I'm probably going to dripfeed, but I've spent the last few days writing the same things over and over, so now I just need to know what I can do.
DH has been fully swept up into bizarre conspiracy theories - something that only came to light at the end of last week.
After a very fraught few days, he has made a telephone appointment with his gp to ask for mental health referral.
Upshot is that it seems to have stemmed from his worry about covid, but as his personality is literally to be quiet, get on with stuff and not be bothered about anything, having not talked about any of his worries, he instead descended into a rabbithole.
The fact it only came to light now is very worrying, as it is apparent that the conspiracy shit started at least over a month ago (possibly even a couple of months), and I have been told that he started to talk about it because he was at the stage where it was the absolute truth. Probably also believing that I was being insane for not realizing how much truth was being covered up.
Anyway, I have a network of friends I can rant at, and have been doing so this week/end to thrash it out and work out what the fuck is going on.
I rang the Samaritans to try to make him see that it's him that's got the delusion, not me (it probably doesn't help that of the two of us, it would be more inkeeping for me to have a mental breakdown)
Of course, with all this in mind, I have absolutely no idea how to actually support him in this.
His gp appt is next wed, and he's taken the advice of the Samaritans to avoid talking about it to the friend who perpetuated it, to ignore and delete any information he sends to him, which in itself will be hard.
My main worry is that he's being his trademark calm self, so although he's making the right noises right now "it looks like I got swept up in it", he hasn't actually yet verbalized that the whole thing is completely unrealistic. I've shown him a pyramid of basis of reality that has been well-shared on social media (by Abbie Richards), and he seems to have grasped that the stuff he's strongly accepted as truth are in the "get help now" section, but I can't assume that he understands what is bollocks.
So. I am the one who talks and he's the one who sits quietly nodding. It's going to be hard to get him to do talking, and I don't know what to ask him! To get his feelings.
I don't want to not talk right now because I'm worried it'll delay the support he needs (who knows how long it'll take the gp to get him counselling) and I don't want him slipping back.
This is what i've done so far:
Spent a lot of time talking about reputable sources and how to work out what's most likely true with DD.
Used the whole mental health and talking to a grownup about concerns with DD.
Actually used the phrase "if you're worried about something you have to talk to another grownup" with DH
Explained that he needs to double check any information with Google and fact checking sites (I listed a couple that I knew that are unbiased)
Decided that we will make sure we watch the news at least once each day (we'd stopped watching it on telly because of bojo's updates)
He's deleted his internet history and cache (which I've ummed and ahhed about because I wondered if it would be useful to show gp).
He had signed up to an email newsletter from one of the lunatics, so he's unsubscribed from that (I will be going through with him to make sure there's nothing else that can pull him back)
I've explained to him that he's got to stop automatically doing everything, but that if he sees stuff that needs doing that he asks for someone else to do it (obvs not stop doing everything, but just not automatically do it just because it needs doing)
What else can I do?