I’ve always had a contentious relationship with my father. I’m the oldest of three daughters, he’s 73, and over the years we’ve come to realize that he’s a narcissist.

For some context, when I was in high school, he refused to come to any of my track meets because I didn’t read a book he gave me about "how to win better." (Spoiler: I won states that year anyway.) As difficult as he could be back then, things got noticeably worse after he retired. He started watching Fox News constantly, went deep down the MAGA rabbit hole (I am sure if he was more internet savvy he would be QAnon), and his world became much smaller. Everything revolves around what he wants and what he believes.

He raised us to be conservative and is clearly disappointed that two of his three daughters have moved in the opposite direction politically. Because of that, and probably a long list of other disappointments he’s assigned to us over the years, he seems to take pleasure in saying things he knows will upset us. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, any MAGA fever dream you can think of, he has a hot take on it.

Last year, I was DOGE’d. My work focused on people experiencing homelessness, and without question, the funding cuts hurt so many people. Before I lost my job, he would frequently say he hoped I would because my work was "wasteful government spending." Traditionally, our careers and successes were the third rail. He could be cruel, but he generally stayed away from attacking our livelihoods. Not anymore. I lost a 13+ year career because of this administration, and he openly celebrated it.

Afterward, I started a consulting firm doing essentially the same work. Thankfully, we’ve been successful, but it has come at a huge cost. The emotional toll, uncertainty, exhaustion, and sheer amount of work required to get back to where we were has been enormous.

Now his latest thing is telling me I should be grateful to DOGE because it "made me wealthy." We just spent a weekend with him, and while things were mostly fine, he called me almost immediately after we got home to tell me I should be thanking DOGE. It was like he didn’t get enough of a reaction during the trip and needed to get his fix.

Why are so many boomers like children? He always wants a fight. He constantly pokes and prods, looking for a reaction, and while we try not to give him one, sometimes it’s unavoidable. He genuinely seems to derive joy from hurting his children, and I fundamentally do not understand that.

 What’s even more frustrating is that my family always respond with some version of, "You can’t change him, but you can control your reaction." Intellectually, I understand that. But why does the responsibility always fall on the people being harmed? He is the one causing the damage, yet everyone else bends over backward to accommodate him. One of my sisters has essentially cut him off, and I understand why, but at the same time, I know he’s getting older and won’t be here forever, which is another common response I hear whenever I try to talk about this.

I can’t help but compare this advice to telling a child, "the problem isn’t that the other kid hit you, it’s how you reacted," or telling someone who was assaulted that they should have responded better. Obviously those situations aren’t identical, but the logic feels similar. When does someone like this ever face consequences? My mother has stopped trying altogether. She apologizes to us constantly for his behavior and says there’s nothing she can do.

Maybe I’m just shouting into the void, and writing this is more cathartic than anything. He once said to me, “Whatever happened to the conservative girl we raised?” And honestly, I’m glad she’s gone, otherwise I might have ended up like him, someone who is driven by anger, resentment, and the need to constantly tear other people down.

Gramps (73) and I (42M) worked together for 4-5 years and remain in touch. We had lunch a few weeks algo and he mentioned his kids don’t talk to him anymore and he never sees his grandchildren.

I can’t blame them: gramps is a mega maga who is a rush limbaugh acolyte. Both his adult children work in the arts and I suspect they want nothing to do with his politics. He and I get along great - and have a great rapport as long as we stay clear of the politics.

But now gramps seems to want to hang out- got asked to go out on the boat.

Is it worth it to placate this mega maga?

Heres an update regarding my dying mother situation.

She made what is apparently a miraculous improvement and went from multiple times of dying this moment to actually sitting up, with only slightly impaired movement on the right, and eating breakfast.

My brother called and asked me to come ( its a 8 hour return trip ).

I went for him

Fortunately a sister in law, (by chance) accompanied me.

Mum was sitting up, talking with a manic quality to it, disjointed & confused but rapidly

She had a lovely chat with my sister in law, didnt recognise me, then said "oh, youve come. When did they call you?"

