My DH has been brainwashed by tick tock conspiracies

[Stressymessymum]

It’s a bit long but I’m unsure how to deal with this behaviour.

during lockdown my DH ( previously was never into anything like this. was very normal, works in a hospital) fell into a habit of listening to conspiracy podcasts - he thought it was interesting and I didn’t think much of it. This hobby has carried on but increased and the last 3 months his behaviour is really off.

examples

No longer wants to vaccinate our children (oldest 2 are fully vaccinated, baby has had newborn jabs but not one year yet)

wants to home educate because he believes the schools are full of paedophiles and other kids ‘shed’ vaccinations. He doesn’t actually want to do any home ed. I think it’s something called unschooling but we both work full time. I’ve asked him for a plan on how he thinks it will work and he can’t tell me.

won’t let children socialise outside of school. Has removed them from clubs (for the same reasons as above.

wont socialise with vaccinated people (included our families)

wont drink Tap water. Baths in bottled water

refusing to pay council tax as it’s a made up scam (I do pay this 😂)

believes NASA/ moon landing/ 911/ holocaust ( and a long list of other things) is made up

That’s just the tip of the iceberg really…

I’ve tried to talk to him about it but he gets really angry and starts ranting.

who on earth do i talk to about this? I know he’s allowed his own beliefs but he’s dragging our children into it and the way it’s escalated I’m a bit scared xx

(I was actually joking when I wrote this.)

I know! Well, was 95% of the opinion you were joking. You can rarely tell for sure.

Thinking about the other lady who has been writing about her husband becoming more and more mentally unstable, I wouldn’t be surprised if this man is heading the same way to be being sectioned. Well done for leaving though. I think you should make the GP fully aware of the situation, they have to listen even if you have no authority to discuss him, someone needs to know.

I truly feel for you OP. My husband veers wildly into conspiracy theories every now and then, though he's better than he used to be. It used to really upset me and led to enormous rows, particularly the 9/11 ones. He also used to watch Forbidden Planet and Alex Jones (vomit). I found a certain amount of actual Science knowledge, logic and cogent argument helped, salted with a little ridicule and some genuine anger. If he starts on anything now I say "Shut up, Grassy Knollington" and he usually does shut up.
The two things that really made a difference were; the time I asked him if he really wanted to p*ss on the graves of the 9/11 victims and said I could not stay married to someone with his beliefs, and when he started quoting Alex Jones on Sandy Hook. I was so devastated to hear his toxic nonsense that I burst into tears and could not stop crying. For some reason that shocked him rigid.
He's still iffy about vaccines, getting him to go for his flu jab is like pulling teeth, telling him that I was furious that he could get a shingles jab and I couldn't was surprisingly effective.
It sounds like your husband is even further gone and I really respect you for taking the children to the safety of your parents' house. I hope he gets some help and that things improve for you.

I couldn't stay married to someone who believed that Sandy Hook was a fabrication, and the bereaved parents were actors.

I met someone recently who I had great sex with a few times, normal conversation, all good. Then one morning we walked up and he spent 2 hours talking about conspiracy theories. I didn’t see him again, even for the sex

it could of been worse, it could have been football

art bell coast to coast am radio show on youtube is quite good

This is not so much practical advice as support for you if you’re trying to understand why this has happened and how widespread it is - it’s not just an individual mental health issue. I recommend reading Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger (link below). There is also a Panorama documentary from last year that is still on iPlayer and a bbc podcast Mariana in Conspiracy land. Basically lots of people are going through this, it’s so awful and really hard to deal with - I hope you find some proper support and can protect your children from this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1802061959/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f2c4

Am a bit late here but only seeing the thread now. My sister went thru a very similar thing with her partner. Whole thing started in Covid, he was listening to increasingly 'controversial' podcasts / YouTube and getting more and more controlling with Sister and their two kids - dietary fads, stockpiling tinned food (& i mean the entire car garage top-to-bottom tins and dried pasta, rice etc.- i actually gasped when i saw it!) Sister tried to get him to speak with someone professionally as he was clearly struggling but when he did he refuted everything the doctors and therapists told him!
At the point he said something to the kids along the lines of "we won't have to worry about it as we won't be around..." Sister knew she had to get rid of him. The good news is Sis and her kids are no longer living in an oppressive, controlling environment and they are all much happier. Wishing you all the best.

