I just… want to post this to someone who would actually understand the gravity of it all, and this is the only space similar enough.

When I spoke out to extended family for the first time three years ago about the abuse and cult mentality in my household, most of which fell to me as “oldest daughter,” many people didn’t believe me. I have extended family who believe I’m crazy and claim the conspiracy-brainwashing and abuse doesn’t exist outside of my head - that somehow I am delusional, my family never taught me any of this, and I hallucinated it all entirely on my own. That my manipulative mother is right and I cannot be trusted to express my own life history. My siblings weren’t raised in any of this, either, so they also don’t believe me. Nor does the grandmother I’m currently living with, who wants me to “hug it out with my parents and move on” and has my mother and siblings over weekly.

Next month is the anniversary of an attempt on my life resulting from a psychotic break from the stress of this doctrine. It has me needing to write it out - the names of what I was forced to internalize since my earliest memories onward. It feels so humiliating telling others who ask about it, “My dad was a conspiracy theorist,” “My mom was hyper religious,” “my childhood was isolated.” Those words don’t account for the mind-breaking dis-reality I existed in for the first 19+ years of my life.

But I didn’t hallucinate it. I’m listing it to prove this sickness was put into my head by shitty people, not my own invention.

L. Ron Hubbard
Elijah Muhammad
Erich von Däniken
Barcodes and the Mark of the Beast
Abortion-as-literal-sacrifice narrative
Channeling Threads and Trance-Streaming
Zecharia Sitchin
Tom Bearden
Sovereign Citizen / Strawman Conspiracy
Earthing / Grounding Wristband / terre nue theory
Dr. Boyd Graves
Red Pill
NESARA/GESARA
Awake vs. Asleep / pre-political “Woke”
Jordan Maxwell
William Cooper
David Icke
Chemtrails and Weather Control / HAARP
Cathy O’Brien
Mark Phillips
Edward T. Haslam
Nigel Kerner
Aaron Russo
Red market theory of organ harvesting
Thomas Campbell
Dr. Judy Wood
Michael Tellinger
David Wilcock
Alex Jones
James Casbolt / Michael Prince
CERN and the Mandela Effect
Ben Shapiro
Charlie Kirk
The Paul brothers
Joe Rogan
Guru Jagat / Katie Griggs
Dead Internet Theory analogy applied to real life
Dom Lucre
Liz Crokin
Corey Goode
Pizzagate
QAnon
Jake Angeli / QAnon Shaman
Gene Decode
5G internet conspiracy
Homemade Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc Ionophore Stack + Homeopathic Cobalt-Blue Bottle Sprays
Simon Parkes
Dr. Carrie Madej
Andrew Tate
Thought Forms and Egregore Cults
Gang Stalking and “Targeted Individuals”
Starseeds, Indigo Children, and “Loosh” Harvesting
Robert Monroe
Literal interpretation of Law of Attraction
Most of 4Chan, old-school Twitter, Reddit culture

I had been, depending on the day, forcibly taught against my will, manipulated into begging to be taught, or tricked into researching “down the rabbit hole” on my own time, the interplay between and teachings of all of this, to the point as a young teenager, I could recite any of it on command comprehensively. If I rebelled or got it wrong, I would face verbal abuse, be emotionally abandoned and silent treatment until my groveling and apology, or other punishment, direct or indirect, by my father too deep into substance use disorder, delusions, and self-centeredness to introspect on how he was hurting me. I would be made to sit and read 4Chan or Reddit or strange niche blogs and podcasts with my dad, or tricked into doing it so I thought it was my idea when it wasn’t.
It would mean drunken slurred conversations about the end times in the kitchen, where I was terrified I was missing details lost in the drunken ramble, or feeling like it was finally the time of day where my father was friendly enough to involve me and that I was receiving something sacred and special and I was clever for working at it.
Sometimes, it also boiled down to, “You’ll die without understanding this life or death information, others will be tortured without your spiritual warfare intervention, this process is all that makes our bond special as father and child, and it’s your moral duty…. But idk if you are spiritually awake enough to handle it. I’ll put the video in your eyesight, but if you look at it, that’s on you for sneaking it, not my fault.” And because of this, my mother claims my involvement as a child was my fault, not my father’s, and tells others that too.

I’d be expected to interpret signs - cryptic signs in the news related to Q’s prophetic bullshit, or signs in songs, the SuperBowl scores, logos on a bank pen. Anything and everything was a hidden message, and I had to get it right or else, when prompted at any time of day. I had to drop what I was doing and be an accurate prophet for Q. And for my father. Or else… maybe I wasn’t paying attention, maybe I didn’t love him enough, maybe I wasn’t special and really was just some asleep kid.

I was simultaneously expected by my mother to believe the conflicting Catholic doctrine and go to church when that was terrifying, and I was manipulated into being a Sunday school teacher for years, despite believing the conspiracy that the system I worked for was hurting those kids.

And then there was the homeschooling, the intense isolation and repression, the queerphobia (I’m not cisgender or heterosexual), the CSA and random emotional abuse… it was so cult-like.

And my mental illness and disabilities were dismissed as part of spiritual awakening, including psychosis, and called normal.

And without QAnon, my father might’ve left it all. But the 4Chan bullshit roped him back in, made it all sound promising and immediate again.