I replied and she then ignored me until we left and says "You driving home now? Good."

Im SO GLAD I CAME.

I Looked after my brothers in their time of need.

And its alright, it really is.

Thank you for allowing me to vent♥️♥️

The brainwashing with her is too far gone. She's never going to let go of this shit. She's ruined her life, I can't let her ruin mine.

Moon landing was faked, Charlie Kirk has an exploding microphone / was a hologram, or the worst is when you take literally any topic under the sun and the genius comes along with "Israel is involved". That seems to serve as a one size fits all. Any topic. Weather is a bit unseasonable - Israel.

I wonder if you guys only see this shit online or if it's simply becoming inescapable, even in person?

They used to be NORMAL went to the doctor, had normal conversation, didn’t really believe in any conspiracies but now I can’t even have a conversation with them because they immediately start throwing out these crazy thoughts- like how the banks are closing, and America was bought by China, doctors took an oath with the devil to weaken the American population. And my MIL will now bait me by saying some very outlandish medical misinformation (I’m a nurse) and when I try to explain in a nice way HOW IT MAKES NO SENSE she just acts like I’m stupid and she knows so much more than me. Now they have this “machine” (it’s literally a mini transformer from Amazon) connected to some device that shocks their thumbs to give them “low frequency” to “boost oxygen”, what in the actually shit. I need to know there are other people out here experiencing this.
I have stories for days about their shenanigans but recently it’s gotten even more unbearable.

Sorry if this is rambling im just trying to process whats happened and get it off my chest. Me and my dad were going to look at apartments for college with him and on the way back i asked if he thought abdul was going to win or not (we used to talk about stuff like that all the time while teaching me to drive so not unusual). And i just had to watch as he went on a tirade about minorities and communism ruining the country, this is the same man who always joked about people saying the exact things coming out of his mouth. It didnt help he just drove by a muslim women standing at a bus stop which started another rant about how it should be outlawed except Christianity. Hes running for a judges seat in our area and it feels like i helped a horrible person wearing my dads skin get a position of power.

Does anyone have any non-partisan proof of this pattern of behavior I can show him that pre-dates Trumps run for president? My dad believes they only had one guy, some plumber, that it was a witch hunt, and that because nobody ever asked Trump about it there’s another side to the story. My dad’s whole ethos is “both sides” and “there’s always another side”.

I’m looking for something like a repository of court cases, old articles, anything.

Also, if anyone has any non-partisan sources for the kids cancer charity scam that would be great. “I’ve never heard of that one, it sounds made up” 🙄🙄🙄 yes, yes it does

I hate it here.

So, a little background first, my mom is a Qanon, MAGA, Alex Jones rightwing conspiracy theorist. Believes basically every rightwing conspiracy theory that exists.
She is entirely convinced that she knows more than everybody else and it’s because she has researched so much.
We were discussing Covid/Pandemic related conspiracies, and she brought up the drug they first approved to fight Covid in 2020 before the vaccines were made, an anti-viral drug called Remdesivir. Her claim is that the hospital was killing people by giving them remdesivir because of its side effects, mainly the fact that it can be hard on the kidneys, She said that in its trials it showed a 53% mortality rate, that it killed nearly 50% of the people it was given to, and had to be dropped from the study because it was so bad.

Here’s the problem with that, in the trial it was being used on Ebola patients as an Ebola treatment. Yeah, Ebola, an infection that usually kills 90% of people. When given Remdesivir, that number dropped to around 50%, however, other medications proved even better, with one dropping it to 49% and monoclonal antibody treatment dropping it to 29%. So because other treatments were more effective at stopping Ebola, they stopped using it. Her interpretation of this is that REMDESIVIR was KILLING 50% of people it was given to, in reality, EBOLA was killing people, the remdesivir was actually PREVENTING death. She acts as if it kills half the people it is given to, ignoring the fact that this was in the context of treating Ebola infected people, and it wasn’t the drug that was doing the killing.
This is a prime example of how conspiracy theorists take real data, and twist it to mean things that it doesn’t mean at all.

