conspiracy, Politics, QAnon and others, Trauma Talk

Permanent Damage

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The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, by Jesselyn Cook. 

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

I finished the above book several weeks ago. I really haven’t had more to say about it all, though I quietly still carry the damage.

Today, there are people who are slowly realizing they may have been duped by QAnon, conspiracy theories, Trump and who knows who or what else.

There are people, therapeutic professionals who warn those of us not duped to go easy on the family members who are waking up and realizing they were wrong or may have been wrong. Go easy. Listen to them. Support them. Don’t embarrass them. Don’t shame them. Ask questions but don’t intimidate them.

Part of me wants to laugh because most family members are not experts in dealing with people coming out of a cult. In fact, the family members themselves have probably been in therapy or reading a boat-load of information trying to help themselves cope, let alone instruct their cultic family members.

It’s almost dangerous to my way of thinking, that one can willy-nilly help a die-in-the-wool cultic member to “wake-up” and slowly deprogram without taking into consideration who you are trying to deprogram. Take a narcissistic individual. You can’t move them. They don’t change. Consider Trump, their leader as an example. Malignant narcissists don’t change. They get worse. They see-saw back and forth between silence (ignoring you) and attacking (blaming you.). Over time paranoia sets in. They confabulate (most of the time it comes across as outright lying but they believe their confabulation is the truth.). The ultimate gas-lighting shows up and they deny it all. That never happened. I never believed that. You’re crazy.

And the beat goes on . . .

One needs to realize, the damage was done quietly and some need to accept that the damage is permanent.

conspiracy, Life, Politics, QAnon and others, Secular Wings, Spiritual Abuse, The Unknown Journey, Trauma Talk

The Rotting Staircase

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You are on the never-ending staircase of this is true, but not quite true, it’s partially true and it could be “fully true” if only you would see that I am right and you are wrong.

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

From the book: Caste: The Origins of our Discontent; by Isabel Wilkerson.

The House: an excerpt.

“When people live in an old house, they come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over the rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable, and the unacceptable becomes merely inconvenient. Live with it long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. Exposed over the generations, we learn to believe that the incomprehensible is the way that life is supposed to be.”

Rather than note that Jesus did not come, and Armageddon did not happen, as preached by the Christian soldiers, the rot is not dealt with. To acknowledge the staircase is about to collapse would be heretical. In stead, as the staircase weakens a new plan is formed. No, no, we weren’t wrong. But, shouldn’t we deal with the rotting staircase before moving on? What rotting staircase?

conspiracy, Death, Politics, QAnon and others, Secular Wings, The Unknown Journey, Trauma Talk

Reaching for the top

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You are on the never-ending staircase of this is true, but not quite true, it’s partially true and it could be “fully true” if only you would see that I am right and you are wrong.

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

It’s the goal. The top is heaven, paradise, freedom, money, control and power. And locked inside there is this notion that death will be no more.

It’s a crazy see-saw existence. A current politician hopes they get to heaven while living a life and accumulating wealth as though they are not going to die. All around us, narcissists die. The thing is, they don’t know it, don’t believe it and can’t comprehend it.

The enablers around the narcissist know the end is coming, for the narcissist. And with crazy fury they hurry to get done what they need to get done before N is gone. It’s not hard to spot, whether you are looking at it from a political point of view or a family’s point of view. Add in dementia and it all catches on fire. If you aren’t at the top yet, there is a rush to get there. To ascend beside the N. To benefit as they benefit.

If it involves money (power and control) watch out because on the way up, they’ll take everyone else down, even if at first they promised to take you along. Add in religion and QAnon and other conspiracies and there is no need for empathy when the promise is broken. Those at the top got rid of those at the bottom. A necessary evil on their part. Armageddon first. Paradise later.

They’re still going to die. They just don’t believe it.

Aging, Blue Gown Moments, conspiracy, Death, Life, Politics, QAnon and others, Secular Wings, The Unknown Journey, Trauma Talk

Hospitable

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You are on the never-ending staircase of this is true, but not quite true, it’s partially true and it could be “fully true” if only you would see that I am right and you are wrong.

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

As I walked out of the x-ray department yesterday, I decided to stop, turn and look down the hall towards where I use to work. I see the stretchers waiting dutifully for their patients to be transported either to &/or from the O.R. It’s only a moment. I feel the confidence of that young woman in her 20’s. The sense that I could walk into that O.R. now and despite the changes, adapt quickly. There is a saying we all repeated at our 25 year reunion. Once a nurse, always a nurse. I was not a nurse by choice. That’s another story. It’s a strange feeling to sit in the waiting room. There are nine of us. Six are bent into their phones. One smiles at me, I slip in front of her and smile back. I have a mask on. No one else does. Maybe she sees my smile through my eyes. My eyes smile better than my mouth. Or is it lips? So I am here to rule out pneumonia. This morning I’m headed to the lab for blood work, so I’m fasting.

In a recent conversation, I shared how I felt like I was in hospice. Not hospice care where a known terminal diagnosis had been rendered. My own hospice. A state of being where one is taking care of themselves when there are less years ahead of them, than behind them. A type of nesting in a way. Getting things in order before the baby arrives. Naturally, we are all terminal. In this case, the baby is death. A quick glance back. She was confident. She was vulnerable.

The QAnon book sits here in the living room. I haven’t picked it up for a few days. I’m at a part I think where there is a turn and the QAnon believer may in fact be rescued from her pit of conspiracies? I don’t feel comfortable.

