The Paranoia Trap In Remote Work And Why It's So Hard To Shake

Forbes

5 hours ago

For many (me included!) the shift to remote work was a breakthrough. No commute. More autonomy. Fewer distractions from hallway politics. But for others, especially high-achieving professionals used to being seen and heard, working from home quietly unearths a troubling mental pattern: when the feedback loop goes silent, the mind fills in the blanks. And more often than not, it fills them with fear.
What begins as a quiet sense of disconnection can spiral into a gnawing belief that something is wrong. That a colleague is orchestrating something behind your back. That your name has come up in a meeting you weren't invited to. That you're about to be caught off guard. It sounds irrational. And yet, when you're in it, it feels real.
The strangest part? The moment you step back into the office, the feeling dissolves. A quick chat in the hallway, a casual laugh in a meeting, or just hearing your name spoken without suspicion—that's all it takes. You don't uncover a plot because there was never one to begin with. You simply re-enter a space where context makes paranoia unnecessary.
Remote work is productive, but it can also be psychologically disorienting. What stabilizes people at work isn't just a clear job description or a defined workflow. It's the invisible network of signals we trade throughout the day. Things like nods, smiles, spontaneous feedback. These signals remind us where we stand. They offer micro-confirmations that we're still part of something.
Take them away, and the mind starts to scan. Not for data, but for danger.
Humans are wired to interpret uncertainty as risk. In the absence of feedback, we don't usually assume everything is fine. We assume we're in trouble. That's negativity bias in action—the cognitive reflex to prioritize potential threats over neutral or positive cues, especially when the situation is ambiguous.
The brain starts drafting stories to explain the silence. That delayed email? It must be bad news. That skipped video call? Maybe you're being excluded. If you're someone who has navigated environments where trust was scarce or reputations were fragile, the leap from silence to suspicion is even shorter.
But this isn't just a glitch in reasoning. It's often a response to identity friction. For people who derive meaning from being visible, influential, or at the center of things, remote work can feel like a form of professional invisibility. Without recognition, your self-narrative begins to fray. You start mistaking the absence of affirmation for the presence of rejection.
Here's what's quite fascinating: the moment we're physically back among colleagues, the imagined story loses its grip. You see your manager smile. You overhear a conversation that confirms you're still in the loop. You remember that most people are too busy with their own priorities to scheme about yours. Suddenly, you're not being targeted. You're just back in the room.
That shift isn't just a mood swing. It's a recalibration of social identity. According to social identity theory, a big part of how we maintain self-worth is by feeling recognized and accepted in groups that matter to us. Work is one of the most important of those groups. Without shared physical space, the group becomes harder to see, and easier to feel excluded from.
Even video calls, though helpful, often fall short. They compress emotional bandwidth. They filter out body language, subtle tone, even the spontaneity that makes us feel truly connected. In that vacuum, the brain tries to simulate the missing social data. And in the process, it often gets the story wrong.
This is why some of the most outwardly confident professionals feel unsettled at home but unexpectedly calm the moment they re-enter a shared office. It's not just that they miss people. It's that they miss the psychological GPS that tells them where they are in the team's social landscape. In-person cues don't just clarify communication. They restore belonging.
The most common mistake leaders make is assuming that silence is neutral. It's not. Silence is a story waiting to be written. And if leaders don't supply the story, people will write their own. Sometimes it's optimistic. Often, it's catastrophic.
This is especially important in hybrid workplaces, where some people thrive on autonomy while others quietly unravel without regular interpersonal signals. What looks like flexibility for one employee might feel like exile to another. And the employees who seem the most competent and self-sufficient on paper are not always the most psychologically steady. High achievers often carry a high cognitive load, not just to perform, but to predict and pre-empt every social cue they can no longer see.
This explains why remote work doesn't just create logistical complexity. It creates relational ambiguity. And ambiguity is rarely neutral ground.
It's not enough for leaders to check in about deadlines. They need to check in about direction and connection. People want more than clarity about the task. They want to know where they stand, whether they're still trusted, still seen, still included. This isn't insecurity. It's a need for psychological visibility. And research in self determination theory suggests that relatedness, not just competence or autonomy, is one of the core drivers of motivation.
If that need is unmet, even the best performers can spiral.
If you're someone who starts imagining the worst when working remotely, the first step is to recognize the pattern. Your brain isn't telling you the truth. It's trying to keep you safe. But in doing so, it may be creating a threat that isn't there.
Instead of letting the story spin, interrogate it. What do you actually know? What are you guessing? If something feels off, reach out. Don't wait for validation to come to you. Sometimes, a three-minute call is enough to reset your entire mental state.
Leaders can help by reducing the distance between perception and reality. That means being transparent about decisions, proactively acknowledging contributions, and noticing the emotional signals that don't show up in project plans. It also means understanding that for many people, a lack of contact is never just a logistical absence. It's a psychological gap.
In a world increasingly defined by screens, the most important gesture may be the simplest one: making people feel remembered. Not just needed, but noticed. Not just looped in, but genuinely seen.
So the next time you start believing that you're being excluded, sidelined, or quietly targeted, pause. You're probably just out of sync. And more often than not, that's all it is. Not a conspiracy. Not a downfall.
Just the mind, searching for context in the silence.