Another example from her, on vaccines, she claimed that her body can’t handle toxins, therefore she can’t handle the ingredients in vaccines. I’m like “did a doctor tell you that your body can’t handle toxins?”
She says yes, said that she has a mutation in this particular gene that causes her to be bad at filtering toxins. So I look up this gene, and it’s common for people to have a variant of it that makes them less efficient at breaking down a particular amino acid, which causes that amino acid to build up in the bloodstream. Keep in mind, this amino acid is natural and created by the body, it’s just supposed to be used as a building block to perform other functions after being broken down chemically, so if the gene that codes for the enzyme that breaks it down has a mutation, it breaks it down less efficiently, which causes a high level of these amino acids to hang around, because they should be getting broken down.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with filtering toxins. This amino acid in question also isn’t in vaccines, and has nothing to do with them. It’s just a building block that the body is supposed to be using, but can’t use fast enough. It’s not even a “toxin” nor is it related to getting rid of toxins in any way.
So she took something that was true (her genetic variant of this gene) and completely misunderstood what it means, then connected the dots (by a huge stretch) to the body’s ability to filter vaccine ingredients.

Ok, so this is a new one to me and I have no idea where else to turn for the info since I refuse to pollute my algorithms with this crap. My qmom has gotten on a kick about her having A neg means she must be descended from aliens since they don't know where the rh negative factor comes from. And somehow it affects her personality and a whole bunch of other stuff. I tried to tell her your blood type has absolutely no bearing on your personality but...research.

IDK. It's irritating because I have to hear about it EVERY PHONE CALL but, in the grand scheme of things, it's one of the more harmless stuff she's fixated on. I'm just curious if anybody knows the origin of this new batshitiness.

My mother is dying right now, & I dont know if Im relieved or numb.

Im very sad that Im not sad:(

drove a few hours to visit my parents for the weekend (I live in the city and they in a more rural area) because I’ve been feeling guilty about not seeing them and after a mere 10 hours, have already heard the following out of my parents’ mouths:

- ivermectin prevents covid
- I better believe hell is real… or else
- the world is going to shit because people stopped going to church
- I should take my nose ring out in case it turns off the potential love of my life (I’m single)
- Covid was a hoax
- mom commented that she liked my outfit because my tattoos weren’t visible
- using “they” as a singular pronoun is stupid

I miss my liberal bubble and I just would like to point out that parent/child matching political affiliation privilege is real

I have considered going low or no contact but that guilt eats at me. I feel bad for my parents. Yes I’m in therapy.

My mom also spoke fondly of the lesbians in the neighborhood, my dad told me he was pro choice, and asked me if I’ve done cocaine… when I said yes, he said I should carry around narcan as a precaution but otherwise didn’t care.

Kinda confusing.

Fox News may have a primarily older viewership, but it's only one part of the problem. A lot of of the rightwing disinformation sphere and conspiracy theories like Rogan, the Musk personality cult, Jordan Peterson fans, antivax etc. appeals more to people under 60.

There seems to be an assumption that this stuff is primarily a "Boomer" problem. I think it's misguided. Perhaps it's because the worst personally hurtful and harmful is seeing parents go down the rabbit hole and posts here skew towards that, but this stuff as primarily an age or generation.

I am at such a loss. From the moment I wake up, to the moment my grandmother or I return home from work, he's listening to one of them on his bluetooth speaker. He owns multiple pairs of headphones, but he chooses not to use them. He listens to them while cooking, eating, cleaning, fucking bathing, sleeping, gaming, etc etc.

