Help with: Paranoid Personality Disorder???

Anyone have useful tips or suggestions on dealing with a close family member who seems to check all the boxes of Paranoid Personality Disorder?

Christmas was a season of enlightenment for me.  Looking to make the future brighter.  For me, at least.

This is an oddball suggestion, but not knowing anything else about the subject- it's a wild ass guess.

Go see the documentary Fantastic Fungi.  

Just because you're NOT paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

This would be something that the said individual should talk to a trained professional about.  

Professional help is obviously needed, but PPD is hard to treat, because the person has to realize they are the problem. I think of it as everyone suddenly tries to convince you that you are crazy and need help. It comes down to trusting people over what your own mind is telling you. Very hard to do.

Is this person older? My father had declining mental health for 20 years (looking back now) It just happened so slowly nobody thought much about his behavior until he really began to lose it.

Most of all, take care of yourself. Don't follow this person down their rabbit hole. It won't help them and it can be an incredible hardship on you if you let it.

Older person, yes. Pushing 70.

Family history of mental illness, both of their parents dementia by 80.

I'm not after help for them, as you're right - if they think I'm out to get them, suggesting they seek counseling is only going to strengthen that paranoia.

I'm after help for me - tools to help me just accept it, deal with it, work within it, dance around it, or (last resort) walk away from them entirely.

I am a Mental Health Therapist and about to finish Grad School for clinical mental health counseling. Your family member needs professional help. Getting them to agree to counseling will do more good than every other intervention combined. This could be paranoia, schizophrenia, or dementia, which all have differing effective therapies. It also needs to be determined whether or not any substance usage past or present had any effect on the issue.

In reply to SkinnyG :

Unfortuately, I went with denial and tried to minimize the issue. That backfired terribly on me.

Today I would enlist every possible resource to help manage it, and tell everyone that would listen what is going on. 

Have you contacted https://www.interiorhealth.ca/Pages/default.aspx .

The School Board should have an anonymous help line for employees and they may be able to point you to resources to help you.

In North Vancouver but may be able to point you to local services https://northwestvancouver.cmha.bc.ca/programs-services/the-kelty-dennehy-mental-health-resource-centre/ 

SkinnyG said:

I'm after help for me - tools to help me just accept it, deal with it, work within it, dance around it, or (last resort) walk away from them entirely.

I understand that.  Grandpop got alzheimers and dementia in the last few years of his life.  I didn't take it well, but it was also right when I was at that ugly stage of transitioning from teenager to adult so I didn't really handle anything that required emotional investment well.

Fast forward 20ish years, a military career, a marriage, and many other life events; I've realized that I have many of the same issues that affect most veterans.  I also dug myself a mental hole that was very difficult for me to climb out of.  I was able to do so when I was able to admit to myself that I was in a hole.  Talking to a head doctor, as well as friends and family did a huge amount.  Continuing that conversation has been the key to keeping my sanity. 

It kind of helped me to start talking to someone I had no connection to (my head doc) and from there I was able to open up more to friend and family.  Its sort of like lancing a wound, once you do the hard part of opening it and letting the poisons out, it doesn't hurt as much to do the maintenance required to keep it clean.

Good luck with it.  I'm happy to talk if you need it.

In reply to SkinnyG :

A couple of brief thoughts from my wife who has a formal psychology/counseling backgound and teaches mental health first aid.

1) To expand upon the 'take care of yourself" recommendation from Shadeux, you may want to consider talking to a counselor yourself about it or engaging your EAP if you have one available.

2) Does this person have anybody in the medical field that they do already trust, like a primary care physician, who they might open up to a bit about what is going on in their life? Obviously this is all very situationally dependent, but that might be a less threatening place to start.

As far as I know, the individual has no knowledge or suspicion of a personality disorder.  It was merely strongly suggested to me by the counselor I went and spoke with to help me deal with what went on.  This person and I go back quite a ways, and there has never been any deviation in the lack of conflict resolution, other than the rest of us backing off, waiting until it all blew over, and then tiptoe on eggshells until it all happens again.

This isn't something -I- can suggest to them, I'm already in the "bad books."