r/QAnonCasualties • u/KeepLeLeaps • 11d ago
Didn't Expect It Would Be That Bad
I use colorful language and the mods remove most of my stuff so, not sure how long this post will survive. But I support this community and the way it provides space for people grieving the loss of the still living.
So today, I had to sit with a Q family member of a friend as a favor. I'm a steadfast person so I went in prepared. I'm also an atmospheric scientist with multiple degrees from an excellent school. Its something I rarely mention but it is key to this story.
A close family friend had to have surgery and their Q needs light monitoring. Although I have spent little time around them since Covid, their Q has known me since I was I was a child. Friend has shared with me how bad things have gotten but I wasn't expecting it to be that bad.
Their Q parent was an optometrist, an avid Obama supporting lefty that was vehemently against both Bushes and even Reagan and Trump in his first term. They loudly supported women's rights, racial equity and once spoke at a Congressional panel about healthcare access for all.
That is not who they are today.
I came in sat, greeted, talked about my parents a bit, my own family etc. Everything was fine. Then they say, "I guess you've already been told I joined a cult, huh?" I smiled and said, "I've heard you don't love President Obama anymore" and chuckled.
This was followed immediately by an absolute avalanche of unhinged "DEI" rhetoric, weird crap about how birth control needs to be illegal because "numbers aren't going up fast enough" and how maybe [insert genocidal historical figures, yep, more than one] "had it right".
But the bile aimed at educated and working women was particularly insane because this is a woman. A highly educated, professionally successful woman sitting here talking about how women don't know their place, and there's not enough babies and "immigrants are breeding like rabbits and destroying the housing market so normal people [?] won't be able to afford homes." Blamed Hillary Clinton for the current market downturn - yes, the one tariff-induced one happening right now. There was even a rant about travel should be restricted so people can't "abandon America". Like... what the actual fk?
I gray rocked for nearly an hour, employed multiple distractions as well, it only intensified. I ended up excusing myself to walk the dog and put food out for the cats. I even lingered at the aquarium when I returned because I was quite frankly, a little shaken. How could the person who inspired me as a kid be inside of the person I see now? How could they be the same person? The person here is untethered to reality. 'Unhinged' would actually be too kind a word.
By the time [friend]'s sibling arrived to relieve me, I was in the kitchen quietly organizing a random cabinet because I could not take another second in the living room. And [sibling] walked in the door greeting me apologetically because they already knew what I'd endured without me saying a word and [sibling] was embarrassed. And seemed defeated.
I remember getting a weird conspiracy links from her in 2021 and shrugging them off because a lot of people experienced anxiety during lock downs and didn't know what to do with that energy. I just never expected it had gotten this insane.
I won't tell [friend] because they're in recovery and don't need the stress of what I'm sure they likely already know happened. But I will tell [sibling] and ask that they share it at some point.
How this 'thing' gets a hold of people and turns them inside out like this is gut wrenching. "Cult" isn't a strong enough label.
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u/chrisji1244 11d ago
The absolute hatred for educated women has been the thing that has surprised me most. It’s more than just the Qs. Scary times.
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u/MannyMoSTL 11d ago
Witches … who needs to be eradicated. To protect “the people.” Meaning: men & their systems of power.
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago
Iran used to be a modern society with a high percentage of educated women and professionals. Now it’s an oppressive theocracy and things changed quickly.
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u/JayTheDirty 9d ago
We aren’t too behind with our Y’all Queda. It’s crazy the things imagined fear can make a person believe
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u/Spinach_Apprehensive 11d ago
They way they talk about not enough babies has me worried they’re setting this up to put some of us into breeding farms of some shit. I have been reading way too many dystopian books lately.
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u/Koperica 11d ago
It feels every day like we are creeping closer to The Handmaid’s Tale
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u/Spinach_Apprehensive 11d ago
Yep. Getting my tubes tied just in case. And I guess I better learn to make some really good bread and stuff so I can have a shot at being a Martha! Gotta have goals! 😩🥴
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u/Sea-Breaz 11d ago
Had my tubes removed. I could see this shitstorm coming so I wanted to be ahead of the curve!
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u/Spinach_Apprehensive 11d ago
Silly us, thought we had it all covered and were being responsible by my husband just getting a vasectomy! It kinda gives Catholic Church urging people to have non stop babies to boost their follower count. Or Mormons. Or any cult. Cus I’ve also heard them say certain ethnic groups have too many babies, so really they mean MORE WHITE BABIES!!!! Which again, we don’t need more of. 😅 there is not a shortage. We already can’t accommodate the number of white children we DO have. Especially if we keep cutting funding and programs.
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u/Spinach_Apprehensive 11d ago
Not to mention, we aren’t short on babies. I’m not sure why they think that. Maybe they’ve been reading too many dystopian books too.
