Anxiety/paranoia?

[Briain]

Is there a thin line between social anxiety and paranoia? are they normally closly connected or not? how do proffesional diferentiate?

[ILADVOCATE]

No they are not. A person with social anxieties just has phobias about being around people. They are overly nervous. But their fears are realistic. A person with paranoia is psychotic. Their fears are delusions. They realistically would not happen. They think someone will persecute them or "people are after them". For social phobias people are overly nervous about social performance or everyday events. Two totally different issues. A lot of people experience social anxiety. If its extreme it can be part of anxiety disorder. Paranoia is part of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.

[Briain]

To be so anxious that you think someone is following you when you can still tell yourself theres noone but still feel there is ,is that normal within anxiety terms?

[ILADVOCATE]

I would say that's probably paranoia. If you still have those feelings and some of the others you posted about and are unable to tolerate most antipsychotics you could ask about Clozaril as that will not cause tardive dyskinesia (which you said you had). If you've been ruled out as a candidate for that let me know. Otherwise, even though it has a difficult side effect profile, it is a good antipsychotic and has a good mood stabilization effect in addition. I was unable to tolerate Clozaril and that's how I ended up on the Phase II study antipsychotic I am on but I wouldn't want to provide more information on that until you were on some medication that was working to control some of the issues you discussed and regardless its still not an approved medication yet. I definitely had all these feelings before recovery including what you are just describing and they are beyond anxiety disorder and strongly seem like paranoia to me. You should speak to your psychiatrist more about this.