There is a movement to be patient with those who are seeing the light. To have compassion, to listen. To gently ask questions to get them to think. Don’t attack them. Don’t cast them away. Every time I hear this rhetoric I understand why it is out there but there is a terrible weight I feel because I already did do all that . . . for years. I often think the kinder I was about it all, the worse it got. I struggle to put words on paper about the conversation going on now. There is this universal hope that “they” can be rescued. Don’t give up hope. In the discourse, what is missing is, narcissists don’t really care to hear how nice you are or how wise you are or how intelligent you are or how great a listener you are. Their personalities don’t really change and you can wax on polite and informed until the cows come home, they can’t be moved. I wanted to write mooooved . . . my brain is fried. It’s hungry. :)

Strange moment. Hospice writing is like that.

conspiracy, Personal Memoirs, Politics, QAnon and others, Secular Wings, The Unknown Journey, Trauma Talk

The Stairs Collapsed

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You are on the never-ending staircase of this is true, but not quite true, it’s partially true and it could be “fully true” if only you would see that I am right and you are wrong.

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

Is it an emergency? Without hesitation, I triage and deal with it. The doctors said I didn’t have a heart attack. It’s been a few years of no contact. She’s desperate for attention. I smile as I walk into the Unit. I immediately read her monitor. She’s had a heart attack. I listen to her and eventually sitting at her bedside, I tell her she’s had a heart attack. Then she tells me that’s what my sister (also a former R.N.) said. Short story. Sister gets her moved to a hospital she worked in. It helps to know your former boss has a Cardiologist husband. Diagnosis, heart attack. Stent inserted.

I’m on Chapter Nine now. The book is titled The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, by Jesselyn Cook. In one of those “who knows why” moments I picked up the book again and started reading. From the inside book cover: “The riveting story of five families shattered by pernicious, pervasive conspiracy theories, and how we might set ourselves free from a crisis that could haunt American life for generations.”

The heart attack happened approximately twenty-three years ago. By this time in her life I actually had serious concerns. Well, I always had serious concerns dating back before I entered school. Aside from that, she was doing things and behaving in ways that left me feeling like I was crazy. I use to have the same feeling in church. I’d hear the sermon and look around and wonder if anyone else noticed the craziness. Is it me? I’d wonder.

She was doing QAnon-like stuff and beliefs before QAnon was a thing. She kept most of it to herself. You’d have to be paying attention (I was) to catch a little of it here and a little of it there. It wasn’t unusual for her to come to me. It almost always ended up in an argument. Though she’d yell at me and tell me she’s not fighting. Could have fooled me. I realize now she always needed me to side with her. I had to choose my path wisely.

A few years before Covid hit, I had noticed what seemed to be blips in her memory. She was under considerable stress with dad’s illness and a life-long unhappiness. With encroaching age and stress, one could understand I’d reason. A daughter’s attempt to juggle cognitive dissonance. I started to mention my concern to some family members. Alzheimer’s runs in the family. Early signs? I wondered. There was the time she didn’t know for several minutes who my one sibling was. Another time, she asked me three times in a row, the name of the friend I had mentioned. I bravely but gently asked her if she had noticed any memory issues of late. She looked at me like I was a stranger and she was in a novel she knew nothing about. I eased any angst over by saying, you know, as we age, we do tend to forget things. I know I do. It went over her head. I wondered, is this manipulation on her part. A way to get attention? I later came to understand, it could be both. Narcissism and dementia. Her personality was holding. Her memory, not so much.

Then before we know it, the globe is enveloped in a pandemic. There she was, alone. Dad had died prior to Covid and she was already way down in the mix of conspiracies. She was primed and ready to go. And no matter how adept I was at triaging, I could only fail with this emergency.

conspiracy, Emotions, Personal Recovery, Politics, QAnon and others, Secular Wings, The Unknown Journey, Trauma Talk

The Staircase

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You are on the never-ending staircase of this is true, but not quite true, it’s partially true and it could be “fully true” if only you would see that I am right and you are wrong.

QAnon and conspiracy theories.

That is a comment I left on Bruce’s blog directed to one of his commenters. When I wrote it I personally immediately identified with it and had an extended member of my family in mind. In addition, I had my mind in mind.

Extended Member 2 (EM2) is now wondering if Extended Member 1 (EM1) might have been right about “The Clinton’s.” No specifics were given and I did not respond. Truth be told, I had a visceral reaction and reached for a barf bucket. I did not barf, though my body tried. Apologies for the bluntness of this insanity.

What step am I on, on this crazy staircase? I was triggered and trust me, I have spent several days/nights asking myself, why? Have I not worked through this stuff these past years? How do I respond to that? I’m tired. Really really tired. The wave of nausea has ceased. How hopeless it all feels sometimes.

In the fall of 2024 I bought and started to read, The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family, by Jesselyn Cook. I read through the first three chapters and hit a wall. I couldn’t stomach any more of it. I was triggered again, by the sense of hopelessness, and these stories seemed worse than mine. I learned in therapy that I minimize my own stuff. A coping strategy I absorbed at an early age. Though those QAnon stories seemed worse than mine, it didn’t mean that mine weren’t worthy of despair in and of themself. But I had learned to measure my despair. My paternal grandmother reminded me that those starving children in Africa would love to eat the food on my plate that I either didn’t want to eat or was finished eating. My despair couldn’t possibly ever match the despair of a starving belly. And I guess, as a six year old child, I was suppose to figure out the difference between a starving belly and mine.

I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe

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