Conspiracy theories are a mental health crisis mashable.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mashable.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Gemma Conroy, ABC Science Reporter
Analysis - For two years, Jitarth Jadeja spent most of his time in the darkest corners of the web reading about conspiracy theories.
A person wears a QAnon sweatshirt during a pro-Trump rally on October 3, 2020 in the borough of Staten Island in New York City.
Photo: AFP / 2020 Getty Images
Jadeja, 33, was an avid follower of QAnon - a baseless, far-right theory that started by alleging then-US president Donald Trump was fighting against a secret group of elites who ran a global child sex trafficking ring.
For hours each day, Jadeja devoured cryptic predictions shared by an anonymous online poster called Q on the imageboard website 4chan.
The battle to quit QAnon and other premium stories you may have missed this week
16 Apr, 2021 02:30 AM
8 minutes to read
The -Trump QAnon movement remains popular around the world. Photo / Getty Images
NZ Herald
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Quitting QAnon: Why it is so difficult to abandon a conspiracy theory
It took Leila Hay, a softly-spoken university student from northern England, less than 24 hours to become sucked into the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory during a lonely first coronavirus lockdown.
Quitting QAnon: Why it is so difficult to abandon a conspiracy theory nzherald.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzherald.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
February 18, 2021
Some experts say U.S. mental health community is woefully unprepared to help conspiracy cult followers break free.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
It was easy enough to fall for QAnon in 2020 political leaders from former President Trump on down gave a gloss of credibility. Easy to get into much harder to get out of. I didn t want people to think I was stupid.
Nineteen-year-old Leila Hay says she was scared of being judged for believing the lies which start with liberal, Satan-worshipping pedophiles running the world and end with a fantasy that Trump would swoop in to save the day and stay in power. So even when she realized QAnon had isolated her from family and friends, she hesitated to get help.