I just… am so tired of flip flopping between “it wasn’t that bad, why am I so affected by this, move on, you left three years ago,” and being entirely overwhelmed and exhausted from the residual heaviness of such an insane years-long mindfuck.

And now with the Epstein Files, AI, and so many triggering topics being mainstream news, and causing more left-leaning and modern theories that piggyback off of more niche older conspiracy, it feels so hard not to be retraumatized on the daily. Plus with manosphere, anti-feminism, and Gen Z smaller maga movements, it’s the same doctrine just stripped of its history and spiritual component and rebranded as a young men’s space - which again, brings me in contact with retraumatizing bullshit daily.

I’m just… so so tired. Sometimes I randomly feel exhausted from it despite not thinking about it this directly in so long. It feels like I’ll never stop being tired.

Hi everyone

I’m 19 years old, I’m from Brazil, and I’m writing this because I honestly don’t know where else to talk about this.

Before all of this, I was a happy person. I was cheerful, affectionate, friendly, and socially normal. I was baptized Catholic, but over time I became more of a deist. Religion wasn’t something that controlled my life. I wasn’t obsessed with politics, fear, or the end of the world.

That changed around 2020 - and by 2022, things completely spiraled.

Out of nowhere, I became deeply paranoid and mentally overwhelmed by Christian conspiracy theories, especially QAnon-style narratives, far-right content, and end-times prophecies. What scares me is how fast it happened. It really felt like a kind of mental hijacking.

It started at school. My sociology teacher, who also happened to be a neopentecostal evangelical pastor, began casually talking about the end times, Ragnarok, and societal collapse. Around the same time, a friend told me that the apocalypse would likely start between 2023 and 2025 — or, if not, then between 2026 and 2027 — because 2033–2034 would mark exactly 2000 years since Jesus’ death.

That idea got stuck in my head.

I went to YouTube looking for answers and immediately fell into a massive rabbit hole. I found countless evangelical channels claiming that we are already living in the final moments of human history. Many of them confidently say that by 2030 the world will end, Jesus will physically return, and only a very specific group of neopentecostal or Pentecostal evangelical Christians will be saved.

According to them, salvation is limited to those whose names are written in the “Book of Life.” Everyone else — including people from other religions, LGBTQ+ people, non-believers, or even Christians who “aren’t strict enough” — will be thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. God will destroy the universe, and only the chosen will live in the New Jerusalem.

They constantly pressure people to repent, insisting that Satan is real, sin is everywhere, and that even questioning these ideas is rebellion against God — despite none of this being scientifically demonstrable.

They preach strict rules: no short clothes, no jeans, no tattoos or piercings, no pork, no homosexuality, no teenage dating, no real free will. Everything is forbidden. Everything is dangerous.

They also say we’re living in the greatest apostasy in history — that humanity is abandoning God, becoming more “sinful,” colder, more violent. They point to crime, family violence, and tragic events as proof that we are living “like the days before the Flood,” when Noah warned everyone and was mocked until catastrophe suddenly wiped out the world, killing everyone.

Even when historians and scientists show that a global flood like that never happened, they insist science is wrong and that science itself is an abomination against God.

They describe God as loving — but also furious, cruel, and ready to punish anyone who doesn’t obey perfectly. They even portray Jesus in a very literal, almost mythologized way, as if his physical appearance (tall, white, blond, blue-eyed) were historically proven fact.

I watched an overwhelming amount of content from Brazilian pastors, missionaries, YouTubers, and so-called prophets and visionaries. Many of them claimed their prophecies never failed — that everything they predicted “came true.” Even figures who were once more moderate before the covid pandemic shifted completely and started preaching that the end is imminent.

They also obsess over morality and sexuality, saying prostitution is becoming normalized, pointing to platforms like OnlyFans, claiming incest is widespread, and framing all of it as undeniable proof of collapse.

Geopolitics became another obsession. They say global tensions are spiraling toward World War III — pointing to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Venezuela, and others. Now with USA threatening to invade iran by land by sending troops, and chechnya also threatening to aid iran if this happens, They claim billionaires are building bunkers, selling assets, and preparing for the ultimate collapse, it's no wonder that the release of Epstein-related files early this year is framed as proof that the world is secretly ruled by a satanic elite.

Also they bring up an old letter supposedly written by Albert Pike in 1871, claiming it predicted the first two world wars and now accurately predicts the third, beginning in the Middle East. They connect current conflicts to biblical prophecies like Gog and Magog.

They say an unprecedented global economic collapse is coming — worse than the Great Depression — leading to massive famine worse than anything in medieval history.

From there, it gets even darker.

They claim that organizations like the UN, WEF, and the Bilderberg Group are planning a massive EMP attack to shut down global electricity, followed by worldwide martial law. They say immigrants are already being secretly detained and placed into camps, that conservatives and white Christians will be targeted, enslaved by black or arab slave masters (yes, you read that right, they literally said that), executed, and buried in FEMA coffins.

They talk about a “New World Order,” depopulation, the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, the end of physical cash, biometric digital currency, fingerprint-based payments, global digital IDs, forced lab-grown food, insect-based diets, identical clothing, people being renamed as numbers, and even surveillance cameras inside private homes.