He should read The Guardian and watch the BBC instead, that will give him a far more honest picture of reality 😆😅

You’re right, I wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes of that 😂

He is kinda right about the pedos, they are everywhere, including schools and other places we thought would be safe, and they usually can't be identified, most go their whole lives never being reported. However, if you feel scared, thats plenty enough reason to leave.

The irony of people on this thread falling over themselve to give advice about peope who believe unbelievable things....

an ex friend of mine sent me repeatedly a video of a sandy hook parent smiling before a tv interview. She took this as gospel that it was a conspiracy. It was completely messed up, like this dad couldn’t just have 2 seconds of smiling at someone or politely laugh at a joke. Grief is so weird and nuanced, I remember making a joke after losing someone I loved so deeply, a minute later i crashed to the floor screaming in despair once the shock kicked in. (Im not the Sistine Chapel screamer. I had just lost my much loved grandma) we can’t physically regardless of how grief stricken we are behave perpetually somber. No matter the tragedy, we are allowed to have a little moment to try and just breathe. He wasn’t laughing like he was at a comedy club, likely just being pleasant.
How the hell does a man smiling and laughing at something make him a bloody actor?! This ex friend of mine (much older woman, seemed quite intelligent once upon a time) and I fell out when my DS was diagnosed with learning disabilities and autism. She told me and our entire friendship group that it was entirely my fault for allowing him to have cows milk at 12 months and his vaccines. Fucking idiot. 🙈
Sandy Hook really was a devastating tragedy and anyone who said it was a hoax needs to seek help.

This is definitely not normal and sounds like the start of some sort of psychosis. The emotionless response to you leaving…sounds like how a relative’s frontotemporal dementia started (it’s an early onset type of dementia which begins around age 40-65

Report everything to his gp so they have a picture

Leave. Your children are suffering because of this man,they can't even go to their clubs!!
He has lost the plot!

Sorry? Smarter? Shows lack of intelligence!

Depends what role he has at hospital,could be dangerous.

Including your children in his conspiraciestaking them out of clubs away from friends he has gone too far already.. as for bathing in bottled water I'd say it's definitely a mental health situation.
These conspiracy theorists are like cults he needs help and you need to think about putting space between you until he wakes up.

Were conspiracy theories around 50 years ago? I mean I'm 49 and Facebook, You Tube and tik tok weren't around when I was a kid so how did these people start believing in them then?

in nursing school they made us watch videos of how each disease kills you so you can see why there are vaccines for them. I still remember the tetanus one, and rabies. Luckily I live in the UK so don’t need to worry about rabies. Here is a video showing you how you die of tetanus which anyone can get in this country from soil or any dirt in a cut. So preventable and wouldn’t want my kids to die like this. Here is the animation https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTnZ2ftCPjh/

https://www.upwellhealthcentre.nhs.uk/2025/07/30/measles-complications/
this link is very informative, it tells you what the risks are of catching measles. My mum was a carer for a lady who was brain damaged because of measles. Ask him how many people have died from the measles vaccine vs how many have died from measles. Ask him how many have been brain damaged from the vaccine vs from measles itself.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/conspiracy-theories-the-jews/
this article is about how Jews have been used in conspiracy theories since forever and it’s nothing new now. It’s just another excuse to persecute them.

How are things now?

The JFK shooting was a big one. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would have been classed as conspiracy theorists by some, probably still are even they moved in elite circles, and were light years ahead of many people.

The gnostic texts were interesting. The Alexandria library that was burned down with ancient texts so the church kept control of Christianity and kept people in fear. Conspiring against the masses is a conspiracy theoriy, and one that many in power have always done to keep masses subservient and sometimes obey rules that are absurd and dangerous. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany used psyops to manipulate the minds of many as well as propaganda.

Actually religions itself is a mostly conspiracies. The moons landing has always been one, before social media.

Not all are to be dismissed, it depends on one’s perception and how they view events and their environment/culture.