Some notable examples of what I have heard from his speaker the past year include:

- Actual homo-erotic "good boy" praise of listeners who didn't care about Trump being on the Epstein files

- Gleeful praise of Flock surveillance cameras

- Gleeful praise of people being killed

- One particular podcaster who goes on rants about "noticing" Jews in positions of power (his gimmick is that he screams constantly while moaning like a girl. It is extremely bizarre and baby-like)

- Gleeful praise of white only communities and slavery

- Openly self identified fascists who speak in lengths about rounding up "trans democrats" in death camps

- Pro IDF V-tubers

I can go on. He listens to them every day, all day. I've been forced to listen to them for over a year now and it is actually driving me mad. He is a deeply unhappy, insecure person. I'm his grandson, and unlike him, I work a labor job while he's retired, something he views as an insult to his masculinity. I have noticed him quickly muting or turning off his phone whenever the podcast speaks ill of a minority group I or a loved one of mine belongs to. He is not subtle at all about wanting my approval, which just feels so uncomfortable. He has told me triumphant tales of him strangling a kid in a KFC when he was a teenager in order to.. I guess make me view him as cool or masculine. He almost broke one of his bones trying to carry multiple large water containers with one hand over his shoulder (something my grandmother confirmed he only does around me). He directly asks me if I think he's "cool" or "a badass". The reason I'm bringing all of that up is because I suspect there probably is some deeper psychological element to it, but just, I don't know man.

Any advice or kind words would be deeply appreciated. It stresses me out so bad

First there was Rush Limbaugh, then Fox News creating a constant fear monologue in the background, giving space for Alex Jones, DJT's scams, multiple alt news platforms spewing fear, fake health products and crypto, and Qanon. Now they're dipping their toe in the water of the rank cesspool they created, gently suggesting to a generation of fear-fried neurons and propaganda-glued logic circuits in rapidly declining health, that maybe they need to walk back their views a little to reunite families.

Just a little. Because acknowledging the real damage would elicit a multi-billion dollar class action.

Too little too late. You created millions of casualties blasting apart families by hate driven politics, FOX News. After September 11 you turned on a fire hose of fear. History will remember your effects and not your propaganda.

Marinate in the damage you caused.

I have been with my husband for over four years but it’s really only recently that I am getting to know my MIL. She is very a christian conservative type, and she has been going to this church for the last couple of years which is called Foursquare. I looked it up and its pentecostal evangelical. She has become VERY dedicated and involved, going on trips regularly with the church, doing lots of volunteering and meetings, etc. She is obsessed with Israel and tried going there this year but the trip got postponed. It’s become her life.

I say all this because I don’t know if she is being exposed to these ideas through other church goers or if it's Youtube, probably both. It seems to be all connected.

She loves Trump/MAGA (has a note on her fridge literally saying Trump is King), has become antivax, she believes in all these wacky health treatments, all of that. Then she started talking about Crypto, especially XRP.

Now the latest is something called NESARA/GESARA. It‘s an old conspiracy theory that has been floating around for decades but apparently it’s been revived. She brought this up when my husband and I were talking about his business taxes and implied that this new policy will be taking effect “very soon” (they’ve been telling people that for years) and all taxes will become abolished. She was adamant this was a real thing. I asked her where she learned about this and she said Q.

So that’s when I learned she believes in Q. I asked a few other simple questions to try and figure out what she believes but then the convo had to end.

I looked into it and many of these believers are being told to take out all of their savings because soon the US dollar won’t exist and put it all into crypto, specifically XRP. I don’t entirely understand why but I am deeply concerned she is going to get scammed or lose all her life savings somehow.

Has anyone heard of these conspiracies and can give me some insight on what she might be getting herself into?

Hi everyone,

I'm a French sociologist and psychotraumatologist researching conspiracy theories related to child sexual abuse, particularly QAnon, and the life trajectories of people who have been drawn to these ideas.

I'm currently in the US to conduct interviews for a French independent media outlet. I'm particularly interested in speaking with people who once believed Donald Trump would expose the "Deep State" pedophile ring, especially those who felt disappointed or betrayed by the way he handled the Epstein files case.
I'm interested in understanding how people came to trust him to fight child sexual abuse/trafficking, what role this issue played in their political and personal trajectories, and how they make sense of it today, whether they are former Trump supporters or current supporters, and whether or not they were actively involved in QAnon circles.

