Paranoia

"But I'm really not as cool as I'd like to be
'Cause there's a red, under my bed
And there's a little yellow man in my head
And there's a true blue inside of me...
Paranoia, the destroyer.
Paranoia, the destroyer."
--- The Kinks, Give the People What They Want, "Destroyer"

Okay, so the guy in the above mentioned song is a hell of a lot more paranoid than me, but I have my own kind of social paranoia. Because for such a long time I lacked the necessary skills and hearing comprehension to properly participate in the social world we live in, I developed the coping mechanism of staying quiet at all times. Unfortunately there were some down sides. I became acutely paranoid about people talking about me, even when there was no reason for them to be talking about me. Despite my grand achievements in the past two years, that paranoia still lingers leaving me nervous and slightly (okay, completely) unsure of myself in strange (daily, recurring) social situations. You see the people over at that table? The ones who looked over here for no apparent reason? Yeah, I know one of them. So now, they're talking about what a freak I am. Those girls over there, the ones I don't even know? They looked at me in the hall and now they're laughing, so obviously they're laughing at me. The list goes on and on.
There's another side to this paranoia. Not only do I fear that I'm constantly being commented on, I'm also always worrying that I'm being taken for granted. I fret in my head about whether or not I'm the third wheel in any given conversation or social situation or that people, even people I know really like, don't want me around.
It's a strange paradox of sorts because part of me knows that all of these worries I have are baseless, but on the other hand the worries haunt me throughout the day, plaguing my self-confidence. If you don't know, if you aren't sure, whose to say it isn't so? In any event, it's my paranoia. Another in my lovely little treasure chest of psychological problems. At least I'm too much of a wallflower to do anything about it.