Paranoid About Paranoia

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It occurred to me that there have been quite a few incidents in my life where I thought someone didn't like me or was angry about something I'd done, and then written off the idea as paranoid, usually at the encouragement of a therapist. This has really increased a lot of my self-esteem problems, because it allowed situations to get way out of hand, since I didn't address them because I figured that the person's annoyance with me was all in my head. There was more than one therapist involved in this, so it's not like it was one therapist that just gave me bad advice. Did they think that I was actually like psychotic, or is it that an NT would have known for sure and wouldn't have been asking if someone might be pissed off at them?
Somehow this isn't coming out clearly, but I'm not sure how to word it better.
Is this something that's happened to other people?

Like, someone seems annoyed with you, and you're not sure, so you try to analyze it with a therapist, and the therapist says that you shouldn't worry about it, that the person is probably bothered by something that has nothing to do with you.. and then later you find out that the person really was pissed at you and by assuming that if you thought it was you they were pissed at, that would make you paranoid, you therefore continued as you were because you figured you weren't involved in whatever was upsetting the person.. So then they were even angrier.

I have had this happen too- I didn't know if so-and-so was pissed about something so I asked a 3rd party.

But here's the difference. Whenever I had to consult a 3rd party to find out if somebody was pissed at me about something, this 3rd party was always somebody who knew both of us.

I think this is something that a therapist can't help with because a therapist isn't there and can't "read" the other person. So the therapist defaults to "this person has faulty interpersonal perceptions- it must be that". The best person to analyze these situations is somebody who knows both you and the possibly pissed person. This 3rd party can also act as a go-between and ask the possibly pissed person if they are or not.

This happens to NT people all the time. An NT person wouldn't know for sure and would ask. The difference here is that the NT person would feel more confident about asking a 3rd party (who knows you both) for their take on the situation or to act as a go-between. A therapist won't have a clue but will default to "AS people don't understand interactions and always get them wrong- this time's no different". Not very helpful.


The next time this happens, if there is any way you can, my advice is to find a 3rd party who knows you both and ask them for what they think or to act as a go-between. I've not known whether I pissed people off and had to get help from a 3rd party. I've been the 3rd party going up to so-and-so and saying "X is worried that she pissed you off somehow. Did she?"