PROVIDENCE, RI (AP) – Ceally Smith spent a year down the rabbit hole of QAnon, spending increasing amounts of time researching and discussing the conspiracy theory online. In the end it consumed her, and she wanted to leave.
She broke up with the boyfriend who recruited her to the movement, took six months off social media, and turned to therapy and yoga.
“I was like, I can’t live like this. I am a single mom, work, go to school and do the best for my children, ”says Smith, 32, from Kansas City, Missouri. “I personally didn’t have the bandwidth to do this and show up to my kids. Even if it were all true, I just couldn’t do it anymore. “
More than a week after Donald Trump left the White House and shattered their hopes that he would expose the global cabal, some QAnon supporters have made up increasingly elaborate stories to keep their faith alive. But others, like Smith, are turning to therapy and online support groups to talk about the damage done when beliefs collide with reality.
The QAnon conspiracy theory surfaced on internet message boards in 2017. Essentially, the movement alleges that Trump is in a secret battle against the “ deep state ” and a sect of powerful devil-worshiping pedophiles that call Hollywood, the big business, the media and government.
It is named after Q, an anonymous poster believed by believers to have top-secret government clearance and whose posts are considered predictions of “the plan” and the “storm” and “great awakening” in which evil will be defeated.
It’s not clear exactly how many people believe (part of) the story, but the movement’s backers were outspoken in their support of Trump and helped fuel the insurgents who conquered the Capitol this month. QAnon is also growing in popularity abroad.
Former believers interviewed by The Associated Press liken the process of leaving QAnon to drug addiction withdrawal. QAnon, they say, provides simple explanations for a complicated world and creates an online community that offers escape and even friendship.
Smith’s boyfriend at the time introduced her to QAnon. It was all he could talk about, she said. She was skeptical at first, but she became convinced after the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein while in federal custody and was charged with pedophilia. Officials debunked theories that he was murdered, but for Smith and other QAnon supporters, his suicide while facing child sex was too much to accept.
Soon, Smith was spending more time on fringe websites and on social media, reading and posting about the conspiracy theory. She said she fell for QAnon content that provided no proof, no counter-arguments and yet was all too convincing.
“We as a society must teach 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 to leave, suffocated by dark prophecies that continued to take her time, leaving her terrified.
Her boyfriend at the time saw her decision to leave QAnon as a betrayal. She said she no longer believes in the theory and wanted to share her story in the hope it would help others.
“I was one of those people too,” she said of QAnon and his hold. “I came out on the other side because I wanted to feel better.”
Another ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, created a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as the relatives of people who are still consumed by the theory. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 114,000 members. Three new moderators had to be added to keep up.
“They are our friends and family,” said Jadeja from Sydney, Australia. “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy to the normal people, the good people who have been brainwashed by this death cult. “
His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Quit social media, take a deep breath, and put that energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Michael Frink is a Mississippi-based computer engineer who is now moderating a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while mocking the group has never been more popular online, it will only alienate people further.
Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory, but sympathizes with those who did.
“I think after the inauguration a lot of them realized they had been taken for a ride,” he said. “These are people. If you have a loved one in it: make sure they know they are loved. “
According to Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College, supporters of QAnon are likely to respond in three general ways as reality undermines their beliefs.
Those who have only worked on the conspiracy theory can shrug and move on, Cohen said. At the other extreme, some militant believers may migrate to radical anti-government groups and possibly plot violent crimes. Indeed, some QAnon believers have already done so.
In the center, he said, are the many followers who looked to QAnon “to help them understand the world, to give them a sense of control.” These people can simply revise QAnon’s elastic narrative to fit reality, rather than face being misled.
“This is not about critical thinking, having a hypothesis, and using facts to back it up,” Cohen said of QAnon believers. “They need these beliefs, and if you take that away because the storm hasn’t come, they can just move the goalposts.”
Some are now saying that Trump’s loss was always part of the plan, or that he secretly remains president, or even that Joe Biden’s inauguration was created using special effects or body doubles. They insist that Trump will be victorious, and according to recent social media reports, powerful figures in politics, business and the media will be tried and possibly executed on live television.
“Everyone will be arrested soon. Confirmed information, ”read a report that was viewed 130,000 times this week on Great Awakening, a popular QAnon channel on Telegram. “From the very beginning I said it would happen.”
But a different tone emerges in the spaces created for those who have heard enough.
“Hi, my name is Joe,” a man on a Q recovery channel wrote in Telegram. “And I am a recovering QAnoner.”