I sure hope anxiety and paranoia go hand in hand, because I'm paranoid as fuck ;)

A lot of it is the same stuff as you...always waiting for the hammer to drop. Thinking my bosses are unhappy with me, thinking they're going to yell at me or fire me, thinking that my husband will surely find someone better and it's only a matter of time. That's stuff that could actually happen, but I also feel anxious about stuff that's just paranoid and so, so unlikely. Worrying that someone will break into my house and murder my dogs when I'm not home. Worrying that my house will burn down every time I run the dryer or dishwasher. Always feeling like I'm being watched. It's pretty awful and makes me worry about my sanity.

Cognitive behavioural therapy helps a bit; writing out these thoughts on worksheets (I think from the Anxiety and Phobia workbook?) helps me to be more objective about them instead of it just mushrooming into massive anxiety. And doing the whole "what's the worst thing that could happen in this situation" exercise. So I get fired, so what, people get fired all the time, I will find another job (cue anxiety about "no one will ever hire me again and I will end up living under a bridge!" lol).

I've had a couple of episodes of paranoia when going off of medications, though, and it felt completely different than anxiety. I knew (not worried, knew) that everyone in my life secretly hated me, and that my loved ones (pets included) were all secretly plotting against me together...I knew, but they didn't know that I knew, so I just tried to "...act...really...normal..." so I wouldn't tip them off that I was on to them (it was an awkward few weeks let me tell you). It wasn't like with bad anxiety where you can still access that rational part of your brain to CBT that shit. The rational part of my brain was just completely absent. It was terrifying in hindsight (I of course didn't tell anyone while it was happening because even my doctor was in on the plotting; good grief).

Anyway, all that to say that unless you are 100% convinced that it's necessary to wear a tinfoil hat to prevent communications from government agents, you are probably not paranoid in the clinical sense...you know your anxious thoughts are irrational; that's always a good sign :)