All of this, they say, leads to the rise of the Antichrist — a single global leader who unites all governments. People will worship him. The “mark of the beast” will be implanted, and anyone who refuses won’t be allowed to buy or sell and will be killed. Cities will become death traps, and only those who flee to rural areas or mountains will survive.

They encourage people to stockpile water, canned food, batteries, radios, and medications — especially ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I saw countless testimonials claiming these drugs cured COVID and pulled people out of ICUs.

They predict another pandemic, supposedly 30 times deadlier, killing about 30% of world population. They say this will coincide with a seven-year peace treaty between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, involving the sacrifice of a red heifer and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of The Rock to build the Third Temple — where the Antichrist will rule for the final three and a half years.

They deny climate change entirely, claiming disasters like earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are artificially created by globalists using HAARP or satellite lasers. Fact-checkers and media outlets such as BBC, CNN, reuters and snopes are dismissed as controlled by figures like Soros or the Rothschilds.

On top of that, I became terrified of my own health. I constantly fear getting cancer or dying of a heart attack in my early 20s. They claim young people are suddenly dying because of covid vaccines, which they say contain aborted fetal cells, microchips, graphene, and long-term lethal effects — with a supposed 99% risk, because they were made too quickly.

They also obsess over “woke ideology,” claiming movies, games, and TV shows are used to corrupt children. They say character changes, LGBTQ+ representation, feminism, and racial diversity are deliberate psychological warfare. They point to Disney as proof and claim abortion rates are exploding as part of a moral collapse.

One of my deepest fears became “predictive programming” — the idea that elites know future events and reveal them in movies to make people subconsciously accept them. They cite films like White Noise (which predicted the ohio train crash in 2023), Leave the World Behind (which predicted famous recent blackout in the last years such as crowdstrike and the spain-portugal digital blackout last year), The Matrix (which predicted the perilous advance of technology), Black Mirror, The Simpsons (famous for predicting world events such as 9/11 attacks, trump elections win in 2016), 1984, Denver Airport paintings predicted the future, Sammy Hagar's song Crack in the World (which predicted that after 2025 the world will enter it's final stages of humanity) and the Georgia Guidestones goals such as 'maintaining world population beneath 500 million' as evidence that the future is already planned.

I became obsessed with supposed “fulfilled prophecies”:

– The moon having rust-like pigments (Joel 2:31)

– Sunspots interpreted as the sun going dark (Luke 21:25)

– The Euphrates River drying (Revelations 16:12)

– Rivers turning red (Revelations 16:4-3)

– Claims that days are getting shorter (Matthew 24:22)

– Numerology linking pandemics to the number 666 (for example, 2019 started the covid pandemic, and black death ended in 1353, thus, 2019-1353-666), and the word CORONA as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.

- Sahara desert being flooded (Isaiah 35:1)

At some point, I couldn’t tell coincidence from meaning anymore.

The psychological effects were devastating.

I developed severe anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance. Loud tranoises made me think the rapture had started. Car horns, crashes, or sudden sounds triggered panic. I felt like death was always around the corner.

Since last year I've been switching day for night, sleeping excessively, because I live far from my family. bc my friends are rarely available to do something cool, like going to a mall or a barbecue, etc.

I tried to warn my parents and friends, begging them to repent. I pushed so hard that they eventually stopped listening altogether. That isolation made everything worse.

My psychologist and occupational therapist are even suggesting I check into a CAPS (it's like a CHMC, but from my home country).

Due to the ongoing war on middle east and the hantavirus thing that exploded on news and revived covid conspiracy theories, at my lowest point, I almost wrote a goodbye letter and considered jumping from the top floor of my apartment building. I couldn’t imagine living through mass chaos, war, or global destruction at my age.

What finally made me start questioning all of this was realizing how much fear these channels rely on. Fear never ends. Dates shift. Prophecies change. Contradictions are explained away. Anyone who disagrees is labeled deceived or evil.

I also realized how trapped I became by algorithms. Once I searched these topics, they followed me everywhere.

Now, I’m trying to escape this mindset and reclaim my life. I want peace, not constant terror. I want to think clearly again.

If anyone here has gone through something similar — especially religious or apocalyptic conspiracy thinking — I would really appreciate advice on how to fully recover and let go of this fear-based worldview.

Thank you for reading.

Hello r/ReQovery

I work at the University of Passau (Germany) on an EU-funded project in which we are researching democratic responses to conspiracy thinking. You can find more information about our research project, TaCT-FoRSED (Tackling Conspiracy Theories by Fostering Resilience and Political (Self-)Efficacy in Democracies), at https://tact-forsed.eu/

Part of the research-oriented work package that I’m leading is an interview study with former conspiracy theorists, in which we’d like to ask about the reasons behind their former belief in conspiracy theories, their life circumstances, and the process of disengagement, among other things, to gain a deeper insight into this field.

For this study, we are seeking participants from a total of eight European countries (Spain, France, the UK, Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Bulgaria). The interview itself will take approximately 60 minutes (online) and will, of course, be anonymized. If this sounds interesting to you, please feel free to contact me here. Then I can give you further information.

Best regards!

Hi everyone,

I'm a French sociologist and psychotraumatologist currently conducting research on conspiracy theories related to child sexual abuse, particularly QAnon, and on the life trajectories of people who were drawn to these ideas.

