The Conspirituality Report
If They Got Out of QAnon or That Anti-Vax Group…
Give them space online, listen generously, be kind
Over the next months and years, there will be many people exiting cultic bonds and beginning the often torturous process of healing their brains, hearts, and relationships. Some will have the resources to become activists who can reach out to their former communities.
They’ll be exiting QAnon, alt-right groups, anti-vax mom groups, anti-lockdown rally groups, anti-mask groups, and the online subscription communities of narcissistic messianic wellness influencers who offer love in one hand and terror in the other.
Many will have suffered from a triple isolation: from the outside world, from fellow members who offered toxic alliances disguised as friendship — and to whom they could not confess their doubts — and from their own sense of internal guidance. (cf. Stein)
The cultic group or ideology will have stolen precious, intimate things: marriages, family bonds, altruism, their capacity to trust. It might be very hard for them to grasp that there are people in the world who are earnestly trying to listen and tell the truth about things.
