Symptoms
The symptoms of paranoia include the slow and gradual onset of delusions. A person suffering from paranoia will start looking suspiciously at everyone around them. There could or could not be any logical reasons for it. In all likelihood, there are few or no reasons for the person’s suspicions. What happens with paranoid people is that slowly, their fears and suspicions about other people start to actually become true in their own minds. This is different from other types of irregularities of a similar kind such as schizophrenia, in this respect. A schizophrenic person, for instance, will not have a single thought behind their behavior which slowly grows and develops into this single and huge fear. But a person who is paranoid will usually stick to a singular shred of thought and let it keep growing and growing over time. The behavior is not restricted to fear or suspicion alone. It could also include other negative things such as jealousy, obstinacy, irritation, short temper, bitterness, anti social behavior, introversion and so on. But the thing with any or all of these facets is that they are all slow and gradual to develop. And once developed, it takes extensive treatment, which can sometimes stretch across years of therapy, to disintegrate.
Treatments
Since it is a behavioral disorder, there is no easy or defined treatment that can be applied to paranoia. It would have to always depend upon the person being treated. The second most important thing would also be how far the disease has progressed. Basically, once paranoia is diagnosed, it needs to be checked starting almost at once. If this does not happen, there is a very high and strong chance that the person suffering may never be cured at all. To start with, the patient has to agree for counseling. This is sometimes the toughest hurdle and is seldom crossed. Like everyone else, even a doctor or psychoanalyst will be viewed with suspicion by a paranoid person. To overcome this suspicion, then to start falling in line with the treatment is a long and arduous task which the patient would most likely have to do by themselves. If there is no support from family or friends, this may not be possible. There also has to be a person constantly dedicated to the patient. If possible, this person would have to be out of the patient’s purvey of suspicion. Most importantly, treatment takes time, so patience is of utmost importance.