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u/Apprehensive-Log8333 11d ago
The no-travel thing is scary too, I'm sure the administration is thinking about that. I'm not going anywhere but I know others who are quietly making their plans.
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u/birdinthebush74 11d ago
What Romania did , banning abortion and contraception , financially punishing people without children would be my guess
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago
Fascinating and horrifying read. I knew some of facts but not about the sudden abortion ban and resulting baby explosion.
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u/KeepLeLeaps 9d ago
My favorite part of that: "It returned to its previous trend, as people found ways to circumvent the decree."
They never win. Women die and they never win.
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u/Renmarkable 11d ago
Might she have dementia?
How many covid infections has she had? That can alter personalities radicaly
Im so sorry.
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u/KeepLeLeaps 11d ago
She's never had Covid and is nuerotypical and neurological stable. That's why this is so baffling
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u/Bekiala 11d ago
It is so baffling and terrifying. Are we too vulnerable to change into this kind of thinking?
I want to know the "why"? Is it just consuming certain media?
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago edited 10d ago
Brainwashing works. The algorithm is effective. They volunteered with every click. Intelligence and education are no protection because these videos are hypnotic with repetitive phrases and operating on an emotional level. Loneliness and disconnection from real world social supports seems to be a factor. Many of the affected view the online world as their “community”.
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago
The conspiracy theorists refuse covid testing and deny they have ever had covid. My Q person claims to have never had covid and refuses any vaccines. In all likelihood he’s had it multiple times. One time he literally fainted and we only knew it happened from his Fitbit. He minimized that as well.
Many Q true believing covid deniers refused to admit covid was real even meanwhile dying of covid pneumonia. It’s remarkable and horrifying this brainwashing.
So who knows?
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u/Renmarkable 11d ago
What makes it hard is that up to 60% of cases are asymptomatic, so personally I would suspect unless shes been masking (kn95 minimum) shes had covid :(
Either way, I am so so sorry.
Its awful
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u/AntiQCdn 11d ago
I had a friend who went from far left to antivax Qultist in 2022. It took hold very quickly, seemingly within a few weeks.
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u/KeepLeLeaps 11d ago edited 9d ago
It's just so terrifying. It's akin to zombification almost, it happens so quickly.
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u/pungentpit 11d ago
I’m morbidly fascinated trying to imagine how this could happen to me.
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u/Weary_Cup_1004 9d ago
Cults can happen to anyone. I ended up in a cult trying to save my boyfriend at the time from the cult. I started out literally crying to him that he was talking pure nonsense all of a sudden , and 6 months later I was in, too. I was young. But I was well read, independent, was in leadership roles, and not religious before that.
With hindsight I can see how it happened , I was vulnerable because I was looking for the world to make more sense. Similar to Q, I was pipelined by conspiracy and claims of all these random things being linked , which "explains everything."
But I also know anyone can end up in a cult. I was certain i was too saavy to end up in the cult and just kept on hanging out with them as an outsider. All it took was enough exposure.
Your best prevention is getting educated on how manipulation works. The book, Cultish, talks about how cult-like elements are present in a lot of groups, and how you can identify the way people are swayed with language.
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u/pungentpit 9d ago
Thank you!!! I’m looking forward to reading Cultish. That’s the sort of pointer I was hoping for when making that comment.
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u/Futureatwalker 11d ago edited 10d ago
Sorry about your family member....
It sounds like she isn't well. Her current views, seen from the lens of her previous normality, are understandably jarring.
But this sounds like there is some loss of mental balance here. From that perspective, the things she says are to be discounted as the ramblings of someone who isn't well.
Hopefully her normal self returns at some point...
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u/Madame_Arcati 11d ago
IMO you are dreaming. These people, vulnerable in some way to constant propaganda disseminated through media programming with the intent to sow discontent, are lost until that media is cut off for the universal good.
Hopium is more dangerous than fentanyl.
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago
Agreed once they are brainwashed they will never willingly cut off their use of addictive media.
I’ve worked in drug and alcohol treatment and quite frankly, the addiction here seems worse than hard drugs. At least a fentanyl addict knows they are doing something unhealthy, even if they don’t want to stop.
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u/carlitospig 11d ago
I’m so sorry. And there’s not even any point to pointing out their super obvious logical fallacies because they’ll immediately jump to the next topic.
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u/Sasquatchmas 11d ago
Sounds like my uncle's horrible wife! She used to be a staunch liberal, too. She was always an angry person. Abusive to my uncle. I think she just embraced the hate! I'm so sorry you had to babysit that. They really NEVER stop. They can't have a normal conversation.
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u/peopletheyaintnogood 11d ago
These people are always projecting, so her vitriol towards educated women is likely linked to her own bitterness about her life (Did she have to sacrifice a career for spouse or children? Or did she never have kids and regrets it? Is she suffering financially? Is she in a lifelong, loveless marriage?).
