Shared Delusion or reality?

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folieaduex

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Once upon a time, I couldn't connect with any of my friends in undergrad. Then one day, I started talking to this girl who I literally felt a vibe from. Like, she felt similar to me even though we hadn't talked before. We realized we both wanted to be clinical psychologists (something rare at our crappy undergrad program) and we were both neurotic and passionate about clinical psych. We started doing a ton of research together and soon our professors got annoyed. We felt like they were holding us back, especially after reading about what other undergrads do on SDN. My theory was that they felt inferior because they got a PhD and ended up at such a crappy undergrad that barely produces research. We thought they were sabotaging us, and then actually found evidence that some of them were. Ever since then, we have been even more paranoid and delusional when we go to the psych department. There is this one professor, we call him Dr. Stew, who is the fixation of our delusions. She has a crush on him, but he is so forgetful, unorganized, and projects his attributions onto us. However, other days he is really nice. All of our professors laugh or smile while we talk, like they think we're joking. Is it because we're abnormally pretty? Even after successfully completing independent studies, Dr. Stew still wants us to take it slow and says they don't know if we can handle it or not. I didn't start getting super paranoid until Dr. Stew would mention things we talked about during our lab meetings! Like, things so rare and out there that it would not come up in normal conversations, so we thought they had cameras. It got so bad that now we check the car next to us because we think it's him! We see him in movies, at the grocery store, basically everywhere. We will stare at the person until we realize it's not him and then feel stupid. Also, I predicted Dr. Stew would pet her at the Halloween and they did!! I thought I was going to pass out. I also predicted Dr. Stew is or was a drug addict, and one time he caressed a pill and said he is "in tune" with drugs. We always find a reason to email him because it is just so funny the way he replies! It's like an obsession. One time we talked about him for 12 hours straight. One time she made a powerpoint about the three of us, all of the crazy stuff he has said, and our conspiracies. We told him write down all of the crazy things he says and he just smiled. He forgets the things he says, and one day he emailed "be there in a few mins" on a Tuesday when we were supposed to meet Thursday! And he still denied it, even though he said Thursday in the email! Literally just seeing the psych building now makes me laugh. It doesn't help that it looks like an asylum from the 1800s. There is so much more evidence, it would take forever to type. But basically three professors have lied to us and completely screwed us over. Every day we literally have a new conspiracy theory that feels SO REAL we just want to ask them... There is definitely something going on, even if it isn't as extreme as we think. Now that we've graduated, we may ask them after we get accepted to grad school. Do you think it is possible they are out to get us??

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I'm definitely not a clinician, and I cannot say whether or not this is disordered behavior/thinking. I don't think anyone can give a diagnosis of any sort on here but I think that if there is evidence that is reinforcing paranoid thinking, then maybe you can talk to someone you trust in the department, or at the university's counseling center? I believe everyone is paranoid to an extent, whether or not this is interfering with daily functioning, or causing a lot of distress in your lives should be the main focus- seeing your professor everywhere is a bit concerning in my opinion..

I'm interested in seeing what other posters think about your situation- especially those who are doctoral students/ post doctoral fellows. I want to research schizophrenic spectrum disorders, so the title for your thread caught my attention- and I haven't read a lot of research on shared delusions so I apologize I cannot be much help. Also, when you say they are sabotaging you, what do you mean exactly? If you feel uncomfortable elaborating you can send me a PM.
 
We've went to the counseling center before, but we felt like the counseling interns were telling Dr. Stew what we said in therapy (he runs the counseling masters program).
 
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I believe HIPAA applies here, so if they're telling him something (mentioning you by name-specifically) they can get in a lot trouble. I don't think there is anyway of knowing though.. I'm sorry you feel distressed by this and feel you cannot trust anyone. A lot of the things you mention seem very very unlikely to happen, and almost seem coincidental, but since you're paranoid to begin with, it just reinforces it. (e.g. him mentioning something that you have talked about.) Also, people just say really weird things sometimes, that they might not realize is that weird? --like him saying he's in tune with drugs. Maybe he was trying to get you to laugh? I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings/beliefs, I am just trying to provide some other explanations for you to consider.
 
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