My mother is all into homesteading and off-grid living videos right now. Every time I check up on her, this is what she wants to talk about.
It gives her a sense of peace and purpose I guess. Which is good, she’s been struggling to find that with her injuries and condition. She’s learning skills, and feeling prepared for “the worst”. Like I can’t get her to stop watching conspiracy theory bullshit on YouTube so at least this kind of content alleviates some of the anxiety the other content amplifies, because she feels like she can do something now to secure her safety later.
But to get through these conversations, I have to tell myself— hey, if natural disaster comes our way, some of this might be useful. But I know she’s not just thinking a big storm or natural disaster. She’s preparing for the collapse of society. And I don’t know how to break it to her that we wouldn’t survive that. You can make long lasting candles with crisco? Cool. Where you going to by crisco when society collapses? You’ll stock up now? Ok cool. What will you do when it runs out? Honestly, before it runs out, what will you do when people with guns come to take your various stockpiled supplies?
If we hit a point where society collapses, we’re done for. Food, medicine, etc. we can’t survive without society, without a world where people are working together trying to help each other out.
So, I’ll go through with this shit in the name of natural disaster preparedness, and because it helps her. But that’s as far as I’m willing to put energy into it. I refuse to prepare for, bet on, or hope for the collapse of society. I’d rather spend my energy trying to prevent society collapsing, what little part I can play in that. I’d rather spend my energy supporting people in my community. I’d rather work and build towards a better future, not prepare for the worst.
OP, if your mother is physically able to do the following, I strongly suggest it:
Get her into a fibercraft. Sewing, knit, crochet. Because here’s the thing:
At first, you can pitch it as “we’re all still gonna need clothes and these idiots with their doomsday bunkers can’t even thread a needle.” But after awhile—let this take a bit of time, not so long that she gets bored but long enough that she’s like “I’ve DONE this already”—introduce her to a slightly more advanced concept. She was practicing on circle skirts? Check out how to make darts. Crochet blankets? There are SO MANY cool stitches.
And then when the craft has a decent grip as a hobby….THEN you introduce her to a crafting social group.
One of the best ways to stop people falling down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole is to make sure they have active and diverse community, and being able to make tangible things has been shown to have a positive influence on mental health. If cost is a concern, I literally have spare crochet hooks I could send you to get her started and all I’d ask for them is cost of postage, which is like. Maybe three bucks. You can even find halfway decent yarn at the dollar store now. It’s not amazingly high quality, but it’s good enough for practice and learning.
I cannot recommend the above enough. My dad is a prepper and was falling in with a militia. Like the white supremacy militias.
So I started casually mentioning i wanted to do Search and Rescue- knowing my father is incredibly competitive and will try and out do me.
I was all "but we can't rely on the government to find people!"
Now he has been on 6 different tours in the US. He is a field commander and the most successful in state history.
He independently made a partnership with a Black and Missing coalition and partners with them on searches for Black Ohio and.
He called me the other day so proud he has " a Trans and a nonbinary whatever that is" on his search team. So is he perfect? No. But now he isn't toting a gun around and threatening people.
He's getting better. Sure he built a secret bunker in the basement. But he's recovered multiple bodies and reunited people with loved ones.
Sure we still can't have a conversation without him divulging into some bigoted speak here and there.
But he's been lead in recovering teens trafficked from our state and successfully recovered them in Georgia in 10 hours.
Sure he isn't perfect. But he didn't fall completely and maybe he will become even better on his own.
The secret is: is they aren't going to become themselves again but you can help them not crumble completely. You can still have your parent even if they are a bit.. ahhhh.... hurtful. But they aren't hurting anyone and that's the important part.
We are what we become. So help people become in a good direction.
Part of the reason people (particularly white people) of a certain age fall down the doomsday preparation hole into conspiracy theorist is
there is very little community for non-churchgoing white folks.
There is such a push in white culture to get your kids out the door and settled in their own home after you've raised them nearly exclusively alone for 20 years. Your work friends are your work friends. You retire and they don't see you anymore.
You don't go to church? All of the church groups don't see you.
Because the prevalent culture among white people is go it alone. If you're lucky and not divorced, you get your partner, but usually the go it alone is so pervasive that even working as a team with one other person is usually too hard, not to mention the stress of only having one person and how you have no place to vent about that person when needed (and everyone sometimes needs to vent about their loved ones no matter how good the relationship.)
So you get to this place where your culture has led you and you have grown-up kids, no spouse, no friends, and a whole lot of undefinable resentment about your life that you're not supposed to feel.
And this person on youtube comes along and says "Fuck them all, society will collapse any day now."
And you nod along in agreement.
But if you have a hobby, and start making friends from that hobby?
Suddenly that support system vents all of those icky building resentments and you can depend on people and make friends and have relationships and the world doesn't feel so bad.
Honestly, white culture takes a pack animal and puts it in a cage alone and then wonders why so many white people are miserable, racist pricks.
I highly recommend amateur radio as another community-building hobby. My Dad has been involved in it for decades, and he’s told me about the various right wing prepper types who join the chats and slowly become better people.
People who are isolated and alone are a lot more likely to assume that nobody is helping anybody, and that society will collapse and nobody will help them. That has predictable emotional fallout, which has predictable behavioral impacts.
I realize I was already here, but since people have added SO MUCH good stuff (seriously you guys this is one time when you should definitely read the notes), I want to add something important I've been saying a lot lately that relates to many of those wonderful notes:
"Neighbor" is a verb.
A neighbor is not something you are. Neighboring is something you do.
The guy next door to you is a crabby old fuck and you don't even know his name, but it snowed last night and he uses a cane? Shovel his sidewalk. Neighbor.
The people across the street had multiple police cars with lights on at their house last night? Take a casserole over and say you don't know what happened but you worried about them. Neighbor. If you want to level up here, a lot of people don't know the Dish Return Etiquette anymore (I have permanently lost my three-quart pot to this and I'm sad about it), so go to Goodwill and pick up some cheap plates/casserole dishes/etc. to use specifically for this purpose. If it never comes back, well, you've also given them a dish they needed. Neighbor.
There's trash on your street? Get a grabber and some trash bags. I did this on a particularly nasty corner along my commute and lo and behold people who are not me are now trying to keep it cleaner. Neighbor.
Whenever I help someone and they ask how to pay me back, I always say the same thing: "someday, things will be better for you. And you'll be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right resources to help someone. When that day comes, help, and ask the same payment of them that I'm asking of you."
Get those conspiracy folks into neighboring--but know that means you have to neighbor, too.
