paranoia
n. uncountablen. the feeling that other people are trying to harm you or are talking about you behind your back. It often involves being much more suspicious or worried than you need to be.
n. an irrational and obsessive distrust of others, often accompanied by delusions of persecution. In a clinical context, it refers to a symptom of certain mental health conditions, though it is frequently used colloquially to describe general anxiety.
His paranoia made him think the neighbors were spying on him.
The celebrity's paranoia grew so intense that she refused to leave her house without three bodyguards.
The political climate of the era was defined by a pervasive paranoia, where even minor disagreements were interpreted as evidence of a deep-seated conspiracy against the state.
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek παράνοια (paránoia, “madness”), from παράνοος (paránoos, “demented”), from παρά (pará, “beyond, beside”) + νόος (nóos, “mind, spirit”). By surface analysis, para- (“abnormal, beyond”) + nous (“mind”) + -ia (“(medical) condition”).
Often used with the verb 'suffer from' or the adjective 'pure'.