There have been so many stories about how QAnon and the Big Lie have fractured families and friendships. What are we supposed to do when someone close to us embraces a conspiracy theory?
In my Facebook Live chat with Mark Love, I shared advice using 4T's: Toxicity, Tolerances, Trade-Offs, and Tragedy.
First, toxicity. Just how toxic has the conspiracy theory become? An interesting thing about paranoid and conspiratorial belief systems is that they can stay in their sandbox. Stay out of that standbox and the person is perfectly normal. But get into the sandbox and you're down the rabbit hole. In such situations, time with the person can be managed if you keep away from certain topics, or are able to steer away from topics. Lots of families manage life like this. There's just some subjects best to avoid.
However, if the conspiracy theory becomes all consuming, infiltrating every conversation, then that's a whole different level and much harder to manage or avoid.
Second, tolerances. Given the impact of the conspiracy theory upon the person (toxicity), how much are you able to tolerate? We all vary in how much we can tolerate views we think are wrong or crazy. For example, I have friends who are highly triggered by politics, both conservative and progressive friends. That is, if you revealed to a progressive friend that you voted for Donald Trump that would end the friendship. Conversely, if you revealed to a conservative friend that you voted for Joe Biden that would end the friendship. But others of us aren't that triggered. We don't care how you voted. It's just not all that interesting.
The same goes for conspiracy theories. A parent shares some QAnon or Big Lie stuff with you. How triggered are you? How angry and dismayed? How's your heart rate sitting there? Has your day been ruined? Your week? Does it cause you later to yell or cry? Etc. In short, how much can you tolerate? People differ.
Third, trade-offs. Give the toxicity of the situation and your tolerances, what trade-offs are you willing or unwilling to make? Perhaps the situation is bad (toxicity) and/or very, very upsetting (tolerances). So for the sake of self-care you have to pull back from the family member. However, this risks damaging the relationship. Is that a trade-off you're willing to make? Or feel you have to make? Perhaps not. Perhaps you feel, for the sake of preserving the relationship, that you have to keep contact, even if that means you have to do a lot of processing, screaming, and emotional work after every phone call and visit. But to preserve the relationship you're willing to do this.
Fourth, tragedy. It's just a sad situation, so grieve it. And given your tolerances and the trade-offs you have to make, you may have to grieve a more distant or even broken relationship. As I pointed out in the last post, there's no quick fix or solution that can get someone to stop believing in conspiracy theories. Arguing with family members is unlikely to work. Giving ultimatums is unlikely to work. Things can change, but only over time, so you're playing the long game. You can be hopeful, but this will be a hard, sad season. So let it be sad and process your grief.
And I do think there is hope. I'm unaware of any longitudinal data on conspiratorial beliefs, but it does seem that these beliefs have a shelf life. They wax and wane. We've already seen some waning of QAnon. Fevers do break. So, one more post on that point to wrap us this series.
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