[Funglish] 002. Paranoia

Paranoia

Do you ever find yourself being paranoid? I have a friend named Tina, and if she finds a mosquito in her room, everything in her life stops until she kills that mosquito! Even if she has an important appointment, such as this FUNglish club, she is willing to be late if it means she won’t have to have her thoughts linger all day about the mosquito obnoxiously residing in her room. Yes, this is a true story, and just like Tina, we all have things we are paranoid about.

1.    What are you paranoid about? If you cannot think of anything, what are people paranoid about in general?

a. Are you a germaphobe?
b. Can you stand watching dishes pile up in the sink?
c. If you are in a rush and dash out of your house and, 5 minutes later, you realize you might have forgotten to turn off the light in your room, would you go back to check? What if this was the stove? Or the laundry machine? Or even forgetting to lock your door?

Recently, in Korea, we experienced an outbreak of MERS. Some statistics state that hand sanitizer companies had a spike in sales due to this incident. Hospitals purchased extra hand sanitizers as more and more people were using it to prevent an infection. Not surprisingly, hospitals were not the only ones buying extra hand sanitizers, as restaurants, schools, and public buildings also wanted to provide the people with a preventative method from attracting MERS.

2. How did MERS affect you? Do you still worry about it

3. They say a spike of sales occurred with personal purchases of hand sanitizers and surgical masks. Were you one of them? Are you still using them now?

4. The government of Korea appointed certain hospitals to isolate MERS-affected patients from the rest of the public. As this arrangement is still current, would you feel safe going to these specific hospitals?

In one form or another, we may all have a bit of OCD – obsessive compulsive disorder. An obsession for something is likely due to a level of paranoia. Personally, I have one notable OCD problem. Every time I am done with my smart-phone, I have to make sure I turn off every app I am not using. They all must be off or else I feel a sense of discomfort shutting off my screen. I tried to leave some apps on once as a personal test and put away my phone in my pocket, but I felt very uneasy and quickly had to take my phone back out to shut off everything.

5. What are some of your OCD problems