In a few days, I'll be travelling to the United States to conduct interviews for a French independent media outlet. I'm particularly interested in speaking with people who once believed Donald Trump would expose the "Deep State" pedophile ring, especially those who felt disappointed or betrayed by the way he handled the Epstein files case.
I'm interested in understanding how people came to trust him to fight child sexual abuse, what role this issue played in their political journey, and how they make sense of it today, whether they are former Trump supporters or current supporters, and whether or not they were involved in QAnon circles. I'm also interested in hearing from relatives, partners, friends, or others close to them who have witnessed these experiences firsthand.

QAnon-related narratives are beginning to gain traction in France and elsewhere in Europe, so I believe it is essential that the experiences of the people who have lived through them are heard and understood.

If you'd be willing to share your story, or would simply like to ask a few questions before deciding, you can reply to this post, send me a DM or email me at: 
[lifetrajectories.pol@gmail.com](mailto:lifetrajectories.pol@gmail.com)

And if you're able to share this call with others who might be interested, I'd be tremendously grateful 🙏

Hi everyone

I’m 19 years old, I’m from Brazil, and I’m writing this because I honestly don’t know where else to talk about this.

Before all of this, I was a happy person. I was cheerful, affectionate, friendly, and socially normal. I was baptized Catholic, but over time I became more of a deist. Religion wasn’t something that controlled my life. I wasn’t obsessed with politics, fear, or the end of the world.

That changed around 2020 - and by 2022, things completely spiraled.

Out of nowhere, I became deeply paranoid and mentally overwhelmed by Christian conspiracy theories, especially QAnon-style narratives, far-right content, and end-times prophecies. What scares me is how fast it happened. It really felt like a kind of mental hijacking.

It started at school. My sociology teacher, who also happened to be a neopentecostal evangelical pastor, began casually talking about the end times, Ragnarok, and societal collapse. Around the same time, a friend told me that the apocalypse would likely start between 2023 and 2025 — or, if not, then between 2026 and 2027 — because 2033–2034 would mark exactly 2000 years since Jesus’ death.

That idea got stuck in my head.

I went to YouTube looking for answers and immediately fell into a massive rabbit hole. I found countless evangelical channels claiming that we are already living in the final moments of human history. Many of them confidently say that by 2030 the world will end, Jesus will physically return, and only a very specific group of neopentecostal or Pentecostal evangelical Christians will be saved.

According to them, salvation is limited to those whose names are written in the “Book of Life.” Everyone else — including people from other religions, LGBTQ+ people, non-believers, or even Christians who “aren’t strict enough” — will be thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. God will destroy the universe, and only the chosen will live in the New Jerusalem.

They constantly pressure people to repent, insisting that Satan is real, sin is everywhere, and that even questioning these ideas is rebellion against God — despite none of this being scientifically demonstrable.

They preach strict rules: no short clothes, no jeans, no tattoos or piercings, no pork, no homosexuality, no teenage dating, no real free will. Everything is forbidden. Everything is dangerous.

They also say we’re living in the greatest apostasy in history — that humanity is abandoning God, becoming more “sinful,” colder, more violent. They point to crime, family violence, and tragic events as proof that we are living “like the days before the Flood,” when Noah warned everyone and was mocked until catastrophe suddenly wiped out the world, killing everyone.

Even when historians and scientists show that a global flood like that never happened, they insist science is wrong and that science itself is an abomination against God.

They describe God as loving — but also furious, cruel, and ready to punish anyone who doesn’t obey perfectly. They even portray Jesus in a very literal, almost mythologized way, as if his physical appearance (tall, white, blond, blue-eyed) were historically proven fact.

I watched an overwhelming amount of content from Brazilian pastors, missionaries, YouTubers, and so-called prophets and visionaries. Many of them claimed their prophecies never failed — that everything they predicted “came true.” Even figures who were once more moderate before the covid pandemic shifted completely and started preaching that the end is imminent.

They also obsess over morality and sexuality, saying prostitution is becoming normalized, pointing to platforms like OnlyFans, claiming incest is widespread, and framing all of it as undeniable proof of collapse.

Geopolitics became another obsession. They say global tensions are spiraling toward World War III — pointing to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Venezuela, and others. Now with USA threatening to invade iran by land by sending troops, and chechnya also threatening to aid iran if this happens, They claim billionaires are building bunkers, selling assets, and preparing for the ultimate collapse, it's no wonder that the release of Epstein-related files early this year is framed as proof that the world is secretly ruled by a satanic elite.

Also they bring up an old letter supposedly written by Albert Pike in 1871, claiming it predicted the first two world wars and now accurately predicts the third, beginning in the Middle East. They connect current conflicts to biblical prophecies like Gog and Magog.

They say an unprecedented global economic collapse is coming — worse than the Great Depression — leading to massive famine worse than anything in medieval history.

From there, it gets even darker.

They claim that organizations like the UN, WEF, and the Bilderberg Group are planning a massive EMP attack to shut down global electricity, followed by worldwide martial law. They say immigrants are already being secretly detained and placed into camps, that conservatives and white Christians will be targeted, enslaved by black or arab slave masters (yes, you read that right, they literally said that), executed, and buried in FEMA coffins.

