You are right, I meant paranoid.

>Btw, in this case it can’t be paranoia since the belief was not irrational - the author was being watched.

Yes, but I mean being overly cautious in the threat model. For example, birds may be watching through my window, it's true and I might catch a bird watching my house, but it's paranoid in the sense that it's too tight of a threat model.

One never knows, that owl might be electric.

I know analogies are not meant to be perfect, but birds don't mass watch, and don't systematically watch every of your moves neither.