Conspiracy rantings from friends?

[julieca]

I am not interested in hearing conspiracy views around coronavirus on this thread.
Does anyone else have friends who believe in some of the conspiracy theories around coronavirus? I have one friend who is lovely, and this has taken me by total surprise. She is generally liberal, a bit left-wing and as a brown woman a bit suspicious of government. But I have never heard any conspiracy theory stuff from her before.
Now she rants on social media about vaccines and what they might be injecting us with, the nefarious reasons they are trying to make us have a vaccine, and how it is all about controlling us to introduce a fascist state.
I just find it really difficult. I suspect she is very anxious and this is a way to deal with it. But any gentle enquiries about her mental health just lead into a rant about how I am living in fear and she is shocked that I would fall for this hysteria and submit to authority.
Is anyone else dealing with this? How do you respond or deal with it? I feel in a way like I have lost a friend. Its such a weird situation I would never have predicted could happen.

My brother in law is the same and I've deleted him from Facebook which thankfully is the only place I had to hear it.
I won't tolerate it so anyone who is a conspiracy theorist can be a lost friend unfortunately.

One of my oldest friends is an anti vaxer; she’s trained in an alternative therapy and sent me all kinds of sh*t via FB in the beginning. I was just about to send her a ranty response, and then deleted it and wrote ‘Just don’t…’

Out of all of my friends, she has the least chance of surviving COVID due to long term respiratory issues she’s had.

It’s madness.

My sister, who is one of the people I was closest to has fallen down that rabbit hole.

You can't reason with them. You can't logically debate. There are so many websites, channels etc dedicated to this shit. They wander into an echo chamber, and some get hooked in

We've agreed not to talk about it. It's really sad, because we can't have a normal conversation anymore- it's so stilted. She is absolutely tunnel visioned.

Yes.
I have a dear friend here (Italy) and I get mocked up FB pictures showing Russians smuggling in Covid in little bottles, Chinese people eating chicken legs in Wuhan laboratories, emails from govt ministers (using Hotmail ) saying all the deaths are fakes.
I don't argue, I don't fight. I just link to the fake news fact checks and get ready for the next one.
She's not anti vax at least.

I do.
And yes, also lost as a friend.
She has a whole load of new friends though that she found through this shite she believes.

Yep have 3. 2 I can easily mute but one is s close relative.

Yes, I have two friends who have fallen down these kinds of rabbit-holes.

I've had to set new boundaries and disconnect myself from them, to a point. I am quite sad about it; one of them in particular I have known for 25 years.

I think it's their way of dealing with fear, or trying to assert control in a situation in which they feel they have little agency.

I lost a best friend when her son sadly was diagnosed with Autism which she blamed totally on the MMR and became a massive ant-vaxxer of all vaccines. She used to bombard me with nonsense about crystals and wifi-waves and the like and spent an absolute fortune trying to cure her son with Homeopathy and some kind of cuddle therapy, it was so sad. 😥 I just couldn't take it anymore and our friendship just died.

I have 3 friends on FB now who shout "Wake up Sheeple" a lot and links to shit websites and blogs about COVID which spout complete nonsense. I used to argue back, but now i can't be arsed and just scroll past them.

I've got a pet Anti-vaxxer (not just Covid) on Facebook and her conspiracy theories have kept me amused for several years now. Her parents refused to see her for a couple of weeks after she went to an anti lockdown rally.

The best bit though... she recently got a dog. Who she has vaccinated. But not her children...

My neighbour often imparts his wisdom about those 'who have woken up' versus people like me who are vaccinated and doing as told.

My daughter in law's mother and family are also anti vax and spread various comments about 'people dying' of the vaccination rather than covid. DIL has now had her first vaccination, made up her own mind.

I have unfriended FB people who spread rubbish and stupid pictures of sheep in masks etc. They come over as stupid and ill informed.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people I associate with are rational and don't listen/buy in/spread the rubbish.

I do think mental health issues/too much pot etc make people very paranoid and likely to believe things easily rather than data/facts/science.

