Paranoia is contagious.
See: Germany under Hitler's party. Many people who never thought once, let alone twice, about Jews? Suddenly were bombarded with the idea that Jews were bad and Slavs were subhuman. Eventually, they joined the shouting.


I'm not buying into the paranoia, but it is HARD. We take our own traumas and they get wound into the narratives someone else wants us to share.

So, during Covid, masks did help prevent and slow spread of disease, and arrests often followed the refusal of someone to leave a business that had a masking rule. We dont' fuss over "no shirts, no shoes, no entry", yet masks became this huge deal. I remain puzzled, and it's five years later! There are entire nations that wear them daily without a first or second thought due to air pollution! We wore them
in the 1950s and 1960s in partso f the US for the same reason. In historical context, this wasn't even a yawn in a footnote once you take out the talking heads of politics.

Now, ICE tapped my mother and me because we don't always speak Only English and this parochial armpit had someone who thought they'd caught themselves a reee-ward. I have to worry my 80-something mom is gonna end up in a holding pen in God knows where or be deported. She was born in the US and was in the US Army (reserve) as a nurse during Vietnam. If she's a target, well, MY paranoia is going off the charts! (Also, it sucks being tapped. I can't talk to friends who aren't in an "approved country" list. I'm too scared I'll end up being deported for.... Well, whatever reason! I have family who speak three languages, what am I SUPPOSED to do?)

My life experiences have taught me to just remember Pastor Niemoller's poem, and to remember my Polish family's advice: "A little paranoia keeps us alive".

A little. But when you have anxiety or pTSD, you've already got the little paranoia. It just waits for a chance to get big, is my thinking. You survive persecution, you expect persecution.

Oh hell, I dunno. Sorry. Recovering from a cnacer scare and trouble in marriage and right now, if you told me there's a laser beam aimed at my house, I'd probably believe it just b/c my brain and soul are so darned TIRED!


Puma purrs, Arfie. That's all I got, for real. Puma purrs. The solitary mountain cat offers spae in her den.

I smile when I see folks now. I am careful around folks who speak multiple languages to be gentle, polite, and kind with words so they can be comfortable.

It's scary to know how easy a single word, a single action, a single look can create such a reaction.

May you find your space of calm where it brings peace.

thanks guys. i speak multiple languages and need to read lips in all of them.

for this particular psychotic episode, the mask is the thing. medical trauma. i have done formal therapy work on the mask trigger, but covid blew down that house of cards without lifting a mask. i still can't put one of those things on my own face. now you have me wondering which countries i will never be able to visit. for sure you won't get me into any muslim countries where women are required to mask it all.

i'm kinda grateful to ICE for re-villanizing masks.

I guess I'd have to say this:
Is it paranoia if they're really hunting us? Hmm.
I understand the mask thing, believe it or not. I rationalized medical ones, but in winter, my dad wore the ski masks against cold that only showed eyes, and he was impossible to read, and that? No thanks, I'd rather hide under a boulder somewhere. People or bears? I take bears!

for sure, the covidic maskites never got around to storming the farm for my psychotic reactions to the mask mandates. i did hide under rocks during the covidic madness. no bears or even people found me.

Paranoia can happen for me if a slight detail is out of line. It can make me spin and then start wondering about a greater meaning to it. Like I should seek it and there is something out there to make sense of. I can get so lost in details that i can’t see reason beyond the fear. Like drowning. In one of the meal time readings here they talked about how something out of line can make you start to feel confused about your whole world view. I wish I could remember and offer you their solution and wisdom. I hope you can find your center Arfie and just keep letting it out.

thank you, mark. i hadn't quite connected the out of line details to the paranoia, but now that you got me thunkering. . . methinks you are right and there sure were allot of out of line details in spring of 2020, even before the maskite invasion. i buried my son/wife and inherited their three orphans september 2019. i already felt like i was on another planet before the maskites invaded.

sorting. . .
hope healing happens here.