PROVIDENCE, RI (AP) – Ceally Smith spent a year in QAnon’s rabbit hole, devoting more and more time to researching and discussing conspiracy theory online. Eventually it consumed her, and she wanted out.
She breaks out with the boyfriend who recruits her to the movement, takes six months off social media and turns to therapy and yoga.
“I was like: I can not live like this. I’m single, work, go to school and do the best for my children, ‘said Smith, 32, of Kansas City, Missouri. ‘I personally did not have the bandwidth to do that and show up for my kids. Even if it was all true, I just could not do it anymore. ”
More than a week after Donald Trump left the White House and shattered their hopes that he would expose the global noise, some QAnon supporters have come up with more and more extensive stories to keep their faith alive. But others like Smith turn to therapy and online support groups to talk about the damage done with beliefs with reality.
The QAnon conspiracy theory appeared on Internet messages in 2017. The movement claims that Trump is waging a secret battle against the ‘deep state’ and a sect of powerful devil-worshiping pedophiles representing Hollywood, big business, the media and government.
It is named after Q, an anonymous poster that, according to believers, has a mysterious government clearance and whose posts are seen as predictions about ‘the plan’ and the coming ‘storm’ and ‘great awakening’ in which evil will be defeated.
It is not clear exactly how many people believe the narrative, but supporters of the movement have expressed their support for Trump and helped supplement it. the insurgents which overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol this month. QAnon is also growing in popularity overseas.
Former believers interviewed by The Associated Press compare the process of leaving QAnon to a drug addiction. QAnon, they say, provides simple explanations for a complex world and creates an online community that offers escape and even friendship.
Smith’s then-boyfriend introduced her to QAnon. That was all he could talk about, she said. Initially, she was skeptical, but she became convinced after the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein, while on federal charges of pedophilia. Officials unleashed theories that he was killed, but for Smith and other supporters of QAnon, his suicide was too much to accept.
Smith soon spends more time on fringe websites and on social media, reading and posting the conspiracy theory. She said she falls for QAnon content that provides no evidence, no counter-arguments, and yet is too compelling.
‘We as a society need to start teaching our children to ask: where does this information come from? Can I trust it? She said. “Anyone can cut and paste anything.”
After a year, Smith wanted out, suffocated by dark prophecies that took up more and more of her time, leaving her terrified.
Her then boyfriend considered her decision to quit QAnon a betrayal. She said she no longer believes in the theory, and wants to share her story in the hope that it will help others.
“I was one of the people, too,” she said of QAnon and his grip. “I came out on the other side 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 the relatives of people still consumed by the theory. The membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 114,000 members. Three new moderators had to be added just to keep up.
“They are our friends and family,” said Jadeja, from Sydney, Australia. “It’s not about who’s right or who’s wrong. I am here to proclaim empathy, to the normal people, the good people who have been brainwashed by this death cult. ”
His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take a deep breath and throw the energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Michael Frink is a computer engineer in Mississippi who is now moderating a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said mocking the group had never been so popular online, but that it would further alienate people.
Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory, but sympathized with those who did.
“I think a lot of them realized after the inauguration that they were taken for a ride,” he said. “It’s people. If you have a loved one who is in it: make sure they know they are loved. ‘
According to Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University, QAnon supporters are likely to respond in three general ways, as reality undermines their beliefs.
Those who have just wrapped themselves up in the conspiracy theory can shrug their shoulders and move on, Cohen said. On the other hand, some militant believers may migrate to radical anti-government groups and plan possible violent crimes. Some QAnon believers have already done so.
At the center, he said, are the many fans who have watched QAnon “to help them make sense of the world, to help them feel a sense of control.” These people can simply revise the elastic narrative of QAnon to fit into reality, rather than to be the creep.
“It’s not about critical thinking, having a hypothesis and using facts to support it,” Cohen said of QAnon believers. “They need these convictions, and if you take them away, because the storm didn’t happen, they could just move the goal posts.”
Some now say Trump’s loss was always part of the plan, either that he secretly remains president, or even that Joe Biden’s inauguration was created with special effects or body doubling. They insist that Trump will triumph, and powerful figures in politics, business, and the media will be heard on live television and possibly aired on live television.
“Everyone will be arrested soon. Confirmed information, ”reads a report that was viewed 130,000 times this week on Great Awakening, a popular QAnon channel on Telegram. “I said from the beginning that it would happen.”
But there comes a different tone in the spaces created for those who have heard enough.
“Hello my name is Joe”, one man wrote on a Q recovery channel in Telegram. “And I’m a good QAnoner.”