Has anyone lost a friend to conspiracy theories?

[MerryPerry88]

....and what was the outcome? The covid pandemic really did a number on a close friend of mine....and anxiety fulled paranoia has meant that they have gone down a rabbit warren of conspiracy theories. It started off with the Great Reset stuff, but now has gone full blown into Chem trails, Flat Earth, Royal Family are lizards...you name it. They have pushed everyone away with how aggressively they air their views, and cannot be reasoned with at all. They are still holding down a responsible job, but colleagues have been making comments, as they air their views forcibly at work. My partner does not want to see this friend anymore, as their views have also gone into right wing US republican territory. I'm also good friends with this friends partner, and our children are all friends. It's such a sad situation as our friendship has gone down the pan. I'm still meeting up with friends partner and the kids, but it feels awkward. The partner to some extent is pandering to a lot of these views. I don't know how to put it nicely but they are a bit of a push over and have put up with a lot in the past from this friend. Sorry there's probably a lot of background stuff I've missed out....I guess I'm interested to hear from people that have experienced the same, and whether friendships have ever recovered. I'm struggling to see how we can repair things unless they have a massive reality check, but I'm not sure how that is going to come about so feeling a bit hopeless.

This thread is depressing. Here I am at the end of page 3, having read 2 pages primarily about various conspiracy theories in posts from people who so obviously are conspiracy theorists themselves and been vaguely asked to look up various names (who are also probably conspiracy theory nutjobs, so I won't), and this has happened on a thread titled "have you lost a friend to conspiracy theories?"

It isn't titled "Conspiracy theorists! Over here! We all want to talk to you!" So fuck off, yeah?

As one of you asked, "what's more important to you, having a relationship with them and hearing about what they want to discuss or shutting them down?" Shutting them (and you) down, definitely, because the majority of sane people (and probably a lot of insane ones) don't want to hear it, never mind discuss it at length, over and over . That's the whole point of the thread

Fox Mulder would be very upset with that comment. ...

Good point@SusanMaria, we need to get back to the point of the thread - have we lost friends who disappeared down the rabbit holes, and have any of these friendships recovered.

Looking back over the thread, many have lost friends and family, only two partial recoveries.

Fox Mulder is a fictional character

Are you for real?

Thank you. What I don't understand is she didn't do the same to our other friend but when I asked she said it was because she was closer to me and it affected her more

The chemtrails one drives me nuts. I've been in the airline industry since the 1990s. I think if we were spraying chemicals from aircraft I would have spotted something by now.

Who is supposed to be loading these chemicals? The engineers? The dispatchers? The loaders? And whoever it is, for hundreds of airlines around the world, no one has come forward as a large group to say "yes, we do this"? Or are all airline staff paid huge bonuses to keep quiet? 🤣. (I wish).

That, of course, is where conspiracy theories fall down - the numbers of people who'd have to keep utterly shtum about the whole thing, for years.

I have a friend like this. It's hard because in every other way she is lovely - kind, helpful, fun, generous, has been there fore me in the past.

But I think Covid pushed her into a weird place, and went down a rabbit hole. We are still friends, although I have pulled away a bit (for other reasons aswell).

She knows I don't agree with her, but we can agree to disagree. Sometimes she says things that I might sort of agree with in a broad way (there are things I don't trust about the government and their handling of things etc.) but the whole 'vaccines are evil, they cause autism' bollox does my head in a bit. Like others on here, she can list a load of websites that have the 'proof', usually from some quack doctor in the US...

I dunno, I felt a bit sorry for her because she lost a lot of friends over the past few years, and she has calmed down a lot about it, but it's exhausting to listen to so I sort of don't blame them.

The thing I don't get is - if Covid was designed to ensure the whole world got vaccinated with microchip or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be - what is the point of that?
What good would that do, and who would want that (obvs Bill Gates etc.), but really - most people in business want to sell us something and make money - I could buy that pharmaceutical companies want to increase profits, but what is the point of microchipping or heavy metals, or whatever is 'supposed' to be in the vaccines?
Clearly I haven't been listening properly when she blabs on about stuff...

And who is paying the airlines to transport these heavy chemicals around the world @Grapefruitsquash ?

Ikr @Farmageddon . Its all ' big pharma' want you to buy their vaccines. Then they tell you to take 50 x the RDA of vitamin D and K. At £7 a packet. Or more.

Fluoride is the other one. It occurs in nature at higher concentrations in many rivers or Wells.

An American friend of mine pestered her doctor to prescribe that horse wormer as a prophylactic against Covid. Wouldn't have the vaccine. She caught Covid. She's clinically vulnerable, and who knows what taking a veterinary anti-parasitic did to her struggling system.

People are terrified of vaccinations developed by the world's biggest public health experts working together, but eager to drink bleach and swallow animal medicines bearing no relation to the disease in question. It's so strange!

My friend never once mentioned her barmy choices while suffering a bad C-19 infection. I carried on checking in with her until she was out of hospital and on the mend, then blocked her. It's been a long string of disappointments in people who'd seemed like lively critical thinkers until 2020.

And the number of people who would have to be involved at a low-level, low-paid position! I argued that with the 'they're going to start watching us all and monitoring all our activity' friend. WHO was going to be watching us all? How many people would you need to surveillance an entire population going about their business? Who was recruiting? And how come none of these hundred of thousands of people being paid to monitor the population had spoken out?