>>85966021>>85967028As someone who has to be treated professionally for paranoia, I have a suggestion. This is just a construct I've come up with myself, but it seems to help a lot.
You'll never be able to convince yourself that they never could be laughing at you. You'll always feel they conceivably could be. Instead, you can weight the potential of if they are.
Assume they are laughing; what has changed because of it? What physical value or quantity is changed? Absolutely nothing. Lets put it to a simple example. You walk by two people. One snickers to the other as you are in proximity. What happened here? You could think they laughed about you as you walked by. Okay, so what if they are? What about the situation changed? Nothing. The simple fact remains you walked by and one of them snickered while you happened to walk by. What they actually thought and what you thought equally changes nothing intrinsic to the situation. Not even your own perspective of the situation changes any values.
If they laughed at you or just near you is the same thing, functionally speaking. Wither you angst or ignore it is also functionally the same. The only effect the situation has is grief projected by yourself on to yourself. Grief you decided you liked having cause you picked it over other options you had. That grief is your choice to have in a situation that didn't matter either way.
Grasp it on a basic level and grow it out from there. Sure you run the risk of becoming a selfish ass that doesn't care about anyone but #1, but if that happens you were always an ass pretending you weren't.
I still get the stab of paranoia whens hit happens, but remembering to walk through it with that construct kills the emotion. Then I can move the fuck on.
Works for stupid shit you are ashamed you did as a kid too.
