Redheaded Jill

Definition of conspiracy thoery: a belief that some secret but influential organization is responsible for an event or phenomenon.

Definition of conspiracy: the act of conspiring together.

Before you mock your conspiracy theorist friends keep in mind… conspiracies happen ALL the time. Our country was founded on a group of men conspiring together. So don’t only view this as a negative.

Step 1: Righteous Indignation. When you first learn of a conspiracy that you believed in you are filled with righteous indignation. How dare ________ lie! The desire to tell everyone in your life about it is so strong. Why? Because you love them and want them to be aware of the lies and danger in this world.

Step 2: Disappointment. The people around you likely won’t believe you, or at least won’t agree with you. The might even get offended! You are asking them to alter their whole belief system based on your word and the things you’ve read online. You will get told, “You’re not a doctor/scientist/historian/professional.” You’ll hear, “If you tell people you believe X then they’ll never trust you again no matter what the topic is.” It’s disheartening. People will tell you you’re crazy.

Step 3: Research. You’ll start to go down all the rabbit holes. You’ll research any and everything. You’ll QUESTION any and everything.

Step 4: Fear. Your loved ones don’t believe you. The people the conspiracy is about are winning and you have no way to stop them. This is often the prepper stage. Nothing is trustworthy. No one is coming to help you. You have to help yourself. You get hard core into gardening, eating clean, looking to move out of cities, etc…

Step 5: Exhaustion. You get tired. Everything can kill you. Everything can hurt you. Nothing is safe. You are so tired from worrying about yourself and your loved ones that you physically exhaust yourself.

Step 6: Despair. What’s the point? Nobody is listening to you. Why not let whatever is coming happen? You might feel like giving up at this point.

Step 7: Realizing that things might not be that bad. It’s been a while and life is still going on. The government hasn’t completely collapsed yet. You are still able to find food and water, although things are getting pricier. You have made lots of friends on a similar life journey and you start trading with one another. A community starts to form.

Step 8: Acceptance. You decide all you can do is make the best choices for you. It no longer seems important to share all the knowledge you have with your loved ones. You realize family harmony is more important to being told you’re right.

Step 9: Conspiracy Theorist Nirvana. You are at peace. You can’t save anyone. All you can do is tend to yourself. So you do that. And you keep on living. Maybe you don’t shop at the grocery store anymore and only visit farmers markets or grow food yourself. Maybe you only eat meat you process and drink milk from your own cow. You feel no shame for your choices, and you openly talk about why you live the way you do, but you don’t fight with people about it. You are comfortable in your choices and leave them to be comfortable in theirs.

At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter of affect your life that much. You can keep functioning regardless of who the president is. You can continue to live regardless of who was behind what historical event or tragedy or war or anything. God is still God and we’re all just doing our best.