Does grief affect your perception of yourself?

Good afternoon - Welcome to BetterHelp. I want to welcome you to your therapeutic journey at this time. Thank you for sharing about the loss of your mother and recent episode of paranoia that is troubling you. I can understand it is difficult to open up to new people especially regarding struggles and appreciate you taking this first step. It sounds like you are at a point where you are maybe ready to deal with the loss of your mother and how it has overall affected your life to not have her physically present any longer. Sounds like you are avoidant of talking about it because it is uncomfortable and might cause emotions you do not want to deal with at this point. I typically use the trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy model of treatment to address grief in clients which is based on a gradual exposure model to help in building skills to cope with feelings while being exposed to the trauma of your loss. The model as it progressed builds to allow you to tell the story of your loss, what you have learned and how you can take care of yourself during these difficult times. 

In terms of the paranoia you referenced, without more detail, I do not want to misspeak about your situation but if you choose to work with me, I want to delve more into this and see if it is connected or separate from the loss of your mother.  Paranoia can be brought on by traumatic events in a persons life. It can also be brought on by other factors prior to the death of your mother and can be exacerbated by this loss. Something that can be further explored to get a better timeline of these feelings occurring. The goal would be to identify the trigger to the paranoia to help in decreasing the severity of the onset of the paranoia that leaves you reeling as you said after the fact. 

I hope this answers your question based on the information you have provided. I hope we can work together and I look forward to hopefully hearing from you soon.