There are many famous persons with paranoid personality disorder. Richard Nixon is a prominent name in this category. But there are more famous persons on this list. Before speaking about the eminent personalities with paranoid personality disorder, let us first discuss what this condition is all about.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Paranoid Personality Disorder or PPD is a mental disorder. A person with PPD has a history of suspicion and distrust of others. It is not a full-blown psychotic disorder like schizophrenia.
Causes of PPD are still not clear. However, the problem is more common in persons with a family history of psychotic conditions, such as delusional disorders, schizophrenia. This explains a genetic connection to this psychotic disorder.
There might be other factors playing a role in the scenario. A 2007 study found that 14.1 percent of people, who were suffering from paranoid personality disorder, had other mental health conditions.
Paranoid personality disorder is a rare mental disease. Some celebrities suffer from this mental health condition. According to psychologists, people like Josef Stalin and Saddam Hussein had this disorder. President Richard Nixon also suffered from it.
Psychologists and those close to these celebrity people claimed that they had never trusted anybody. They were always suspicious of others. Moreover, they always thought everyone wanted to hurt them. As a result, they were suspicious of their citizens and even close aids.
How to Treat
The best way to treat the disorder is to address the condition in its nascent stage. Although only a few people are diagnosed with PPD, those with the problem suffer from other psychotic conditions including anxiety, addictive behaviours and major depressive disorders.
Go through the blog post to learn about some famous persons with paranoid personality disorder.
Richard Nixon
US President Richard Nixon is the most iconic face of paranoid personality disorder. During his tenure as a president, he kept all the government files safely locked at the Watergate building. After the files were stolen, information got leaked to the public, which revealed the politician’s paranoia.
He never trusted anyone and used to record all encounters. Over time, he became hypervigilant. In fact, he was ousted from White House for his paranoia. He lived in fear throughout his life. He was heavily obsessed with losing power and it led him to commit several crimes including treason and ultimately, he lost his post.
Many people were not aware of the disease 5-6 decades ago. Nixon’s problem led many people to know about the term PPD and its symptoms. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the disease caused his death.
Nixon was not used to lending his ears to the other side of a story. He had a strong belief that people all around him were conspiring to get him out of the office. It is believed that paranoid personality disorder heavily influenced other characters of Nixon’s personality.
Eduard Einstein
A new research reveals that Eduard Einstein, the second son of Albert Einstein, also suffered from paranoid personality disorder.
Eduard Einstein, who was considered the most brilliant son of Nobel laureate and physicist Albert Einstein, suffered from frequent bouts of this psychotic disorder and often skipped family outings. .
Edward’s family became more concerned about his mental health as it was deteriorating sharply. He was forced to leave Zurich University, where he was studying medicine, and taken under full-time psychiatric care and monitoring. It was the first of his many stays in mental asylums.
Young Einstein was averse to social interaction. Dr. Glen Elliott of the University of California San Francisco suggests that he had Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a developmental disorder.
He used to stay aloof, emotionally detached and lacked social reciprocity. His parents made efforts to fit their son in with the social crowd.
Many famous people forged relationships with those who have a history of paranoid personality disorder.
Eduard claimed to hear demons talking to him in his bedroom. Fortunately, he conquered this condition but also had the feeling that others were out to kill him. He ended up succumbing to his illness.
Saddam Hussein & Kim Jong-il
Ex-Iraq president, who was hanged by the USA, was another famous person with paranoid personality disorder. He used to have his meals first fed to his chef’s elder son.
North Korean president Kim Jong-II was also diagnosed with the same disease. Due to paranoid tendencies, the North Korean dictator tended to have several meals prepared for him.
Both Saddam Hussein and Kim had surgically altered body doubles and used these people as proxies for themselves. Both were heavily scared of getting assassinated. The North Korean dictator was so scared of planes that he used armour-plated trains for travelling.
Psychologists have investigated the life of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. According to them, both showed symptoms of paranoid personality disorder, though at different levels.
According to psychologists’ assessment, Hussein was not insane in a clinical sense. Most probably, he had a severe form of paranoid personality disorder, also called malignant narcissism. The disorder resulted in absence of conscience and grandiose behaviour.
The affected individuals suspect others as conspirators. Psychologists have suspected for a long time that the Iraqi dictator was heavily manipulative due to this disease.
Unfortunately, despite these discoveries, many people tend to associate these dictators with the infamous Nazi party and their family physicians.
Violence is another trait of these individuals. Some people have even compared him to a madman from the Middle East. Though there are no solid explanations for why people with paranoid disorder tend to be more violent, the former Iraqi dictator was a brute person.
Roger Keith
New studies are digging up more disturbing truths about many celebrities. Some sections of psychologists think Roger was suffering from acute depression. But what caused it? The musician was detached from his family and used to live next door for 25 long years.
Roger often used to scream in anger and his family complained of his violent rage many times. In the mid-80s, he broke a window in rage. The singer was taken away in a straight jacket.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia at an early age and went through frequent bouts of drug abuse and poor mental health conditions.
He stayed in hospital for two months and eventually became unable to work due to his psychedelic condition.
Interestingly, the same disease that doomed his career, contributed to his extraordinary creations.
He worked on a series of comic lyrics. The singer died of leukaemia at the age of 40.
Syed Barrett
Syed Barrett, an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, suffered from acute paranoid personality disorder and also developed schizophrenia. He had a history of schizophrenia in his family. However, in his case, the environment played a role as well.
The painter had low self-esteem, a symptom of paranoid personality disorder. Other symptoms of PPD are difficulty comprehending emotions, being overly demanding, rigidity, lack of self-awareness and humility.
Syed’s childhood was full of trauma. When he was only 20, he chose a stressful career. He also had a history of drug abuse.
Eventually, he could not complete his work. People with paranoid personality disorder often behave rudely to others. They are also pathetic liars.
They don’t feel any compunction when hurting others because they believe the entire world is conspiring against them and they must defend themselves by hook or by crook.
Ingo Schwichtenberg
Schwichtenberg was averse to taking medicines for schizophrenia, which led to several bizarre episodes and at times, he found it difficult to handle the situation while performing on stage.
He was kicked out of Helloween and and the man slowly slipped into the abyss of psychotic episodes. The drummer committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. There are some reports claiming that he was also suffering from acute paranoid personality disorder.
Earlier in 2009, he was diagnosed with both paranoid personality disorder and schizophrenia. He was hospitalised for his bizarre behaviour caused by his mental illness. At one point of time, he lived like a vagabond.
However, he recovered and returned to the show. Schwichtenberg became a strong advocate for the mentally ill and homeless people.
During the prolonged phase of his illness, he became a board member of the Mental Health Association of Milwaukee. He represented the National Alliance on Mental Illness and spoke on mental health at length.
