Covid has turned my [33F] husband [34M] into a crazy "prepper" "doomer" type. How do I get him back to reality?

I'll try to tiptoe around politics as much as I can but it will be hard to avoid as it definitely plays a part in my situation.

I'll preface this with I've been with my husband for 14 years and love him very deeply and he has done nothing to physically or emotionally hurt me, though he has hurt us financially. The way he has been with me out entire time together, I cannot imagine him doing anything abusive to me, I just really realty really want to get him out of this mental rabbit hole for his own safety and our financial future.

My husband is bipolar and I have seen his mania flare up in the form of spending sprees and having a short temper with strangers for being rude and I've seen him have bouts of mild depression, but 95% of the time his medication does the job and he is very level headed and these states of mania and depression generally never last more then a few weeks. He has never been particularly enthusiastic about politics, he'll get pretty excited about a candidate he likes around election times and will be happy if they win but other than that his interest in politics was limited to a remark about something he read in the news or an off color remark about a politician after he's had a few drinks. These past 14 months have been some strange combination of mania, depression, and a state of political enthrallmant.

In early 2020 he got particularly excited about a certain presidential candidate. He regularly expressed frustration with how the media was treating his preferred candidate and started criticizing the legitimacy of the media. A couple months later when that candidates aspirations didn't pan out was when covid started really making the news. I thought he would shrug off his candidate's loss as usual, which he seemed to do, however, that distrust of the media remained. As time went on, I would come to see that his perception of being spurned by those he agreed with politically set something off in his political ideas. Over the course of about three months his political views went from being "I generally agree with this party so I tend to vote for their candidates (but otherwise don't really talk politics)" to "anti government-of-any-type (and won't stop talking about it) radical".

I think that's most of the background, now we come to the real meat of what's been happening. For months now he has been poring over conspiracy forums (most of which reside on this very site). He has become convinced that the American dollar will collapse within 5 years and that covid is a manufactured crisis designed to consolidate global power and usher in authoritarian regimes (ex: he flatly refuses to wear a mask, claiming it's a symbol of oppression and a "testing ground" for how how far people are willing to let the government go). He has planted over 100 fruit trees and bushes (to be fair he does know how to grow these plants so it's not a total waste of money, but we had enough fruit to give away from just 5 blueberry bushes, a grapevine, a peach tree, and two apple trees before so I have no idea how he plans to process more than ten times that), he is designing a chicken coop for more than 20 chickens, is planning to turn every other square inch of available space into places to grow corn, and is seriously entertaining to notion of buying sheep and/or goats. He bought a 25 gallon still for water purification. He has bought more than 100 pounds of dry rice and beans and 100 5-gallon propane tanks. In 2019 he never felt strongly one way or the other about guns but he had shotgun and a pistol in the house for home defense. Now he has an almost zealous love for guns, owning three AR-15s, eight pistols, four shotguns, and thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition for each one. When I ask him why on earth do we need so many guns his response is "insurance" (don't worry, I have zero fear he's going to go out and shoot anyone). He spends every extra dime on gold and silver bullion. Does all that sound expensive? We live fairly comfortably but could in no way afford all that in a year. He paid for it by taking $30,000 (after the tax penalty) out of his 401K.

With vaccinations in full gear across the country I thought this would abate his fears and bring him back to reality but to him the vaccination drive "is all part of 'their' plan" (he has also stated he will quit his job if they require it). His worldview only continues to darken and this reckless spending shows no sign of ending. He is fully prepared to max out his credit card to keep "prepping", believing that it won't matter as the dollar will be worthless when the bill comes due.

How can I snap him out of this? He continues to take his medication so that's not causing this. What started out as a good faith criticism of the media has evolved into an outright rejection of any news he doesn't want to believe. I can't get him to stop reading doom and gloom forums as that is his source of news now. He is very well educated and works in a science field so he does not fit the mold of the "prone to conspiracy theories" type. I love my husband, I actually like the idea of a little homesteading, being less reliant on grocery stores and whatnot, but I don't want to live the lifestyle of an 1800s subsistence farmer. How can I break through to him?

TL;DR: My husband is convinced the world is collapsing and is blowing through his savings at breakneck speed and will likely get himself tens of thousands of dollars into debt if he doesn't calm down. He seems immune to any sort of reason or good news. How do I get him to see the world optimistically again?

Edit: If the word "divorce" appears in your comment I'm going to immediately disregard whatever else you say. I've spent my entire adult life with this man. Before this we never had arguments more serious than what to eat for dinner or how many treats to give the dog and even through all this he has never made me feel remotely unsafe. To think I would drop the love of my life just because he might cost me some money is disgusting. In fact he pulled me out of a bad financial background. I'm looking for ways to talk someone I love through a mental health issue, not how to cut a bad investment.

Submitted April 10, 2021 at 07:25AM by vbergdl https://ift.tt/3sde8qY