The Querulous Paranoid

When combined with paranoid projection, these traits are amplified into overt hostility and forthright delusions. This result manifests in tones of faultfinding, sullenness, resentfulness, contentiousness, jealousy, and insistence on being forever wronged or cheated.

It is rare to find these individuals in sustained, healthy relationships. Instead, these persons tend to give up their quests for affection and move to a contrived stance of autonomy and self-determination, renouncing their social needs yet harboring a cloaked sense of dejection.

While they state their newfound independence with vengeful fury, the querulous variant remains deeply troubled by interpersonal discontentedness and feelings of indecisiveness, with hidden feelings vacillating between the company of others and feeling repulsed by them.

As envy mounts, they often complain that the achievements of others reflect unfair advantages or preferential treatment. Grumbling turns to anger and spite as their fantasies of being taken advantage of accrete ever more injustices.

Legal action against those who have wronged them is common, as are erotic delusions because the querulous paranoid does still seek affection even while refusing it. This is done via the intrapsychic projection mechanism, whereby the individual comes to believe that the feelings of the self are actually emanating from others.

Thus, by projecting their own desires onto others, it becomes “them” who make lewd remarks or otherwise suggest sexual intentions. Accusations of infidelity, deceit, and betrayed are often made against innocent relatives and friends, a further synthesis of the negativistic and paranoid patterns.