I mean like people like parents/siblings/spouses/significant others/kids/roomates/housemates…
I mean, I have paranoia about other things too (such as germaphobia/mysophobia), but specifically on this issue of people snooping, is amongst one of my top fears, and I’m just curious if other have this similar fear/paranoia.
Like every time I wake up, I wonder if my parents or brother put some malware/spyware on my phone because they think its a funny prank or whatever.
Every time I enter my PIN for my phone, I always cover the screen before entering it in case my parents have cameras in the house. And even more so in public, I’d fear CCTV getting my PIN.
[No, I have not been diagnosed with schizophrenia, I don’t hallucinate or anything like that. (But I do have a diagnosis of depression.)]
[This is distinct from the common fears of government surveillance or whatever. That, strangely enough, I fear much less, since I’m just one in hundreds of millions of people that they would care about, so I’m not so worried about that.]
Hey there! I can relate a lot to what you’re saying here. I’ve often felt trapped in a bad place because all of the alternatives seem worse. I had a fairly traumatic upbringing (some emotional abuse, a little bit of physical and sexual abuse, lots of emotional neglect), and I also suffered from a fear that the people around me would mess with me and invade my privacy.
For me, the need for privacy came from a place of deep self-loathing fueled by a shitton of criticism from my dad (why can’t you do anything right/think the right things/just focus on something). I didn’t want others to see who I really was, so I went to extreme lengths to hide it from the world. Everything was locked, and I used to write my thoughts down in an intentionally opaque way to try to mask what I really felt.
I dunno if that matches your lived experience at all, but one of the consequences of all this was that I did this thing called catastrophizing. I’d become totally crippled and stuck and lost because I’d only see the worst possible outcome in every decision I might make. It’s very common for people who have suffered emotional abuse (especially for those who have their judgement, sanity, or morality criticized by their parents). I could absolutely be off base here, but like, I started feeling those feelings of doom and danger as I was reading your comment. I am absolutely not trying to minimize your situation. Catastrophizing is a horrible thing to battle with, and it takes actual traumatic catastrophies before you begin to catastrophize.
w.r.t. home invasions and safety, it might be good to reevaluate that. Is it really so dangerous that you would need to defend yourself? Like, maybe that’s the case! I grew up in a pretty safe place, so I lack the proper context to understand that fear. I do know that violent crime is very uncommon. Your situation may seem hopeless and you may feel trapped. I’ve felt that way. Just know that while some choices have risks and may feel dangerous, things don’t always go that way. You deserve to feel safe and secure.