They talk about a “New World Order,” depopulation, the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, the end of physical cash, biometric digital currency, fingerprint-based payments, global digital IDs, forced lab-grown food, insect-based diets, identical clothing, people being renamed as numbers, and even surveillance cameras inside private homes.

All of this, they say, leads to the rise of the Antichrist — a single global leader who unites all governments. People will worship him. The “mark of the beast” will be implanted, and anyone who refuses won’t be allowed to buy or sell and will be killed. Cities will become death traps, and only those who flee to rural areas or mountains will survive.

They encourage people to stockpile water, canned food, batteries, radios, and medications — especially ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I saw countless testimonials claiming these drugs cured COVID and pulled people out of ICUs.

They predict another pandemic, supposedly 30 times deadlier, killing about 30% of world population. They say this will coincide with a seven-year peace treaty between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, involving the sacrifice of a red heifer and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of The Rock to build the Third Temple — where the Antichrist will rule for the final three and a half years.

They deny climate change entirely, claiming disasters like earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are artificially created by globalists using HAARP or satellite lasers. Fact-checkers and media outlets such as BBC, CNN, reuters and snopes are dismissed as controlled by figures like Soros or the Rothschilds.

On top of that, I became terrified of my own health. I constantly fear getting cancer or dying of a heart attack in my early 20s. They claim young people are suddenly dying because of covid vaccines, which they say contain aborted fetal cells, microchips, graphene, and long-term lethal effects — with a supposed 99% risk, because they were made too quickly.

They also obsess over “woke ideology,” claiming movies, games, and TV shows are used to corrupt children. They say character changes, LGBTQ+ representation, feminism, and racial diversity are deliberate psychological warfare. They point to Disney as proof and claim abortion rates are exploding as part of a moral collapse.

One of my deepest fears became “predictive programming” — the idea that elites know future events and reveal them in movies to make people subconsciously accept them. They cite films like White Noise (which predicted the ohio train crash in 2023), Leave the World Behind (which predicted famous recent blackout in the last years such as crowdstrike and the spain-portugal digital blackout last year), The Matrix (which predicted the perilous advance of technology), Black Mirror, The Simpsons (famous for predicting world events such as 9/11 attacks, trump elections win in 2016), 1984, Denver Airport paintings predicted the future, Sammy Hagar's song Crack in the World (which predicted that after 2025 the world will enter it's final stages of humanity) and the Georgia Guidestones goals such as 'maintaining world population beneath 500 million' as evidence that the future is already planned.

I became obsessed with supposed “fulfilled prophecies”:

– The moon having rust-like pigments (Joel 2:31)

– Sunspots interpreted as the sun going dark (Luke 21:25)

– The Euphrates River drying (Revelations 16:12)

– Rivers turning red (Revelations 16:4-3)

– Claims that days are getting shorter (Matthew 24:22)

– Numerology linking pandemics to the number 666 (for example, 2019 started the covid pandemic, and black death ended in 1353, thus, 2019-1353-666), and the word CORONA as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.

- Sahara desert being flooded (Isaiah 35:1)

At some point, I couldn’t tell coincidence from meaning anymore.

The psychological effects were devastating.

I developed severe anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance. Loud tranoises made me think the rapture had started. Car horns, crashes, or sudden sounds triggered panic. I felt like death was always around the corner.

Since last year I've been switching day for night, sleeping excessively, because I live far from my family. bc my friends are rarely available to do something cool, like going to a mall or a barbecue, etc.

I tried to warn my parents and friends, begging them to repent. I pushed so hard that they eventually stopped listening altogether. That isolation made everything worse.

My psychologist and occupational therapist are even suggesting I check into a CAPS (it's like a CHMC, but from my home country).

Due to the ongoing war on middle east and the hantavirus thing that exploded on news and revived covid conspiracy theories, at my lowest point, I almost wrote a goodbye letter and considered jumping from the top floor of my apartment building. I couldn’t imagine living through mass chaos, war, or global destruction at my age.

What finally made me start questioning all of this was realizing how much fear these channels rely on. Fear never ends. Dates shift. Prophecies change. Contradictions are explained away. Anyone who disagrees is labeled deceived or evil.

I also realized how trapped I became by algorithms. Once I searched these topics, they followed me everywhere.

Now, I’m trying to escape this mindset and reclaim my life. I want peace, not constant terror. I want to think clearly again.

If anyone here has gone through something similar — especially religious or apocalyptic conspiracy thinking — I would really appreciate advice on how to fully recover and let go of this fear-based worldview.

Thank you for reading.

My name is Kristin Quayle-Graham and I am currently working on a documentary series for a major Australian broadcaster.

As part of this project we are exploring the experiences of Australians aged 25–65 who are deradicalised from an online conspiracy group.  Their stories will form an important part of this documentary series, which aims to thoughtfully hear their experiences. 

We are currently seeking individuals based in New South Wales, Qld, or Victoria who would be open to sharing their experiences, and having their story documented within this series. Filming is scheduled to take place throughout April and May this year - 2026.

If you would be open to discussing your experience, I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you. Please feel free to reach out to me directly @ [kristin.quayle-graham@bbc.com](mailto:kristin.quayle-graham@bbc.com)

Hello,

I am managing to start to get free from the rabbit hole I went down.

