I was raised by a Conspiracy Theorist. In the years since I broke out of my family, I’ve tried to find the right label for my father. Narcissistic Personality Disorder seemed close, but it didn’t include the depths of hatred that my father was capable of. He wasn’t depressed. His paranoia was kind of low grade. None of those labels totally encompass my father.
But after four years of Trump, I’ve decided that Conspiracy Theorist should be considered its own disorder. The irrationality and hatred are what distinguish it from narcissism. My dad speaks in the same word salad that Trump speaks in. He makes crazy jumps of reasoning that only make sense to him. He can’t fathom that there should ever be consequences for his behavior. Anyone who disagrees with him is evil and must be destroyed. He blames entire groups of people for anything/everything. My father has a real talent for hatred. It’s like this floating cloud of hatred that seizes on a group and imbues that group with every evil motive my father can imagine. The target of the hatred changes sometimes, but the hatred is the same. Conspiracy theories, at their heart, are just manufactured reasons to hate and blame a group of people.
What really messes with your head is how normal a Conspiracy Theorist is in the other areas of his life. My dad was a good employee and a helpful neighbor. He came to all our school stuff. He fixed cars and enjoyed woodworking. He hugged us and told us he loved us. We went on family vacations, had family game night, did work projects together, went to church every week. What a great guy.
Except if you disagreed with something that mattered to him. He wasn’t a total control freak. In areas where Dad didn’t have an opinion, I was free to think for myself. Like, I could choose which books to read and which classes to take in school. But there were areas of life in which Dad was king because to cross him was unthinkable. Anything about politics, laws, medicine, education, the entire mental health profession, history, the local city council, science, that guy at work, the economy, religion, vaccines, plastic, that guy at church, clothes, gender roles, and whatever else Dad decided to have an opinion on belonged solely to Dad. We just avoided those topics in our family. Conversation was full of gossip and anecdotes because telling a story was the only thing we could talk about without Dad taking over. I remember the total shock I felt when a friend of mine said she talked politics with her dad. “He listens to you?” I asked in disbelief.
The thing is, we (siblings and Mom) knew there was something wrong with Dad. We rolled our eyes at his rants. Everyone knew not to take him seriously, not to argue, not to set him off. Everyone KNEW he was whacko. But we all worked to shield him from our opinion of him. We said we were protecting him, but really we were protecting ourselves. With a Conspiracy Theorist, there is no genuine love in the family, just approval. If you let Dad live in his fantasy world, he approved of you. That’s the closest my family got to love. The alternative was Dad’s utter hatred of you, and we all knew just how good Dad was at hatred.
You know how Trump immediately turned on anyone who was disloyal to him? The contempt, the anger, the smears? Yeah, my Dad’s like that too. Twelve years ago, I finally told him what I thought of him. My Dad briefly tried to fix me - he told me I was under the influence of Satan and I should repent. I didn’t. You know how Trump treated Romney? I’m my dad’s Mitt Romney. My mom is Mitch McConnell and my siblings are the other suckup Republican leadership - you saw how they treated Romney after he voted to impeach Trump (the first time). My family knows I’m right about Dad, but they hate me for saying it. And because my family has been trained in hatred by a grand master, that’s really saying something.
Those Conspiracy Theorists who rioted in the U.S. Capitol the other day - many of them have families. Trump has a family. Most of those families will be loyal to their Conspiracy Theorist.
I’m writing this because I’m hoping there are some other people who have been able to break away from Conspiracy Theorist parents. It’s traumatic. You can’t do a ‘soft departure’ or ‘agree to disagree.’ It’s all or nothing. If you disagree with a Conspiracy Theorist, he will try to destroy you and the rest of the family either joins him, or lets it happen. Parents shape your worldview, and that shatters completely when you leave. I’ve had to rebuild everything I think and feel from scratch - alone.
Anyway. Just. Yeah. I want a support group for children of Conspiracy Theorists. Reply to this post if you were raised by a Conspiracy Theorist and you’ve rejected that worldview. If there’s enough response, maybe I’ll start a sideblog.
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