I feel really helpless and alone a lot of the time because I've watched my parents buy into things like Qanon and "Trump is ordained by God" bs and so on since 2016 at least. I feel trapped and I feel heartbroken that I've had to come to the realization that they care more about the words of a guy they've never met, or a douchebag with a microphone on the internet than they do about what I think or what I have to say, and I've basically given up just to maintain my peace. (It's less that I'm dependent on them or more that they're dependent on me, bc I'm one out of two of us that can actually work and bring in money. Not going into personal details.)
I wouldn't even know where to begin unpacking their belief system bc to me it just seems to be a hodgepodge of alt-right conspiracy theories and vague Christian-adjacent-despite-claiming-to-be-not-religious ideas. I don't think it's even consistent, just what feels good to them. (especially for my Dad. I think he just regurgitates whatever reels he watches on Facebook all day. Right now, he believes the Earth is flat and cites the Bible as evidence- despite saying the Bible is fake and denouncing religion- and that we all came from alien beings who built this world and that alien DNA is within us.)
For my Mom, she's really disillusioned with mainstream religion and politics/politicians in general which I totally get. She'll say "both sides are bad", but then still say things that imply not being a Republican is bad, or that someone is a "Rhino". She's been burned numerous times in the past where she followed Qanon posts religiously and thought for sure what they promised was going to come true, only for it to never come to fruition. (Gee, I wonder what that sounds like...) So now her life motto is "I'll believe it when I see it." Which is a better alternative, but it's also so frustrating to have watched her get suckered so hard time and time again in the first place, knowing that my words never seemed to faze her.
She's disillusioned with Trump too, yet will still follow and listen to alt-right people like a douchebag named Skriptkeeper, and both of my parents will sometimes listen to a podcast called X22 Report that pushes alt-right propaganda which almost deifies Trump. I can't stomach it.
It's doubly frustrating because all of the things my parents feel disenfranchised over are things that more progressive and leftist ideas and activism is actually trying to address. But there are so many bad actors who take their grievances and blame it on immigrants, or trans people, or whatever the new boogeyman is, and then prop up people like Trump as some strong man figure who will save us all (as I've been hearing over and over and over for the past decade of my life) despite the real Trump being nothing like how these sycophants depict him. He's not fighting the man, HE IS PART OF THE "MAN", and I want to pull my hair out at how obvious it is to me yet never seems to click for my parents or basically anyone else around me.
I have to remove myself as much as possible because engaging with their beliefs and the propaganda they're fed is literally physically, mentally, and emotionally painful for me. I can't tell you how many times I've endured them crashing out over some new scary thing they've been told (like LibsofTikTok saying that antifa or whatever was coming to ravage our small nothing-burger rural town after Roe v. Wade was overturned... spoilers, that never happened) and my Mom telling it to me in a "you'll see, how dare you not believe me" manner, only for no such thing to ever happen and then they just go on without mentioning it again like they never did that.
Or my Dad once saying that Trump is a "white hat pedophile" who's going to expose all the other pedophiles and then later saying one day I'll "change my mind" about Trump. Um... ew. 🤢No, I don't think I will. (It's seriously so maddening how much my Dad loves Trump and will defend him no matter what. And it's kind of sad because my Dad would bend over backwards to please his own dad who only treated him like shit. It's like I'm watching him fall for another guy who will never come through for him and doesn't give two shits about him or even know him, and I just don't get it.)
Even after all the lies, broken promises and false hopes that my parents have experienced while in this shit, they continue to cling to it while feeling confused and bitter about the world and how their lives have gone and wishing for something better, and holding onto the thread of hope that maybe Qanon was right all along and that Trump really is a savior and that our lives will be magically better if all the "bad guys" (their words) could just get weeded out. I actually don't even know anymore.
Meanwhile, I'm just... here. And I'm forced to experience situations I don't want to be in because of their beliefs. Like once being lectured by my Mom on how I won't go to Heaven (or whatever their equivalent was at the time based on their beliefs at the time) with them because I was depressed or something, or not on the same wavelength as them. I can't remember, I just knew I was a sulking teenager lol.
It's just such a strange feeling to like.... have these experiences where I know I was misjudged or unfairly treated or treated like I was stupid for not believing in the same things, only for those beliefs to fall flat and they can just move on to the next thing while I'm still having to bear the memory and the baggage of that treatment.
I often feel completely stymied as a person because I simply do not have a voice here. Or, that voice does not matter here. And honestly, I can't even articulate to them why I feel so disheartened by the things they believe or listen to because it basically requires me to be a total expert in all things relating to it, otherwise it doesn't matter. It would take me so much longer to unpack all the lies than it takes for people to tell them. And as I've mentioned, it's painful for me to engage so I just don't.
It makes me feel like I'm living in an honest-to-god I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream situation. Except I do have a mouth, but I can't scream. I have no one beside me irl, right here, physically, who understands any of this or sees it for the bullshit it is who can be on my side. Basically everyone we meet and all our family members pretty much believe the same as my parents, and the ones who don't are assholes who basically reinforce my parents' idea of anyone left-of-center being evil and mindless. Because everyone on both sides of my family is fucking nuts and dysfunctional.
It truly honestly makes me wonder why I'm here at all. How is it that I've managed to be born like this, with the way I perceive the world and the values i have, and have it be so different from everything around me? What stopped me from being conservative, or right-wing, or thinking that the Anunnaki created everything or having any belief in God's benevolence at all, because I didn't even buy it when I was a little kid? And why is it that I can understand and feel as much as I do, yet can't even do anything about it? Why am I always only stymied so hard?
There is so, so much I can't even cover here. I've always desperately wanted to make a story about it because a lot of my experiences are too batshit and dumber-than-fiction to not at least try to communicate or use in some way, because I desperately need it to be seen and felt and understood and that this is what I've been through, because I'm not seen in my life at all. But at this point, I'm thinking I should just start making videos or something where I can talk plainly about it instead of blanketing it in a sexy narrative. (Which I still intend to do.)
I want my voice and my mind and my body for me. It needs to be nurtured.