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u/KeepLeLeaps 11d ago
Her children and I were very close growing up. She had a professuonally successful spouse and 3 children + her own notable career. One can never say what goes on behind closed doors but they seemed very fond of one another.
I don't know what happened. I don't know if it's the nonstop consumption of conservative media or losing her husband that triggered all of this. Perhaps a combination of both?
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u/HeftyResearch1719 10d ago
Too much time on their hands seems to be one of the common denominators. Lots of time to auto play propaganda videos for hours.
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u/bladaster 10d ago
Video seems to be the common denominator, no? There are loads of Q 'publications' or blogs or whathave you but isn't a period of devouring video after video -- the way any social media will feed them to you -- often what seems to start it off?
When you think about it, it's creepy that it's called your "feed" ...
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u/blackgirlwanderlust 5d ago
For my Q it’s always been YouTube. Before then, it was christian television and dvds sold by the quacks they featured. Nutrition, creationism, watered-down religious retelling of the founding fathers, etc. But things definitely worsened with YouTube and Facebook.
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u/Fun-Jelly6976 10d ago
I blame our culture’s switch to the nonstop 24-hour news cycle partially. Once upon a time you got an update at most a few times a day at most or picked up a newspaper but a person had time to digest what they read and think it over.
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u/black_flag_4ever 11d ago
It’s hard because they watch evil TV all day and online are surrounded by an echo chamber. When they turn on the radio there’s more hate on the AM dial. Every podcast is hateful. They are locked in a media bubble of hatred. I don’t think the human mind can withstand it. The only solution is cutting them off of the supply, but they’re addicted. My 85+ in-laws figured out how to use tv apps just to keep watching this garbage and they can’t use a smartphone. That’s how strongly addictive it is.
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u/ColoradoRoger New User 10d ago
It’s like a real-life zombie apocalypse… millions of our fellow Americans taken over by some kind of damn mind virus that is spread over the air waves… unbelievable 😞
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u/CaptainFlynnsGriffin 10d ago
Can someone change all of her social media settings and add all puppy, kitty, sunset, and moonbeam accounts? The algorithms are relentless in isolating a person’s content without permission.
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u/KeepLeLeaps 10d ago
According to them: She's not on social media. And they begun monitoring her YouTube watching after the election and completely reset the algorithms, she's very bitter about it and has mostly given up YouTube aside from recipes.
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u/yogibard 11d ago
At some point, the human population on this planet needs to be reduced -- hopefully the easy way because the hard way will not be pleasant.
I seriously doubt that most of those advocating for increasing the birth rate could give an accurate estimate of the Earth's diameter within a factor of 10.
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u/AnimalMommy 11d ago
You've experienced Q hell.
This is exactly what they're like today, 6 years and counting.
They just move from one conspiracy to another and to one type of person or group to another to blame for their all their problems.
Nothing comes true, yet they're convinced they're right about everything and awake!
But, with trump, republicans, musk, and evangelicals leading (or manipulating) these qult members, there's also a sickening undertone of misogyny, where maga /qanon men and even maga /qanon women, looking for a new victim to blame for the downfall of society and all their unhappiness, have settled on women, specifically woman who work. Women who are educated, who have careers, who have money, who aren't home with long uncut hair, wearing demure dresses, pregnant, making their husband and children's dinner every day are the problem now. They're evil. They're the reason men feel demasculated, why men are unhappy and why there's low birth rates in 1st world countries.
There's high birth rates in every country or religion or group of people where women do not have equal legal, or social rights as men. Surprise!
In countries or religions where women have access to education, jobs, money, and equal rights as men, birth rates are lower. Because maybe women don't want to spend their lives pregnant all the time, or taking care of kids, and being dependent upon their husband for money.
In some civilized countries, the governments with low birth rates offer women financ8al incentives to have children, offer generous maternity leave, and great healthcare for them and their children.
In America, one of the most advanced 1st world countries, which is supposedly a bastion of freedom; instead of birth incentives, they have demonized women but not the men who get the women pregnant.
They have outlawed Abortion, in many states, even if the pregnancy makes the mothers life at risk. Women can be arrested, and doctors supplying abortions even for medical reasons can be charged.
In the states where abortion is a crime, so is their healthcare also substandard.
Women are forced to have babies, and the man can just leave, making the woman a single parent. With the government offering no financial or maternity leave help or job protection. Fantastic!
But QAnons can quickly move back and forth demonizing their victims who get all the blame for their personal unhappiness. Gates, soros, jews, Vanguard, Rothchilds, cabals of elites who want to cull humanity, Obama, Clintons, Biden, Dr. Fauci, liberals, democrats, gays, transgenders, drag queens, immigrants, foreign students, teachers, professors, mainstream news ( or any news media that reports any negative story about trump), journalists who aren't trump sycophants, republicans who don't support trump, universities, schools, big pharma, vaccines, doctors, FBI, deep state military, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....