paranoia

3 definitions • 1 example

an extreme and unreasonable feeling that other people do not like you or are going to harm or criticize you:

There's a lot of paranoia about crime at the moment.

Someone who has paranoia has unreasonable false beliefs as a part of another mental illness, for example schizophrenia.

a strong tendency to feel that you cannot trust other people or that other people have a bad opinion of you, or medical a mental illness that causes extreme feelings that others are trying to harm you