[Music] hi and welcome back to people watching today's subject is the paranoid personality now those of you who have read my book dangerous personalities know that this is one of those personalities that I spoke about which presents us with uh many issues problems in society now there's a lot of misconceptions about paranoia and uh and a lot of that H comes from the the movies that we've seen and so forth but just to remind you that paranoia is a malady and as all personality disorders these individuals have traits that are inflexible they are maladaptive uh
certainly and they cause significant stress or psychological discomfort to uh others and in fact may be problematic at work and in uh relationships when we look at uh individuals that we think may be flawed of character as I say in in my book the best thing to help you is to go through the checklist these checklists are very robust and they can help you to discern what may be just odd behaviors from behaviors that are problematic that uh cause distress and uh can affect both the individual who uh uers from this malady as well as
the people around them the other thing you have to know is that anyone that has uh personality disorders needs help they need medical help not from you and I they need help from uh individuals that are specifically trained to deal with uh personality's flawed of character now most of us don't have access to medical professionals and that's why I uh wrote the book uh It Was Written from the perspective of those who have lived with or worked with or have been victimized uh by people with uh personality disorders and of course when we're talking about
those the paranoid personality uh really sticks out so how do we identify these individuals well the checklist in dangerous personalities begins with uh acknowledging that these individuals tend to be very suspicious who always questions the intentions of others and see evil or bad design in everything that they confront and it's not an occasional thing this is their perennial belief that the world is hostile that uh they surrounding Ed by enemies and that they are the only ones that can see that there's all this evil around them they question even the most friendly of intentions something
a simple as a good morning may be misperceived as uh oh that person is testing me or they're just trying to poke me and so forth so uh look first for individuals who are highly suspicious and who question the intentions of of others this perception that the world uh all around them is evil uh that malice is intended for them is something that uh we begin to see um even as young as age 18 and it carries throughout life and the way they talk about the world the that constant fear and apprehension that they have
um eventually wears down the people around them because you don't see that fear you don't have that apprehension but this seems to be the only thing they they talk about so it's um it's a constant state where they are hyper sensitive hyper alert to things that can possibly go wrong or intended for them now let me caution you because I have in my own experience observed that many people coming back from war who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder many of them have some of the same uh features uh as the paranoid personality they are
on constant alert they can't seem to relax and we have to be mindful that these individuals have suffered uh emotionally and psychologically and they need some serious help the other thing uh I look for and uh you see it in the paranoid checklist is they don't seem to relax they can't trust others everyone's intentions must be questions and they have the inability or they're unable to confide in others they seem to hang on to Secrets or they're very secretive because they perhaps in ately sense that not everybody sees the world as as they do which
is frightening and and threatening and and so forth so um the lack of trust the lack of confidence in others is something that cumulative right so we add these up uh uh we look for they also tend to be very argumentative now I've known some people that uh just like to argue for the sake of demonstrating just how bright they are and so forth but these individuals are uh prone to arguments and that doesn't mean that they're NE necessarily very logical they argue their point of view they argue their beliefs uh and they do so
adamantly and what stands out is how often they become argumentative how rigid they are in their thinking you can present them with evidence they don't care about evidence they have beliefs uh the minute somebody says well I believe and then you see this inflexibility and the argumentation now I'm starting to see traits of the clinically uh paranoid and of course that makes uh life hell for everybody else because I don't mind hearing about somebody else's U uh thinking and so forth but I don't don't want every conversation to be an argument and I certainly don't
want someone to uh forcefully try to imbue me with uh their beliefs and the way they view the world which is something the paranoid person does they will look at uh world events and immediately attach some sort of uh evil connotation to it they will look at simple things that may happen uh such as a flat tire and immediately perceive that as uh someone did that on on purpose even in a home situation something as simple as someone knocking at the door uh they immediately uh become aggravated they become anxious they're uh they may even
become angry such as why would somebody come at the door what's going on and so forth and and they tend to view the simplest of behaviors on your part as malicious or uh being problematic such as when you answer a phone call and it may be a robo call but they view that as suspicious um and they tend to act out in ways where they may follow you um they may put devices on your phone or in your car to track you because they're unable to trust other others they're just simply unable to trust others
so they can be very jealous and it can become very pathological because of this inherent distrust that they have not only on the world but everybody around them they are extremely stubborn both in thought and in belief and in their attitude and they are irrational it doesn't matter how much evidence you present um it's all about what they feel and what they believe and they will uh not consider um that which is logical um they certainly would never consider something such as aam's razor or evidence that might be persuasive to uh someone else so uh
