PROVIDENCE, RI (AP) – Ceally Smith spent a year in the QAnon rabbit hole, devoting more and more time to researching and discussing conspiracy theory online. He finally consumed it and wanted to get out.
She broke up with the guy who recruited her into the movement, took six months off social media, and devoted herself to therapy and yoga.
“It simply came to our notice then. I’m a single mom, I work, I go to school and I do my best for my kids, ”said Smith, 32, of Kansas City, Missouri.“ I personally didn’t have the bandwidth to do it and to introduce myself to my children. Even if everything were true, I couldn’t do it anymore. “
More than a week after Donald Trump left the White House, shattering his hopes of exposing the world’s cabal, some QAnon fans have invented increasingly elaborate stories to keep his faith alive. But others like Smith turn to therapy and online support groups to talk about the harm done when beliefs clash with reality.
QAnon’s conspiracy theory emerged in internet message boards in 2017. In essence, the movement claims that Trump is waging a secret battle against the “deep state” and a sect of powerful pedophiles who worship the devil dominating hollywood, big business, government media.
It is named after Q, an anonymous poster that believers claim has top-secret government authorization and whose publications are taken as predictions about “the plan” and the upcoming “storm” and “great awakening” in which evil will be defeated.
It’s not clear exactly how many people believe some or all of the narrative, but the movement’s sponsors supported Trump and helped feed the insurgents which surpassed the United States Capitol this month. QAnon is also growing in popularity abroad.
Former believers interviewed by The Associated Press compare the process of abandoning QAnon to suffering from a drug addiction. They say QAnon offers simple explanations for a complicated world and creates an online community that provides escape and even friendship.
Smith’s then-boyfriend introduced her to QAnon. He said everything he could talk about. At first, she was skeptical, but was convinced after the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein while in federal custody facing charges of pedophilia. Officials discredited themselves theories that he was murdered, but for Smith and other QAnon supporters, his suicide while facing child sexual charges was too much to accept.
Soon, Smith spent more time on marginal websites and social media, reading and posting about conspiracy theory. He said he fell in love with QAnon content that presented no evidence, no contrary arguments, and yet it was too convincing.
“As a society, we need to start teaching our children to ask themselves: where does this information come from? Can I trust him? she said. “Anyone can cut and paste anything.”
A year later, Smith wanted to leave, suffocated by dark prophecies that took up more and more of her time, leaving her terrified.
Her then-boyfriend saw her decision to move out of QAnon as a betrayal. He said he no longer believes in theory and wanted to share his story in the hope that it would help others.
“I was one of those people too,” he said of QAnon and his control. “I went to the other end because I wanted to feel better.”
Another former believer, Jitarth Jadeja, created a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as relatives of people the theory still consumes. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to over 114,000 members. I needed to add three new moderators just to stay up to date.
“They are our friends and family,” said Jadeja, of Sydney, Australia. “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy, for normal people, the good people who brainwashed themselves with this cult of death. “
Your advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get out of social media, take a deep breath, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Michael Frink is a Mississippi computer engineer who now moderates a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while making fun of the group has never been so popular online, it will only alienate people more.
Frink said he never believed in QAnon theory, but he sympathizes with those who do.
“I think after the inauguration many of them realized that they had been taken for a walk,” he said. “These are human beings. If you have a loved one who is there, make sure they know they are loved. “
QAnon supporters are likely to respond in three general ways, as reality undermines their beliefs, according to Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and extremist beliefs expert at Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University.
Those who only engage in conspiracy theory can shrug their shoulders and move on, Cohen said. At the other extreme, some militant believers may migrate to radical anti-government groups and plot potentially violent crimes. In fact, some QAnon believers have already done so.
In the middle, he said, are many fans who looked at QAnon “to help them make sense of the world, to help them feel a sense of control.” These people can simply revise QAnon’s elastic narrative to adapt to reality, rather than deal with a hoax.
“It’s not about critical thinking, having a hypothesis and using facts to support it,” Cohen said of QAnon believers. “They need those beliefs and, if you take them out, because the storm didn’t pass, they could just move the goal posts.”
Now there are those who say that the loss of Trump was always part of the plan, or that he remains a secret secretary, or even that the inauguration of Joe Biden was created with special effects or bodily doubles. They insist Trump will prevail and that powerful figures in politics, business and the media will be tried and possibly executed on live television, according to recent social media posts.
“Everyone will be arrested soon. Confirmed information, “he read a 130,000-time post this week on Great Awakening, a popular QAnon channel on Telegram.
But a different tone appears in the spaces created for those who have heard enough.
“Hi my name is Joe,” one man wrote on a Q recovery channel on Telegram. “And I’m a recovering QAnoner.”