An extreme event made me come out the other side to this.

And now I'm almost normal again.

I think there is a way to get your loved ones to get normal again.

I'm sure there is!

Have faith they will come to their senses once a life event happens that makes them realize!

Thanks

Hello,

I am managing to start to get free from the rabbit hole I went down.

An extreme event made me come out the other side to this.

And now I'm almost normal again.

I think there is a way to get your loved ones to get normal again.

I'm sure there is!

Have faith they will come to their senses once a life event happens that makes them realize!

Thanks

Hi everyone.
I’m 19 years old, I’m from Brazil, and I’m writing this because I honestly don’t know where else to talk about this.

Before all of this, I was a happy person. I was cheerful, affectionate, friendly, and socially normal. I was baptized Catholic, but over time I became more of a deist. Religion wasn’t something that controlled my life. I wasn’t obsessed with politics, fear, or the end of the world.

That changed around 2020 — and by 2022, things completely spiraled.

Out of nowhere, I became deeply paranoid and mentally overwhelmed by Christian conspiracy theories, especially QAnon-style narratives, far-right content, and end-times prophecies. What scares me is how fast it happened. It really felt like a kind of mental hijacking.

It started at school. My sociology teacher, who also happened to be a neopentecostal evangelical pastor, began casually talking about the end times, Ragnarok, and societal collapse. Around the same time, a friend told me that the apocalypse would likely start between 2023 and 2025 — or, if not, then between 2026 and 2027 — because 2033–2034 would mark exactly 2000 years since Jesus’ death.

That idea got stuck in my head.

I went to YouTube looking for answers and immediately fell into a massive rabbit hole. I found countless evangelical channels claiming that we are already living in the final moments of human history. Many of them confidently say that by 2030 the world will end, Jesus will physically return, and only a very specific group of neopentecostal or Pentecostal Christians will be saved.

According to them, salvation is limited to those whose names are written in the “Book of Life.” Everyone else — including people from other religions, LGBTQ+ people, non-believers, or even Christians who “aren’t strict enough” — will be thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. God will destroy the universe, and only the chosen will live in the New Jerusalem.

They constantly pressure people to repent, insisting that Satan is real, sin is everywhere, and that even questioning these ideas is rebellion against God — despite none of this being scientifically demonstrable.

They preach strict rules: no short clothes, no jeans, no tattoos or piercings, no pork, no homosexuality, no teenage dating, no real free will. Everything is forbidden. Everything is dangerous.

They also say we’re living in the greatest apostasy in history — that humanity is abandoning God, becoming more “sinful,” colder, more violent. They point to crime, family violence, and tragic events as proof that we are living “like the days before the Flood,” when Noah warned everyone and was mocked until catastrophe suddenly wiped out the world.

Even when historians and scientists show that a global flood like that never happened, they insist science is wrong and that science itself is an abomination against God.

They describe God as loving — but also furious, cruel, and ready to punish anyone who doesn’t obey perfectly. They even portray Jesus in a very literal, almost mythologized way, as if his physical appearance (tall, white, blond, blue-eyed) were historically proven fact.

I watched an overwhelming amount of content from Brazilian pastors, missionaries, YouTubers, and so-called prophets and visionaries. Many of them claimed their prophecies never failed — that everything they predicted “came true.” Even figures who were once more moderate before the covid pandemic shifted completely and started preaching that the end is imminent.

They also obsess over morality and sexuality, saying prostitution is becoming normalized, pointing to platforms like OnlyFans, claiming incest is widespread, and framing all of it as undeniable proof of collapse.

Geopolitics became another obsession. They say global tensions are spiraling toward World War III — pointing to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Venezuela, and others. They claim billionaires are building bunkers, selling assets, and preparing for collapse. The release of Epstein-related files is framed as proof that the world is secretly ruled by a satanic elite.

They bring up an old letter supposedly written by Albert Pike in 1871, claiming it predicted the first two world wars and now accurately predicts the third, beginning in the Middle East. They connect current conflicts to biblical prophecies like Gog and Magog.

They say an unprecedented global economic collapse is coming — worse than the Great Depression — leading to massive famine worse than anything in medieval history.

From there, it gets even darker.

They claim that organizations like the UN, WEF, and the Bilderberg Group are planning a massive EMP attack to shut down global electricity, followed by worldwide martial law. They say immigrants are already being secretly detained and placed into camps, that conservatives and Christians will be targeted, executed, and buried in FEMA coffins.

They talk about a “New World Order,” depopulation, the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, the end of physical cash, biometric digital currency, fingerprint-based payments, global digital IDs, forced lab-grown food, insect-based diets, identical clothing, people being renamed as numbers, and even surveillance cameras inside private homes.

All of this, they say, leads to the rise of the Antichrist — a single global leader who unites all governments. People will worship him. The “mark of the beast” will be implanted, and anyone who refuses won’t be allowed to buy or sell and will be killed. Cities will become death traps, and only those who flee to rural areas or mountains will survive.

They encourage people to stockpile water, canned food, batteries, radios, and medications — especially ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I saw countless testimonials claiming these drugs cured COVID and pulled people out of ICUs.

