The Great Abuse of QAnon
I’m sorry QAnon, but you are not God. QAnon does not have God on their side. QAnon are not truth-speakers. QAnon are not the news. QAnon are not stopping child sexual abuse. QAnon are neither self-aware nor able to handle scrutiny. QAnon are fixated and obsessive. QAnon are contradictory and hypocritical. QAnon are vindictive and abusive. QAnon harass and intimidate. QAnon are hateful and spiteful. I’ve endured this treatment. I’ve been harassed, mocked, ridiculed for refusing to believe the QAnon sales pitch. Other family members have been abused, threatened and defamed:
A grandson’s message to his grandmother:
“I will expose you publicly on twitter in front of all my followers. I get millions of views a month and I will not hold back. I will embarrass you, I will reveal to the world just how horrible, nasty and politically fuelled you lot are. I will post photos. I will dox you. Fuck around and find out…You will regret crossing me and my family. Stand the FUCK down. NOW!!!”
A nephew’s online post about his aunt:
“It’s okay, she is just a mentally ill, deranged leftist who has a fucked up son because she took hard drugs while she was pregnant. Her opinion is actually quite irrelevant. Burn may not have judgement, but I sure as fuck do.”
A nephew’s message to his uncle:
“All a bunch of pathetic cowards. You…your mum and dad…you[sic] brain dead sister. All pathetic fucking cowards.”
I’ve had the life experiences from which QAnon claim they’re protecting people, yet I am despised by them. Apparently, I have positioned myself as the enemy of the QAnon movement. An adage from my father: in order to have an enemy, you must first become an enemy. If my family members did not follow Q, they would not now consider me their enemy.
Apparently, my mental health is to blame for dividing our extended family. This was the same extended family that failed to act upon my sexual assault at the hands of church attendees. This was the same extended family that still maintain a relationship with the perpetrators of my sexual assaults. This was the same extended family that paid off the mediator before mediation was completed. Yet, I’m told the relationship breakdown is the fault of my mental health issues.
QAnon’s extreme aggression means they can’t sensitively manage the delicate topic of child sexual abuse. “Paedophile” or “paedophile enabler” are terms applied to denigrate any political opponent. They’ve used memes of crying women writing, “I was raped by whoever Trump nominates to replace Justice Ginsberg. I never told anyone because nobody paid me to say it till [sic] now.” I reported my own sexual assaults to police after twenty-one years. It is common for delayed reporting with child sexual abuse because often the perpetrator remains in their lives for many years.
My son was recently told by a QAnon follower, “Well, I wasn’t the person who had to go to mental hospital like your mother.” Yes, people put themselves into clinics when they’re overwhelmed. It saves lives! I’ve battled mental health issues since childhood : bulimia nervosa, anxiety, depression, agoraphobia. That is textbook stuff for those who have experienced sexual abuse. Yet, QAnons photo-shopped my face onto fat male bodies in a bid to shame me on social media, potentially triggering a life-threatening eating disorder.
QAnon followers obviously do not understand the long-term effects of child sexual abuse. Not at all. Not one little bit. If QAnon understood its effects, they would never:
use mental health as a weapon;
use a phallus to ridicule or mock a person;
harass a survivor of sexual abuse to join them in their paedophile hunt;
accuse a person of being untruthful because they waited years to report their abuse;
encourage a survivor of sexual abuse to wallow in the ugliness of paedophilia;
blame or shame the victim of sexual assault;
use the term “triggered” to mock a person who retaliates to their ridicule.
QAnon are peddling political propaganda and are standing on the precipice of inciting violence in USA and perhaps other countries. Their timelines are littered with war terminologies and depict tanks, guns, and gallows alongside Bible verses. Whatever religion this has become, it is not friendly to outsiders who can see potential danger. QAnon is devoid of compassion and respect. They are not showing #darktolight nor applying the Biblical concept of “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven[1].” Many QAnons hide their faces and are fearful of being “doxed” and are furious at having identities revealed. For people claiming that truth must be revealed this is a significant hypocrisy.
The alt-right is well known for its hatred and contempt for all other political and liberal views. QAnon exemplifies this disdain: Karen is to blame. Karen betrayed the family. Karen suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Karen is mentally ill. The last two years have been extremely difficult for our family. We’ve experienced verbal, emotional, and on one occasion, physical abuse. We huddle together, remembering the fun times, and lament the horrifying changes as succinctly described by my sibling:
The lunacy of Qanon stole my brother's brain. I am deeply saddened by this and am extremely concerned for my brother's current state of mind. Devastatingly, he has also led his immediate family towards Qanon. I find myself upset at my brother for leading his children down this dark and violent path that is designed to alter one’s version of reality. I have always previously enjoyed a good relationship with my nephew, however my nephew's growing obsession with Qanon manifested itself recently whereby I received a barrage of vile and aggressive personal threats from someone who has now been turned into a hostile and combative young man. This is not the considerate and balanced nephew I knew years ago - Qanon has poisoned his brain, courtesy of his father, and I am unsure of the antidote.
We are grateful to have found the organisation called Step Together who provided us with guidance and advice. I have received sound counsel from those wiser than me. Relationships in the virtual world have turned strangers into friends, providing necessary support and emotional sustenance.
It is almost impossible to describe the horror of watching family members become extremist in their views; to experience a once-loving family disintegrate into hatred and intolerance. It’s especially burdensome when I’m told the fault is mine.
[1] Matthew 5:16