My [28F] father [61M] is a major conspiracy theorist who is pretty deep into QAnon. I am also dealing eith grief from losing my husband [36M] to suicide last year. How can I maintain a relationship with my father without losing my sanity?

TW: I do include some details about my husband's suicide that may be disturbing.

For background, I live in the US.

I am no stranger to trauma. My parents [61M/56F] had rough childhoods. My father was physically and verbally abused heavily by his parents and ostracized by his peers due to not being a member of the dominant religion in our area. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and I believe he exhibited symptoms of this disorder from a young age. I wouldn't be surprised if he has Aspberger's as well based on how he thinks and behaves. He escaped his awful home life by enlisting in the military. He saw combat in 2002 and though I don't know the specifics, my understanding is that he saw a close friend [18M] in his unit step on a landmine and die. He has also mentioned experiences of witnessing people being tortured. He was sent home from his deployment earlier than expected and was honorably discharged for reasons unknown to me (I surmise that it is related to his mental condition). Because of his experience overseas, he deeply distrusts the government. His father died from cancer pretty soon after he was discharged from the military, which led him into a deep depression. His experience with antidepressants during this period of time led him to have suicidal thoughts, so he now refuses treatment. My therapist (whom I have known for 9 years) told me that she is concerned that his mental state is too fragile for therapy.

I won't go into details about my mother, but let's just say that she is from a third world country and had high expectations for my brother and I. Both of my parents took their stress out on us children. My brother coped by never being home and got involved with drugs and alcohol as a teenager. I coped by desnsitizing myself to the abuse and focusing on schoolwork and extracurricular activities in high school.

At age 23, I moved to another state to get away from the toxicity of my family. During that time, my parents found a balance in their relationship and genuinely seemed to be happy as empty nesters, though they did miss me. I did not speak to them until after I had already started dating my husband. He was a kind, gentle man who could see that I loved my family very much and helped me heal some of my childhood wounds and restart my relationship with them.

My husband had always been suicidal, but a combination of stressors sent his spiraling downard faster at the end of 2019. The pandemic only added to his stress. In August 2020, he locked himself in our bathroom and shot himself twice. I did not see the body, but I did hear sounds of his body dying and I also have distinct memories of the smell of blood mixed with gunshot smoke. I have worked with a trauma specialist and my therapist to manage the anxiety from the events of my husband's death, but I feel that I am still in the beginning of working through all of this.

I decided to move back to my home state to be near family and friends and to avoid the constant triggers of living in the area where I shared my life with my husband. I had hoped to move back in with my dad, but my brother warned me that my parents' home had turned into a hoarder's nest. I opted to move in with some friends for a bit, and then moved into a house with four other women. This actually hurt my father's feelings because he is quite lonely and was looking forward to having me around.

My mother has been in her home country since October 2019. She was caring for my dying grandmother. My grandmother passed away in April 2020, and my mother decided to stay in her home country to sort out some legal issues unrelated to my grandmother's estate. My father had decided to join her as he was fired in 2018 and only has his military pension to live off, and our home state is getting too expensive for him to live in. Unfortunately, his mind has been warped by conspiracy theories about the pandemic, and that is causing a delay in his departure. Initially, he was deeply disturbed by the nasopharynx covid test. I've gotten tested at least 6 times since August (stress has weakened my immune system and whenever I start to feel ill, my job requires me to get tested before I can come back to work), and I think I have finally convinced him that it's not as bad as he was led to believe. Sadly, the issues don't end there.

My father has a lot of beliefs that I don't agree with. I am quite liberal and try to evaluate information by reviewing multiple sources, but I believe in wearing masks, social distancing, and getting vaccinated is the best course or action right now. My father believes that the billionaires in the US created the covid-19 strain and released it in China to start a trade war between China and the US. The US gonvernment is using this pandemic as an excuse to control us by taking away our civil liberties. Additionally, the entire world is run by some world order filled with pedophiles that has a child sex trafficking ring going on or something. Also, there are Chinese and Russian troops gathering at the US borders in Canada and Mexico waiting to invade. There's more, but typing it all out is giving me a tension headache.

The straw that broke the camel's back came yesterday. I received my first covid vaccine shot on Wednesday. I try to pop in to see my dad daily, so when I went over there yesterday, I mentioned that I was grateful that I haven't been feeling any of the side effects of the vaccine so far. My father started ranting about how the vaccine is going to destroy my plaventa so that I can't have kids. I told him that placenta is not developed unless there is a fetus growing in the womb, and I am currently not pregnant. He told me that I was incorrect and all women have placenta and now mine will be destroyed. At this point, I'm not super keen on having children without my husband, so I told him that this information didn't concern me. He then told me that the vaccine was designed to corrupt my DNA and I would develop cancer in the next 5-10 years. I told him that I had assumed that I would get cancer sometime in my lifetime, but if I get it in the next 5-10 years, then I would just deal with it. Either I will die and not have to worry about anything anymore, or I will survive and be more prepared for the next round of traumatic life events that await me. This led to a shouting match about how I'm basically a member of the CCP and he can't believe that he let the liberals get to me in high school.

I'm sure that many people would distance themselves for their own sanity, but losing my husband made me realize that being there for the ones you love is the most important thing in the world to me. However, I am really struggling with my dad's anger. He is a recluse with no social contact besides his cats and the occasional phone call from my mother.

Does anyone have any advice on how to navigate this sort of situation? My father and I need each other, but we can't see eye to eye on how the world works. I can't live with myself knowing that he is all alone, and my brother isn't able to step in and help. What can I do at this point?

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tl;dr: My mentally ill dad believes in conspiracy theories that I disagree with, which is causing conflict in our relationship and taking an emotional toll on me. I am a grieving widow just trying to move forward and it is important to me to be in my father's life. Is there any way to manage this situation?

Submitted March 20, 2021 at 01:01PM by 2021relationshipta https://ift.tt/3tEVNUz