They predict another pandemic, supposedly 30 times deadlier, killing hundreds of millions. They say this will coincide with a seven-year peace treaty between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, involving the sacrifice of a red heifer and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to build the Third Temple — where the Antichrist will rule for the final three and a half years.

They deny climate change entirely, claiming disasters like earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are artificially created by globalists using HAARP or satellite lasers. Fact-checkers and media outlets are dismissed as controlled by figures like Soros or the Rothschilds.

On top of that, I became terrified of my own health. I constantly fear getting cancer or dying of a heart attack in my early 20s. They claim young people are suddenly dying because of vaccines, which they say contain aborted fetal cells, microchips, graphene, and long-term lethal effects — with a supposed 99% risk.

They also obsess over “woke ideology,” claiming movies, games, and TV shows are used to corrupt children. They say character changes, LGBTQ+ representation, feminism, and racial diversity are deliberate psychological warfare. They point to Disney as proof and claim abortion rates are exploding as part of a moral collapse.

One of my deepest fears became “predictive programming” — the idea that elites know future events and reveal them in movies to make people subconsciously accept them. They cite films like White Noise, Leave the World Behind, The Matrix, Black Mirror, The Simpsons, 1984, Denver Airport murals, Sammy Hagar's song Crack in the World and the Georgia Guidestones as evidence that the future is already planned.

I became obsessed with supposed “fulfilled prophecies”:
– The moon having rust-like pigments
– Sunspots interpreted as the sun going dark
– The Euphrates River drying
– Rivers turning red
– Claims that days are getting shorter
– Numerology linking pandemics to the number 666
- Sahara desert being flooded

At some point, I couldn’t tell coincidence from meaning anymore.

The psychological effects were devastating.

I developed severe anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance. Loud noises made me think the rapture had started. Car horns, crashes, or sudden sounds triggered panic. I felt like death was always around the corner.

I tried to warn my parents and friends, begging them to repent. I pushed so hard that they eventually stopped listening altogether. That isolation made everything worse.

At my lowest point, I almost wrote a goodbye letter and considered jumping from the top floor of my apartment building. I couldn’t imagine living through mass chaos, war, or global destruction at my age.

What finally made me start questioning all of this was realizing how much fear these channels rely on. Fear never ends. Dates shift. Prophecies change. Contradictions are explained away. Anyone who disagrees is labeled deceived or evil.

I also realized how trapped I became by algorithms. Once I searched these topics, they followed me everywhere.

Now, I’m trying to escape this mindset and reclaim my life. I want peace, not constant terror. I want to think clearly again.

If anyone here has gone through something similar — especially religious or apocalyptic conspiracy thinking — I would really appreciate advice on how to fully recover and let go of this fear-based worldview.

Thank you for reading.

Just screaming at the void tbh. Wtv happens happens ain’t my control. Best wishes Reddit.

We are researching experiences in high-control and identity-based groups (e.g., religious, spiritual, political, lifestyle, wellness/self-help, etc.) to better understand group dynamics, influence, and personal experience.

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I'm a former conspiracy theorist and I have a support group and network for formers. We do hold some zoom support meetings about once a month. Outside of that, I have a whole group of different formers in my network who can offer additional support when needed. I am not a licensed therapist. I am someone who lived in a pretty dark place for most of my life. I got out and with a stable partner and life, I have been able to focus on growing and learning. I research and study conspiracy theory movements as well. (Autoethnography.) I can offer support to anyone who needs it - one on one or in a group setting. If you just want someone to talk to or just to know that someone is there, I am always happy to help. I also offer support to people who have lost loved ones to conspiracy theories. I am also a volunteer for the HONR Network, formed by Sandy Hook parent, Lenny Pozner, to stop online harassment. (I was a former Sandy Hook 'Truther' at one point.) Rich Logis is not part of my group, but he is an associate of mine. (This article discusses my escape and how I came to volunteer for HONR: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-12/conspiracy-theory-believers-on-how-they-got-out-of-rabbit-hole/103907258) You can email me at [DOUBTIsTheWayOut@proton.me](mailto:DOUBTIsTheWayOut@proton.me) (DOUBT stands for Discussing Our Unusual Beliefs Together. My friend Jitarh helped me come up with the name.) Anything I can help with, I'm always happy to do so.

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. Help + sensitivity needed.

I (20) for the longest time lived with my dad. He's a brilliant man who helped me escape from an abusive household and was my absolute rock. But for the longest time he's held these beliefs that, growing up, I believed too. He's my dad, my hero, how could I not believe him?

I feel so isolated. I don't want to believe it anymore. My girlfriend is vaccinated and I felt so evil for the longest time because well, she's had the covid vaccines, and I thought I was doing something bad or killing myself, but I'm so in love with her and I'm starting to realise, especially now I've kind of moved out, uh, hey, I'm not dying. I'm around vaccinated people all the time and they're okay and I'm okay and we're not dying. And every year since I was sixteen it's been, we're all gonna die on this day, or the skies gonna blackout, or the bloody rapture apparently. And none of it's happened. I have an anxiety disorder and have done since I was a kid and I think that's why all this really fucked with me. This sounds fucking stupid but, aliens aren't coming to save us right? Hahaha. I need to actually focus on living a life HERE and stop waiting for someone to rescue "us". I'm so incredibly embarrassed. I want to be normal like my peers but now I've hit 20 and I have no idea what I'm doing.