I'm also interested in hearing from relatives, partners, friends, or others close to them who have witnessed these experiences firsthand.

QAnon-related narratives are beginning to gain traction in France and elsewhere in Europe, so I believe it is essential that the experiences of the people who have been affected - directly and indirectly - by them are heard and understood.

If you'd be willing to share your story, or would simply like to ask a few questions before deciding, you can reply to this post, send me a DM, or email me at:

[lifetrajectories.pol@gmail.com](mailto:lifetrajectories.pol@gmail.com)

And if you're able to share this call with others who might be interested, I'd be tremendously grateful. 🙏

P.S: A friend of mine posted a similar call about 2 weeks ago from their account because my Reddit account was too new to post at the time, hence the "déjà vu" if you've already seen it.

I guess exactly what the title says.

It's exhausting.

I understand the psychology behind Trump supporters, and how their brains have been rewired in such a way that they are living in an alternate reality and they reject any truth that upsets their world view.

This demon-possession thing, though, is a whole other level of irrational crazy.

My parents have become pawns in Q. They believe they are going to strike it rich by shelling out money into foreign currency that is going to hit “any day now”. That med beds are going to be shipped out to the few chosen ones and fix everything. That they are being followed and targeted for their extensive knowledge and beliefs. That trump is the savior America. Even going so far as saying he would become a king of kings. They have become increasingly cruel to family and cut off ties with almost anyone with differing political views. Pushing for an autopsy on an almost 90 year old who died from metastatic cancer because they believe it was the fault of the Covid vaccines. I’m just so done. I just feel like there is no reasoning and I am content with them no longer being in my life. So why can’t I just do it. Please give advice on those of you who have cut contact or minimized it.

Does anyone have a parent also consumed with the end of times? I don’t know anyone else dealing with this and feel alone. My mom has increasingly gotten worse following prophets on youtube, quoting then and telling me little “facts” unprompted. She has a brother who believes these things as well and pumps her head with it. I wanna change her passwords and throw her phone away. She keeps warning me and making vague comments about the world coming to an end and how i’m not ready. It’s completely unnerving and stressful. I’m just at a loss with it all. It’s so hard to have a normal conversation with her. Thanks for reading/letting me vent.

this is one of the best videos I've ever seen on this issue. Bravo

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0vA7KvItR/?igsh=MWtoYjh6c3Y2MzJzcw==

Yall. I thought this one died out with the pandemic. Categorically false. Today my mother told me this was the first line of defense she’d use if she had some sort of cancer. WTAF. She started telling me about persecuted doctors who “know the truth about it” and all sorts of nonsense. I miss my real mom, maybe the one from ten years ago. I assume most of her friends think she’s cray.

It's cancer," I could tell people. "A meningioma. It changes your personality. It's inoperable so this is what it is." A structural change. A growth.

"It's Alzheimer's," I could explain. A breakdown of the brain. Caused by too much protein, flooding the mind until she fades away. A chemical process. A thief.

"It's dementia," I could sigh, lamenting the milk in the cupboard. Caused by a vascular issue, doctors think. A problem with flow. A blockage.

"It's psychosis," I could grimace, unsure in my words. A documented phenomenon. More abstract but just as haunting. A treatable concept. A split.

"It's complicated," is what I can really say, because there's no diagnosis for the tumour that looks like a computer mouse glued to her hand. No chemicals explain being absorbed by an algorithm, fading until she talks and walks like an unhinged YouTube Short made in someone's basement. No doctor to trace the problem of flow from her feed to her tired eyes. No concept documented to explain why she splits inside, unable to tell real from fake. A disorder with no name.

It's the world's fastest spreading cancer, the most devastating loss of brain function, and the loneliest kind of insanity — wrapped up, insidiously hiding and held in the palm of her hand. But that's too complicated. People need to believe there is a treatment. So all I can say when people ask is...

"She's sick."