OMG, Off The Rails!

[Tarlo Farm]

A former friend, who I've known for 40 years, now believes this...stuff, and the guy espousing it. I don't know what to do!


rationalwiki.org/wiki/International_Tribunal_into_Crimes_of_Church_and_State

The Queen has kidnapped ten kids. The Clintons are pediphiles. So is Prince Andrew. The Pope is dead. Or something... And of course there is a sex slave ring operating out of a Pizza Parlor in DC. OH WAIT...! Honestly, I will never eat pizza or ice cream without this on my mind. Aghhhhhhh!!!

[KathyK]

Off the rails, completely unhinged, out of his/her gourd. Sorry your friend has lost his/her way.

[Tarlo Farm]

It's crazy!! She's a retired middle school math teacher. A formerly sane person. I sent that link to her a couple hours ago, but haven't heard anything yet. I can't believe she would swallow all this information from someone without doing some background research... But...

[Chisamba]

I always wondered what type of people actually bought the National Enquirer, but some one had to, it was published for years

[Tarlo Farm]

The National Enquirer this ain't. More like the World Weekly News. Honestly...the Queen has kidnapped ten kids...?!?!?!?

[Tabby]

Why not? Anything that sounds half normal is fake news nowadays.

[Tarlo Farm]

There is nothing about the Queen kidnapping ten kids that sounds "half normal"

[Tuffytown]

and come on, who wouldn't want to be kidnapped by the queen. All those ponies and corgies!!!!!!!!.

[Tabby]

I didn't mean the Queen story. Just that some of these people don't believe what's obvious - stating it to be fake news, while crazy shit like this is taken for gospel truth. I don't get it but the world seems upside down these days and that's just the way it is.

[Tarlo Farm]

Honestly, I keep checking back here to see if someone can help me get some degree of understanding how this former friend became so unhinged. We've been friends since high school (40+) years, she's an award-winning now-retired high school and middle school math teacher (algebra, calc, statistics), we are children of the 60's/70's - and I'll let that speak for itself - she married a high school counselor, is an environmentalist, supported Bernie, then switched to Stein, and now...
She stopped keeping in touch almost two years ago as she and her husband moved north about a 100 miles to a fairly remote area. When she returned to our hometown while her dad was still alive, she keep her contacts with old friends at a minimum with one exception; the mutual friend who told me about this last week.
So it's not like I'm missing our friendship so much, as I can't believe how insane she's become!!!

[boots-aregard]

I'd guess some kind of environmental poison from the new location, myself. Did she happen to move to Flint, Michigan?

[Chisamba]

I do not understand why you feel the need to do something? Is it a threat to you and yours?

[Chisamba]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th ... y-theories

[Chisamba]

The main reason for believing in conspiracy is the fear of randomness. It's a way to blame random bad things on authority. It's a sort of anxiety or way of dealing with feeling out if control.

Basically something had happened in your friends life to make her feel out of control and she needs to be able to blame something.

People do it all the time, they blame God, the government, their parents, vaccines.. etc.

Some psychologists think it is increasing in American society, and works wide.

[Quelah]

Early onset dementia plus too many recreational pharmaceuticals in her youth?

[Tarlo Farm]

I do not understand why you feel the need to do something? Is it a threat to you and yours?

No no. And my only need to "do something" is to try to understand what happened. I mean, this is a one-eighty for a former good friend. I like some of the suggestions and article. I have to think on them, thanks.

[Tarlo Farm]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/200809/paranoia-and-the-roots-conspiracy-theories

Wow! Just read the comments to this article. Wow!!

[Saddlebum]

Sorry Tarlo your friend is going through this. Maybe a combination of hormone changes, too much news and not enough socialization, too remote for her???.

[Tarlo Farm]

Yeah, I'm blaming it on isolation. And as the article suggested, maybe a sense of lack of control.

[Chisamba]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/200809/paranoia-and-the-roots-conspiracy-theories

Wow! Just read the comments to this article. Wow!!

Yes the rebuttals are something!

[BlueMayPop]

Tarlo Farm: How old is your friend? I ask this because some studies have indicated that when people get "old", like into their 70s and beyond, they often become more gullible. Hence all the older people who are easily conned by various scams. This could be an extension of that perhaps?

But, that aside, I'd wonder about dementia, for sure.

[Tarlo Farm]

Younger than me! 56 I think. I'm going with isolation and hormones. I see the Pizzagate people protested at the White House Friday. All 24 of them.

[BlueMayPop]

Yeah, so not likely mild dementia or just being elderly.