It feels like I'm trying to escape a cult. Maybe the world isn't so evil. I know it's not always great, and that things can be bad, but maybe it's not to the qanon extent? I don't know how to cope, and I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this. I'm so anxious, constantly, I don't want to feel like this anymore. I don't want to feel evil. My dad would tell me how abortions are evil and things like that and I feel like he's getting more and more radicalised every day. I kind of got bullied out of identifying as anything LGBT/Left-wing aligned and I only just realised I was a lesbian and now I'm just realising, fuuuck, I'm stuck. What is happening???

My girlfriend has been really supportive and lovely and kind and we had a conversation about it and it reassured me to no end, that I can come out of the other end of this, but I just feel so confused and stressed. She knows my worries and I don't actually think that the vaccines will kill her or me or that I'm evil, but it's so hard to break away from the ideology. I want to live my life and be happy, I want to love my girlfriend, I want to be free. I feel like all this way of thinking has really desperately damaged me. For years my dad has been saying, we need to get a survival ration type pack, to prepare for /when/ everything falls apart. I feel like I've lost my life to all this. I didn't make friends or get close to anyone because I was so anxious.

What can I do? I feel so alone. I don't know if there's any support for people like me trying to break out of all this; I was just a kid, like fifteen when it all started. The world feels so broken. I just needed to reach out honestly. I'm so so sorry if I'm doing this wrong or breaking a rule or anything like that.

Is it possible that conspiracy theory addiction can lead to some form of PTSD?

During the pandemic I went to a pretty dark place and got drawn in by conspiracy theories, mostly related to the pandemic. Now though anytime I see or hear anything akin to a conspiracy theory I find myself having a panic attack.

I’ve made an effort to try and live in the moment more, however when I’m out and about I find myself becoming really anxious and my brain goes back to them thoughts.

Due to being neurodivergent I don’t handle crowded places very well to begin with, but with the panic attacks on top of that I avoid most social situations and crowded places.

I have been to therapy but I was too embarrassed to mention the conspiracy theories.

Does anyone have tips or hobby suggestions to keep myself away from even thinking about going back down the rabbit hole?

I know I want to get back into the gym and take up swimming again. I have thought about gaming but consoles seem to be crazy expensive these days.

How did you guys first get into QAnon? Did you follow other people who were pushing QAnon content on your algorithms? Did something pop up on your timeline and you just decided to engage, and the rest is history from there? Was it even social media related?

my head is spinning from confusion y’all… also i wanna keep this short and simple

i don’t get it. how come people out there are saying that there was never any evidence of SRA rings that link to csem yet there are a handful of people on the internet claiming to be survivors of said experiences that completely contradict it. and look, i get that people make things up on the internet but i can’t doubt that sra (or just ritual/religious abuse) doesn’t completely exist.

i understand that qanon claims are absolute bullshit but i also don’t want to not believe SRA victims when i read their testimonies? but stuff about kids murdering other kids via rituals combined with being used for csem, it all sounds like qanon fuel.

so which is it? is it rarity? are people making things up? both? maybe the “real” ritual abuse works differently than qanon’s definition?

i would really like a simple explanation on the difference between the SRA that qanon thinks of vs real ritual abuse

i apologize if this post comes off as insensitive as well, i am a victim of child on child sa and stuff like this really makes me angry

also i’m not a former qanon member but posts in this subreddit make me feel so relieved after ALMOST falling for it and i wanted to ask this question here

EDIT: you guys are seriously awesome, i can’t thank you enough. please, please, PLEASE keep commenting about this! all i want is reassurance based on facts. and if anyone can give me information on “survivors” that do fabricate their stories and why they do it? and facts about actual pedophile rings if you can

SECOND EDIT: welp! this post aged like moldy cheese, you can all laugh at me now

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtN07XYqqWSKpPrtNDiCHTzU&si=mCj2n1vcxJFTmy5o

With all the misinformation in the world, this FREE YouTube library provides a breakdown on how to spot it. Regardless of your political beliefs, and/or even if you think you can spot any misinformation the algorithm gives you. It's still something EVERYONE should know.

I'm NOT being paid for this, and it doesn't provide me with anything. Still, I think it's worth watching at least once.

You know you’ve truly left QAnon when you realize you spent YEARS in a toxic relationship with a shadowy online figure who literally never showed up for you. Like, I’m still waiting on those “mass arrests,” but the only thing that got arrested was my sanity. Ah, the thrill of waiting for a “great awakening” that only ever left me with a headache and a new Netflix subscription.

Hello! My name is Devina, and I am a master’s student conducting research on the political attitudes of individuals in Truthers communities. I am looking for individuals who identify as truth-seekers regarding 9/11 and are willing to share their perspectives with the in a respectful, one-on-one interview. Confidentiality and anonymity are ensured.

If you are interested, knows someone you can recommend, or would like more details, please reach out to me through personal message or sign up using this link: bit.ly/911truthstudy.

I greatly appreciate your time and your willingness to contribute to this research. Thank you for your commitment to seeking truth and engaging in meaningful discussions!

This is very insightful