Thanks everyone for your responses to my post about depression and paranoia, they've been most informative. Several people have echoed what I was thinking about, which was not really a psychiatric diagnosis of paranoia, but rather the doubt, fear and uncertainty caused by living with the often unvoiced suspicion that one might be subconsciously causing one's own physical symptoms. I think all the posts have showed that the evidence is clear that ME/CFS does not in itself cause depressive or other mental illness.
In the context of recent events, on reflection I can see that my post might have been easily misinterpreted, so in case there's any confusion about that, I want to make it clear that I was thinking primarily about my own experience there, and not about recent events. I've already described some of my depressive illness. Paranoia was perhaps the wrong word for the other part of what I was wondering about, because as has been pointed out, there's a big difference between the clinical and layman's uses of that word. I suppose I was thinking aloud about something that seems incredibly significant to me: the effect on an individual (me, and presumably all of us to some extent) of the suggestion or suspicion that their physical illness may have a psychological root.
In many ways I have been very lucky, because the psychologising of my own illness has been gradual, gentle, well-meaning, nuanced, and subtle. I have never felt that I would be in danger of sectioning if I declined the offers of CBT. Nevertheless, even before the first mention was made, I had begun to sense that there was something odd about my GP's attitude: he seemed to be excessively downplaying one or two clearly visible symptoms, and he seemed to be somehow suspicious of what I was describing, for no reason I could guess at. When I challenged him and discovered that he did indeed suspect a psychological cause behind my myriad physical complaints, his behaviour suddenly all made sense, and I quickly moved on to another GP.
I left the next GP in no doubt, from the word go, that I was not interested in any suggestion that my illness had a psychological root, and that if he believed that and failed to tell me so, I would consider that a disgusting breach of ethics, no matter what he learnt at university. So he hasn't troubled me on that score, but he still occasionally suggests that CBT might help me develop better coping strategies, and in any case, the damage is already done: I can't really trust a doctor now.
The fractional but nagging element of doubt has been there in my own mind ever since: is it really possible that my physical symptoms have a psychological root? I feel certain they do not, there is no reason to believe that they do, yet it's something I cannot disprove, and the medical world seems obsessed with this idea for some unknown reason. Could it really be true that they are right? I know in my heart it's not true, but once the idea is out there, it never quite goes away. And can I trust my GP when he says he does not believe my illness has a psychological root? I know how he was trained; I know he must have his doubts as well, and now I've seen training videos that instruct him not to reveal his suspicions to me directly! So now I know that trust between us is impossible, I know that I can't trust doctors, and maybe I can't even trust myself.
What I'm trying to say is: this concept is out there, and it seems to me that whatever you call the resulting disturbances, it has a ripple effect on us all. We deal with it in various ways. Sometimes we deal with it by outright, clear and angry denial: we allow no suggestion of psychological explanations, we even come to hate all psychology and psychologists, and we lash out at anyone who suggests they may be right. When we do, we are successfully resisting the idea, but it has still managed to change who we are. Some of us, sometimes, turn in on ourselves, and we are plagued by self-doubt and insecurity. Some take one path, some take another, and I suspect most (myself included) have reacted in both ways at different times. All of us are separated from our friends, family and society by the way we wrestle with this idea. And most tragically of all, we can become separated from each other by it, and we can fall to arguing amongst ourselves - all thanks to that original poisonous idea sowing seeds of doubt in our minds.
Cort, I hope you have misinterpreted Alice_Band's post: I read her mention of trolls as a friendly warning, not as an insinuation. I wasn't being naive, I just chose to read it that way. Alice isn't the only person to warn me that just because I have never met a troll, does not mean they do not exist, and out of respect I have to take that friendly warning seriously. I will have to be wary - so now I have a new seed of doubt, something new to fear, and a reason to distrust people who express contrary views. But the poisonous potential of that suspicion of trolling somehow reminds me of the poisonous potential of the unfounded suggestion of psychological illness - both are forms of fear and doubt which can separate people from each other.
Even if all that suspicion may sometimes be well-founded, all I do know for sure is that often it is not, and if I approach someone who is actually genuine with mistrust - because they betray Stockhausen-like behaviour, or because their reaction to the theory of the psychologists lacks the outrage and anger I feel myself - then I risk adding further abuse to a person who suffers like myself and currently deals with it in a different way. Such people are even less free of the psychological web of confusion than myself - perhaps I'm lucky to be stubborn enough to withstand the weight of that constant suggestion - so in the end I'm more worried about falsely accusing those people than I am of wasting my time arguing with a troll. Perhaps I'm just trying to follow the guideline my doctors seem to have misunderstood: First, do no harm.