@Softwonder

I lost a best friend when her son sadly was diagnosed with Autism which she blamed totally on the MMR and became a massive ant-vaxxer of all vaccines. She used to bombard me with nonsense about crystals and wifi-waves and the like and spent an absolute fortune trying to cure her son with Homeopathy and some kind of cuddle therapy, it was so sad. 😥 I just couldn't take it anymore and our friendship just died.

I have 3 friends on FB now who shout "Wake up Sheeple" a lot and links to shit websites and blogs about COVID which spout complete nonsense. I used to argue back, but now i can't be arsed and just scroll past them.

I feel sad for your friend. Sometimes it is difficult to understand that children can have disabilities and easier to look to blame someone else.

The 'sheeple' sharing people just look like idiots. What do they think they will achieve by sharing memes of sheep etc.

Yep, couple of immediate family members. We talk about it sometimes, but have generally agreed to disagree on things and respect each other’s choices and opinions on vaccines.

Privately, I laugh about it and feel sad in equal measure, and hope that they never catch covid.

Yes, it's surprising who has fallen down the rabbit hole. They are obsessed, it's as though this has triggered something in them. I never knew was there. I find it very sad.

I don't directly but a parent of one of DC's friends apparently spouts this stuff. Her DC are mortified by it and my DC won't visit the friend's house.

I was wondering is this a new phenomenon where huge numbers of people get sucked into fake beliefs? I can't think of a similar example on such a huge scale.

I’ve got two relatives who are into this. One is an alternative type and she’s not “obsessed” - she does let other people make their own minds up.
The other relative has unfortunately gone down the rabbit hole and has become completely obsessed. It’s hard to have a conversation together. I allow people to have their own beliefs and I don’t argue, but it’s also difficult to hear the obsessive rantings.

Yes I do. Very old, otherwise lovely friend. We just don't talk about it. Trying to change these peoples minds is a slippery slope to madness.

What really annoys me is that our kids go to school together and she constantly sends them in with colds and refuses to test them so they could be infecting the entire class. It's so unfair.

I always think life as a covid denier must be much more convenient as you convince yourself that you don't need to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Yes I lost a friend. She currently believes she's has cured her Covid with vitamins and knows more than the Doctors on ICU. All you need is big doses of
Vitamin C. Covid is no big deal according to her. She blocked me when I questioned her. She won't be having a "DNA altering" vaccine either. I could go on and on. What worries me is sensible mutual friends have totally fallen in with this line of thinking because of her. It's dangerous to say the very least.

@rade

Religions?

In addition to my earlier post, I have two other friends who also have the conspiracy line of thinking. I just choose not to engage with it as I love them and don't want to fall out. I can see how this happens though, none of it helped by a rabid press and a Government that has been appalling throughout this pandemic.

Dh has a relative like this. We have nothing to do with them

I have three friends who are anti vax pro conspiracy theory. One is an old school friend I haven’t seen for years so I can mute her easily but two are close friends and it upsets me that they are so gullible and angry all the time. One definitely has control/anxiety issues and I think it’s about not trusting authority and fear of not being in control, and the other is just not very bright. Makes me sad. I’ve stopped seeing them.

My dh and his family and a co worker

Its absolutly draining. I leave the room when they start discussing.

My cousin is a conspiracy theorist from way back, since she was a teen. She only believed once she knew someone with it, she also so suffers with a lot of mental problems. Covid has scared her so much she has given up social media.
A girl (53 now) I went to school with tensed her arm up with a school vaccine and freaked out, I only found out she was an anti vaxxer last year, she has not only bought into the hype but convinced her DIL not to vaccinate the kids. Her Dil lost her mum as a teen and Dad when she was young has not had that support. Her step dad is a lovely guy but useless, he just wants to mop around even 8years after his loss he has not dealt with it.I do understand how hard it is as I lost my husband when my son was 8.
I told one guy who called me a sheep that he was also a sheep, just from a smaller flock, boy did he get upset.

I know someone who started out as Covid is fake and by the time I deleted her off Facebook she believed the Earth is flat, Qanon and Trump was the saviour of the world, Bill Gates and the Queen had been executed and replaced by clones, and we are being injected with microchips when we get the vaccine.

It started out as some of it being a bit eye rolling amusing but her views started showing a lot of bigotry.