Table 2.

Response frequencies to label and stigma items.

Term	N (%)^	Examples
Other people or institutions	42 (27.4%)	---
General targets	23 (15.0%)	“I have difficulty with people in general” / “Being around people” / “Dealing with people” / “Harmful people and thoughts of them harming me”
Specific targets	22 (14.4%)	“Doctors” / “Police” / “He’s back at it again” / “Thinking that one of my old boyfriends or a stranger may get me” / “Evil spirits”
Terms denoting general difficulty	23 (15.0%)	---
External difficulty	18 (11.8%)	“Dealing with everyday things” / “Dealing with everything” / “Having a bad day” / “Life” / “I’m having a difficulty day with everyone and everything”
Internal difficulty	5 (3.3%)	“Myself and not being able to shut my mind down” / “Me” / “My head” / “My brain” / “My issues”
Variant of “Anxiety”	22 (14.4%)	“Anxiety” / “Worrying and overthinking” / “Anxious thoughts” / “Anxiety – I feel like the whole world is bearing down on me” / “Stress and anxiety”
Description of (rather than a term for) persecutory ideation	21 (13.7%)	“Feeling like people are against me” / “Feeling like people are out to get me” / “Feelings or someone or someone trying to harm me” / “Harmful people and thoughts of them harming me”
Variant of “Paranoia”	19 (12.4%)	“Paranoia” / “Being paranoid” / “My paranoia” / “I’m sorry, I think my paranoia is getting to me today” / “Paranoid thoughts”
Generic term for thoughts or feelings	17 (11.1%)	“Big emotions” / “Difficult day with my thoughts” / “My mood and feelings” / “Thoughts in my head” / “Thoughts of people being jealous of me”
Other psychological phenomena	12 (7.8%)	“Voices in my head” / “Hallucinating” / “Keeping my attitude and temper in check” / “My feelings of insecurity and lack of motivation”
Novel term	12 (7.8%)	---
Idiosyncratic	8 (5.2%)	“A battle in my mind that every day I try to overcome” / “I’m a Christian being challenged” / “The bugs are really on me today” / “Difficult day with my check points”
Generalizable	6 (3.9%)	“Hyperarousal/Hyperawareness” / “Overthinking” / “Feeling targeted” / “Misleading thoughts” / “Irrational thoughts”
Other diagnostic term	8 (5.2%)	“My illness” / “PTSD” / “Bipolar thoughts” / “Schizophrenia”
Variant of “Depression” / “Sad”	8 (5.2%)	“Depression” / “Being sad” / “Feeling inadequate about the big things and even small things in life” / “Loneliness”
Variant of “Fear”	6 (3.9%)	“Handling my fears and discerning real or imagined” / Feeling scared” / “Feeling like I’m scared of my own thoughts” / “Fear”
Discerning reality	6 (3.9%)	“Sometimes I’m not sure what’s real and what’s my mind playing tricks” / “Deciphering between real or imagined fears” / “Determining what’s real and what’s a delusion”

^{^}Overall N = 153 participants who provided some kind of open-ended response to the question, also excluding participants whose response denoted that the question was unclear (e.g. “I don’t understand the question”) or not relevant to them (e.g. “I don’t talk to anyone about this”).