keep these things in mind and again we can all have one maybe two of these but it's the aggregation of these that is uh troubling they make it a habit to always question others and something that you might experience at home such as why was that moved or why is the television on that channel or uh they may question why someone was promoted at work they always see something sinister in uh promotions or favorite ISM all sorts of things and they're very distrusting of the reasons that are given and so that impacts on everybody including
after a while people just don't want to associate with them don't want to hang out with them don't want to invite them to lunch precisely because they are IR irritable argumentative and so forth one of the traits that is um probably the most problematic is is that they're unforgiving and they are vindictive um they don't know how to forgive others for the mistakes that they make for uh the vicissitudes of life for things that may happen because they were accidental because they view everything as some sort of vile conspiracy they tend to hang on to
it and they tend to be very vindictive they want to pay back uh for things that they perceive may have happened to them and as I've often uh mentioned in my writing uh the paranoid personality tends to be uh a wound collector and in in my previous videos I talked about wound collectors and the problem that these individuals have is that um they carry around with them a a bank of events of uh of things that have happened in their life both real and imagined they're constantly collecting uh social slights and so forth uh that
feeds the paranoia it betes the paranoia and then it can become metast stable and cause individuals to then become uh dangerous so keep that in mind these individuals are uh irritating uh there's no other way to to say it I've talked to hundreds of people that have worked with them or lived with him and invariably they'll tell you they're just irritating they're irritating because everything is always under attack it's always under question they don't know how to relax they are singl minded they may pick a topic and it may be politics or religion or this
group or that group or minorities and they are constantly on the attack uh single-minded in uh their pursuit of looking for uh Grievances and things to uh uh talk about as I said because they're wound collectors they never let go and they never forgive they see enemies everywhere even in their children even in their spouses those who struggle the most around them who are trying to help them um they may often see as an enemy and question why are you giving me this to drink well it's hot why are you giving me this this pill
now because I'm leaving and normally you take it at 6 so I'm giving it to you now everything becomes something to question what is amazing is that these individuals don't think they're ever wrong in fact they'll tell you they're never wrong that their beliefs their perceptions are always spoton that they see the world in one special way and no one else has the capacity to see all the evil all the bad that is out there and that if you don't get it then you must be ignorant or stupid or you're an enemy and that is
frightening when children and spouses are seen as enemies and co-workers are seen as enemies and often times uh what we see uh with mass shootings is a combination of individuals who have been collecting wounds and it's coupled with uh paranoid ideation that these are the people that hate me and they're out to destroy me in in some way it's something to be very concerned about often times people at work will say oh uh he's such a knowt all um they seem to always know a lot about very little they they will quote from some uh
esoteric passage in the Bible or from a law book or from uh some writing and only they um can recognize the the Purity and the grandness of these very uh eclectic esoteric uh uh statements and they're always opinionated so um you uh whether you live with them or work with them will always come under attack because you don't have that perfect knowledge that the paranoid uh personality uh does and and if they're in a position of leadership they're the ones that always say that um no one knows how to do things better than than they
do um keep in mind that uh Hitler was both clinically narcissistic but even more so was clinically paranoid and it was only he with his grandiosity that could create um a better Germany um and so individuals who uh often are very opinionated even though Hitler was a mere um Corporal in the Austrian army they uh portray themselves as having this special knowledge and uh uh and having this capacity to argue and question everything uh at all times these individuals as I said need help and the problem is that they're very reluctant to get help the
book uh can actually help you to identify those behaviors which then you can present to a professional and say please I'm seeing these behaviors in my husband or my wife they need help um so uh it can be useful in a therapeutic uh setting the problem for society is that the paranoid personality uh tends to self isolate tends to make enemies because of their style of life which is very argumentative very questioning uh very negative so in a work environment you'll find people that say you know what I can't stand working with this person I'd
rather leave than continue uh from management standpoint these are the people that will question everything management does because they see the themselves as perfect and they see you as the enemy um there's always going to be friction and it's difficult to explain what it's like to live with somebody like that uh fortunately I've had the the benefit of talking to people who have lived through that and they uh literally walked on eggshells every day my best advice is if you're dealing with someone who you think has these traits and you know we've covered a lot
a very broad brush in a very limited amount of time take the time to go through the checklist uh in the book dangerous personalities and if you see 50 or more of these Behavior Al traits um then you can be further assured that are your observations your sentiments your feelings what you may be perceiving are accurate that you may have someone who is severely flawed of character that this is a problem that they hopefully uh will be un meatable to um to get help um but from my perspective this is all often very rare and
as I always say you have to value your own self and be aware that these individuals can wear you down physically mentally psychologically emotionally and financially and that you have no social obligation ever to be victimized so if you need to extract yourself from from work or that relationship and distance yourself that often unfortunately is the only remedy in dealing with uh these individuals who are truly flawed of character [Music]
