not subject to proof.

In many cases, individual signs of paranoia can develop in old age with degenerative processes in the brain, for example, with atherosclerotic lesions of the cerebral vessels, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and others. Also, the development of paranoia can cause the use of psychoactive substances - hallucinogens, amphetamines, alcohol and certain drugs.

Delusions of persecution

See also

Psychiatric notes on the margins of the film "The Apprentice" by Kirill Serebrennikov

As a rule, a crazy idea is well formed in the mind of a person. The paranoid patient accepts for himself a certain axiom that is not subject to proof. He convinces himself that someone from his environment, for example, a neighbor or brother, is opposed to him and everything that this person does is aimed at harming the patient with paranoia. Any action that will be performed by this person will be interpreted as an action against the patient. The object of delusional thoughts can be not only people from the inner circle of communication, but also those who are not connected with the family, for example, the police, the KGB, the CIA and others.

Paranoia is very well organized, like a pseudo-logical system. A person suffering from this disease is clearly focused on only one crazy idea, which is why such people often manage to maintain themselves as whole individuals for many years. For example, if a person believes that a neighbor is opposed to him, he will not communicate with this neighbor, but will continue to communicate with everyone else. At the same time, he will try to convince them that the neighbor is harming him.

Paranoid people usually do not make the decision to start treatment themselves.

When a person believes that he is constantly persecuted, he either runs away from this persecution, or defends himself by attacking the one he considers the offender. If a patient with paranoia is ready to live with a sense of persecution, and not to attack the one who, in his opinion, is persecuting him, then he is considered socialized in society, and his illness proceeds passively. At the moment when he begins to actively run away from society or attack those who are the object of his delirium, such a person must be hospitalized.

Paranoia diagnostics

For the diagnosis of this disease, the patient must undergo a clinical interview with a psychiatrist. During the appointment, the specialist reveals how long ago the symptoms of the disease began, what triggered the onset of the development of the disorder, and, most importantly, with what or with whom the delusion of persecution is specifically associated. After that, it is important to find out whether the person who is chosen as the object of delirium is not in danger, those around him or the patient himself. At the end of the clinical interview, the specialist needs to decide whether the patient needs hospitalization or in this situation he can be prescribed outpatient treatment.

See also

Why do we need a psychotherapist?

Paranoid people usually do not make the decision to start treatment themselves. They are sincere and deeply convinced that their perception corresponds to reality and their thoughts are not painful. Such a person, as a rule, will appear at a specialist’s appointment only under external pressure: family, superiors, or by a court decision. In the event that the patient is not dangerous and does not require inpatient treatment, the task of the specialists who carry out the diagnosis is to try to convince the patient to start drug treatment and psychotherapy.

Treatment of paranoia

The treatment of paranoia takes a long time - sometimes more than 10 years. The main task of psychotherapy is to convince the patient that some of his thoughts and certain beliefs are painful. The psychotherapist teaches a person to notice paranoid thoughts in time and not to get involved in them so that they do not lead to actions. This is a very long and hard job. Patients who do not require hospitalization and continue to function in society usually do not stay for long-term treatment, and attend psychotherapy for only a month or two. Paranoia is a chronic disease that lasts for many years, and, unfortunately, there is no cure for it. It takes root, its symptoms begin to appear more acutely, and eventually, when the patient enters the hospital or for psychotherapy, the disease is already in a neglected state.

Diseases and disorders

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Paranoia

Paranoia (F22. 01 according to ICD-10) is a rare mental disorder that allows one to lead a normal life at an early stage of the disease. However, with the development of symptoms (for example, overvalued ideas, delusions of jealousy or litigation), the disease can cause a deterioration in the quality of life, problems at work and in the family.

Unlike other psychoses, paranoia causes logically systematized crazy ideas, there are no hallucinations and an emotional-volitional defect. Therefore, relatives tend to write off the symptoms of the disease on the characteristics of a person’s personality, unaware of psychopathology.

Our clinic treats paranoia on an anonymous basis and without registration. Usually, the selection of pharmacotherapy in a hospital takes from 2 to 4 weeks. In addition, clinical psychologists work with patients on a daily basis with access to individual psychotherapy, which helps to return to normal life in the family and society.

Since the disease tends to progress, we recommend that you seek specialized medical care in advance: if you have excessive suspicion, unfounded accusations against loved ones and hyperactivity that upsets the balance between personal life and work or hobbies.

Doctor's consultation on the treatment of paranoia:

+7 (812) 407-18-00

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