I think I'm paranoid

Often times I struggle to remember simple facts of life, for example : Fact - it's impossible to lick your own ear while it is still attached to your head.

I struggle with anxiety-induced paranoia.
I often have difficulties with separating my paranoia from reality. When I was young, I used to think that everyone thought there was someone watching them from just beyond the sight of their bedroom window when they dressed. I used to think that there was someone standing just out of my eyesight at all times, with binoculars, sometimes even looking at me through the walls of my room. I used to think that my radio could record every thought that I had, every whisper, I thought my teddy bears were staring at me, watching me, silently judging.
It didn't help that when I'd come home from school, my radio and teddy bears were out of place.
Little did I know, my younger sister would come into my room and play.

All my life I believed that there were cameras in the bathroom, recording everything that was meant to be private. This wasn't just at home either, this fear followed me everywhere. I thought I was being watched, followed when I walked home. I would pretend that my wristband had a hidden mic in it, and that I was a secret agent. I thought that I was being watched, and that if I looked like I was talking in code to someone else, I'd be left alone.

Even at friend's houses during sleepovers, I'd have to check the bathroom mirrors to make sure they weren't two-way, that I wasn't being watched or recorded. I thought this was just a normal thing that all kids go through, an over-active imagination... except I never grew out of it.
My over-active imagination festered, because I never really told anyone the extend of it.
I'm paranoid.

I've grown up, and I still catch myself examining the bathroom mirror to make sure there isn't a little camera in it, that there isn't anyone standing there behind the shower curtain, waiting to attack me.
I check under the bed, around the corner, down the hallways. I watch what I say, because my paranoia tells me that there's a microphone waiting to record me, and use it against me.

I know it's just paranoia, I know it's just my anxiety, my mind playing tricks on me.
No one is watching me, no one is recording me, no one is lurking in the shadows spying, no one's taking pictures of me, no one's chasing me. I am safe, I am just fine.

I'm just paranoid.