This post will be a better experience if you read part 1 of Letters From My Qanon Parents first.
What you’re about to read will sound like it was written by someone who has a severe mental illness. You might imagine the person who wrote the email below, who happens to be my mom, is uneducated, simple-minded, and unworldly. You’d probably guess she’s right-leaning at the very least, probably a typical entitled “Karen” with homophobic, racist, and overt capitalist tendencies. I imagine she comes off as someone who’s never left her hometown, never experienced other cultures, and who has no grasp of reality outside of a tiny bubble in a small town in the southern interior of British Columbia.
Of course, you’d be wrong about each point. My mother is well, having just received a meticulously clean bill of health from the doctor just months ago. She’s also educated as a recipient of a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia, majoring in mathematics. She taught elementary school for 30 years, even developing a program to produce a love of learning in kids that was so successful that she was recognized in the local newspaper with a two-page spread. She’s been to over 30 countries, most of them in the developing world, and has lived in Mexico, Australia, and Canada. She’s a giver, constantly giving more than she ever receives. Despite having a great pension, she still strictly shops at thrift stores for her attire. She is the person you turn to when you need help, the one person you can always rely on, no matter what. She gives more of herself than is probably good for her wellbeing. She is a loving and attentive mother and grandmother and feels entitled to nothing.
Understand, it is who she is normally that made what you’re about to read so much more shocking to us.
But before we jump into the letter she sent my brother and me, I want to clarify a few frequently asked questions that arose after my post last week introducing you to the Letters from my Qanon Parents series. A few people reached out to ask why I’m talking about this publicly and if it would anger my parents.
I’m talking about this publicly for so many reasons that I can’t begin to count, but a few are more important than others.
First, I am at my wit's end. I don’t know what else to do. Understand, I have lost my parents to a cult. Parents I love as much as I love my kids, my dog, and my husband. I would do just about anything to wake them up. Any hope I had that I could get through to them is gone, but there’s one thing I haven’t tried: creating a public conversation about it that they can see, read, and mull over. Maybe it wakes them up. It probably won’t. But at least I can live with myself, having tried everything at my disposal.
Second, as I have written many times on my blog, writing is my therapy. I’m not saying it’s a healthy way to deal with things, but I tend to bury shit, put on a brave face and then let it all out in writing. It’s just my process. I can communicate in writing. I suck at communicating in just about every other way.
Third, so many families are dealing with this right now, and I know that hearing from those people helps me, so maybe these blog posts can help them. The Qanon cult and other conspiracy theorists are no longer just the butts of the joke. They are making a real impact in our world, from Alex Jones trampling on grieving parents to crowds of people storming the capitals of developed countries. They have proven what damage they can cause, and if we just sit by and let them continue, we could see devastating results. We need to talk about this. It needs to be something we discuss out in the open. We can’t tolerate the mass spread of misinformation any longer, and the only way I know how to fight it is by talking about it.
Fourth, since getting sucked into this cult, my parents have repeatedly dismissed what I think and how I feel about everything. They are not just willing to destroy their relationship with their family over this; they already have. It needs to be understood that I have tried for a year, to the point of absolute exhaustion, to have them hear me and understand what the repercussions are here, but they don’t care. This worldview, these ideas they believe are far more sacred to them than their family will ever be again. They have disrespected me, my children, my husband, and my brother and his family, so they deserve absolutely none of my consideration. Despite that, I am still considering their feelings and am trying to be careful about these posts because I was, ironically, raised always to think of the feelings of others.
The bottom line here is that I am at a loss as to how to move forward, but I know that I can’t just do nothing. Consider this a hail mary, a cry for help, and a desperate need to connect with others experiencing the same thing. So, let’s get back to it, shall we?
So, the letter you’re going to read below came after my brother and I gave my parents an ultimatum. As the covid vaccines began to roll out in British Columbia, we’d urged them to get inoculated. They assured us they would get the vaccines. Still, when it came time to book appointments, there were constant excuses until it became clear they had no intention of getting vaccinated and had been planning to fake it and lie to us about their vaccination status. Naturally, this upset my brother and me, and we told them that we couldn’t be around them if they didn’t get the vaccine. We were not trying to punish them. Instead, we saw it as a protective measure for our own families. At the time, my youngest was too young to get vaccinated. My niece was just two years old, as well. We wanted to take every measure possible to protect our children from contracting covid and ourselves for our children’s sake.
My brother and I were taught to always look for the evidence, and the evidence suggested that unvaccinated people are 65% more likely to spread covid than vaccinated individuals. That means we would have increased the likelihood that our unvaccinated kids could contract covid by 65% if we continued to allow close contact with my parents, who had already been actively lying to us.
What’s more, both my youngest child and my two-year-old niece have suffered from medical conditions that could contribute to a higher risk of severe symptoms from covid. The way my brother and I saw it, we had no choice. We had to stay away from unvaccinated people, especially those with such contempt for our children's well-being that they thought lying to us was wise. We laid it out: get vaccinated or don’t see your grandkids. Of course, my parents tried to argue with us, and the following letter ensued. When my brother and I received it, we had absolutely no idea that they had been sucked into misinformation about anything other than the vaccines. Understand, our highly educated, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, skeptical, atheist parents, who had provided for my brother and me an adventurous life full of fun, love, vaccinations, and security, wrote this letter. These are people who taught me to withhold belief without evidence. These people instilled in me a love of learning, seeking answers, and experiencing reality.
These were the last people on earth I ever thought would believe any of this to the point that they would be willing to lose a relationship with their grandkids over it.
At this moment, my friends, we realized Qanon had taken over the minds of my folks. From my mother on April 17th, 2021:
We TRULY BELIEVE this is what is really happening.
Go ahead and laugh all you want but this is what we believe.
Some very wealthy people (the wealthiest people in the world) made up a plan to control the population and the people of the world. They prepped us with Sars, Zika etc. The Covid (patented in 2015) scare was their plan to kill off as many people as possible and to throw the fear of God into everyone only it didn't kill as many as they wanted. Consequently, they relabeled all deaths as Covid - very few flu deaths last year (first year on record!) only Covid. The masks and distancing etc are all scare tactics and their way of controlling us.
A group of military (along with JFK) back in the 60s decided they needed to somehow stop all the corruption. They planned for many years. They have done incredible things up to this point. They rescued many, many children and adults from DUMBS (Deep Underground Military Bases). These bases were all over the world and most were connected. They have trains etc running from tunnel to tunnel. A lot of the earthquakes felt this year have been from the blowing up of many of them. The number of exploited children is in the millions (around 8 million/year) and from all over the world.
JFK was trying to bring back the Gold Standard and get rid of the fiat currency and that is why they assassinated him. The same thing happened in 2001 and that is why 911 happened.
This group of men (known as The Alliance) has grown to a huge number. With the help of many and with evidence from Epstein and Maxwell as well as other evidence, they have travelled to all countries and shown each leader (and the heads of all large corporations) the evidence they had on them and gave them a choice to do as they were told or they would be executed or tried by military tribunal for their crimes. When they went to the Pope (many counts of sexual abuse), he agreed to cooperate. It took 650 planes to bring back all the gold in the tunnels under the Vatican. All of the wealthiest people in the world had their bank accounts frozen and all of that gold and money is now in the hands of the US Military.
This is not the entire letter my parents sent my brother and me. I did post the complete letter on my Patreon. I know many people from the small town we live in actively read my blog, so I'm not one hundred percent comfortable sharing it in its totality publicly, so I've set it to Patrons-only. Click here to read it.
You can’t really follow that up with anything. It’s the sort of text that can’t be truly processed. So, I’m going to end this part of the series here. I would love to know your reactions, so please let me know in the comments.
Read Part 3 here.
WOW! I feel for you, sister! It's almost like they've been abducted and switched like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie. Thankfully, I don't have any family members who have succumbed to these nonsensical beliefs, but I do have a few friends who have. They were all intelligent, normal people I've known for most of my life. They are college educated and have decent jobs (for now anyway). I have no idea how it happened, but I have to believe it has something to do with the brain and possibly brain chemistry; however, I can't know for sure. It's the only way I can rationalize it. I've tried everything to convince them that they are being misled, but nothing…
It took me decades to learn that there were limits to any relationship beyond which you no longer have any responsibility to the other person, and there is nothing you could do that could repair the relationship. The portion of the letter you published shows someone so far off the deep end that there is nothing you can do. Though it is a sad situation, I believe the only action you can reasonably take is to protect your emotional health and detach completely. Life is too short. Care for yourself and your family. All the best.
My mind is reeling. I feel like I should say so much. Many of the comments already posted coincide with how I am feeling and what I would say, so no need to repeat. How/why are humans so susceptible to believing the irrational and illogical? The ability to fall for a conspiracy has to be related to what the religious call faith. Some part of our brain so eager to make sense of the world that it intentionally overrides facts and logic. The world is stressful, terrible things are happening and we all want to make sense of it…and then comes along charlatans and con artists that have the answers. Sorry, I feel like I am rambling. Your st…
Our large family has "lost" only 2 members to an accumulation of various & lunatic conspiracy theories. I guess we're luckier than most by only (!) losing a pair. The ones we lost, since 2020 (that's critical) have become more rabid, in their thoughts & behaviors, to the point of being shunned or isolated from any family gatherings. HE has already lost 2 jobs ... SHE is on the verge of losing hers. I can't know for sure why the guy was let go, but I suspect he may have thrown one of his loud & threatening political outbursts at work ... like the performance in a restaurant where a dozen family members saw his fanatic rants. The …
This sounds like a failed writer, trying too hard in attempting to create some otherworldly scenario of wild fiction in order to get their career back on track. It isn't working.