For two years, Jitarth Jadejaspent most of his timein the darkest corners of the web reading about conspiracy theories.
Mr Jadeja, 33, was an avid follower of QAnon — a baseless, far-right theory that started by alleging then-US president Donald Trump was fighting against a secret group of elites who ran a global child sex trafficking ring.
For hours each day, Mr Jadeja devoured cryptic predictionssharedby an anonymous online postercalled Q on the imageboard website4chan.
Mr Jadeja clung to the shadowy figure's updates until he started noticing that Q was getting things wrong —a lot.
In early 2018 for instance, an anonymous poster on 8chan (now known as 8kun) requestedQ to ask Mr Trump to say "tip top tippy top"as a shout-out to the QAnon community.
Four months after the post, Mr Trump mentioned the phrase in his Easter Egg Roll speech at the White House.
The coincidence was almost enough to lay Mr Jadeja's doubts to rest, but if Q had really told Mr Trump to say the phrase, why did it take himfour months to mentionit?
"I thought, if this can be debunked, then that's it," saysMr Jadeja, who lives in Sydney.
It only took a quick Google search to find a YouTube video showing clips of Mr Trump saying the phrase on several other occasions.
In minutes, Mr Jadeja realised that he had spent two years being led down a rabbit hole of false information.
"It felt like the whole universe sort of collapsed inside of me in one second."
Out of the rabbit hole
Mr Jadeja is among a growing number of people who have abandoned their beliefs in conspiracy theories.
While not much is known about these "exiters",online forums suggesthe's not alone.
QAnonCasualties– aReddit community for those impacted by QAnon and former believers —has grown to include 158,000 members since it was createdin July 2019.
And ReQovery—another Reddit support group geared towards ex-QAnon followers —has attracted almost 9,300 members in less than a year.
Like Mr Jadeja, Leila Hay, 19, knew that it was time to break up with Q when she realised none of their predictions had come to pass.
“I knew that a lot of the predictions had never come true, but I didn’t realise how many had not come true,” says Ms Hay, who lives in northern England.
"I was quite embarrassed."
While working from home during the pandemic last year, Ms Hay ended up spending her entire summer absorbed in all things QAnon.
Although she'd spent less time followingthe conspiracy theory than others, Ms Hay says shedding her beliefs has been a difficult process.
After believing celebrities were sending her subliminal messages through the media, she still couldn't bring herself to watch movies or listen to music months after she cut ties with the conspiracy theory.
Ms Hay says she also had moments where she wondered whether Qwasrightafter all, triggering her fear and anxiety.
"It took a lot longer to get out of it than it took for me to get into it."
Why can it be so hard to let go of false beliefs?
We are all prone to embracing the odd conspiracy theory, especially during times of upheaval and uncertainty like the COVID-19 pandemic, says Jolanda Jetten, a social psychologist at the University of Queensland.
This is because conspiracy theories seem tooffer meaningful explanations thathelp us make sense of our chaotic and random world —at least for a while.
"Conspiracy theories at least temporarily hold the promise that everything is explainable,"says Professor Jetten, who is currently exploring how people are drawn into believing in misinformation.
"It's an all-absorbing identity, which makes it even harder to get out."
Another reason why it's so hard to move away from conspiracy theories is the sense of community they provide, she adds.
For many believers, online communities form an important part of their daily lives, providing a place where they can talk with like-minded people who validate their beliefs and shield them from the ridicule and judgement of the outside world.
When ex-conspiracy theorists step out of these communities, they lose a support network that brought them a sense of validation, leaving them feeling isolated and alone.
"In that sense, it's not any different from [leaving] a cult,"Professor Jettensays.
"You're on your own in a world that may not feel accepting of you, which I can imagine is a very scary experience."
The right support is hard to come by
Fear of judgement and stigmacan make it difficult for recovering conspiracy theorists to reach out for help, but the lack of tailored support can also make it hard to find the right kind of help, saysAnke Richter.
"There are not many counsellors or mental health professionals who really understand [QAnon]," says Ms Richter,New Zealand-basedco-founder of Rabbit Hole Resistance, a Facebook support group for people who've been affected by conspiracy theories.
"It's going to be a long, hard road for people who have fallen into this to come back from it and find the right help."
After visiting several counsellors, Ms Hay knows this feeling all too well.
When she opened up to the first counsellor she saw about her "toxic relationship"with QAnon, they said they'd never heard of it.
"I was like, 'how am I going to work through this?'"Ms Hay says.
"My heart just sank."
And while Mr Jadeja says he's found online communities helpful, he wishes there were more in-person groupsthat could provide regular check-ins andencouragemembers to delve deep into why they're attracted to conspiracy theories in the first place.
Family and friends can help
One thing that can help prevent ex-conspiracy theoristsfrom falling back into the rabbit hole is surrounding themselves with people who do not share their pastbeliefs, says Steven Hassan, a US-based mental health counsellor who specialises in helping people leave destructive cults.
Friends and family members of former conspiracy theorists can help bysitting down and tryingto get to the bottom of whatpersuaded the person to believe in false information, Dr Hassan says.
But, he says, it's important to frame the conversation in a way that's respectful sothe person is able to find their own answers.
"Calling them names, telling them they're stupid and ramming them with facts— none of that works."
Finding support from people outside of conspiracy theories can also help former believers build a new identity that's free of their past views, Professor Jetten says.
"The availability of alternatives is incredibly important for moving out of that scene."
It can also be helpful to find common ground with those finding their way out of their conspiracy beliefs and to understand that their attraction to disprovedtheories often comes from good intentions,Ms Richter adds.
"Most end up with those beliefs because they actually really care for the world, or theirchildren's health,"she says.
Tackling conspiracy theories with kindness
It took a kind and patient friend to get Tanya*, 42,to abandon her conspiracy beliefs for good.
Tanya began delving into QAnon-related ideas and vaccine conspiracy theories while she was in lockdown in Auckland last year.
After posting her views on Facebook, Tanya received a message from a concerned friend, who had a background in science.
Over several Zoom calls, Tanya's friend explained how science works and how she separates fact from fiction in her research, such astracking down reliable sources of information in a sea of content on the web and finding the right journal articles.
After talking with her friend, Tanya realised the way she was gathering information online to back up the conspiracy theories she believed in was driven more by fear than logic.
But most of all, it was her friend's compassionate approach that helped her see the misinformation she was consuming for what it was.
"She took the time to explain a lot of things to me, giving me proper forms of research, rather than what I was doing," Tanya says.
"It alleviated a lot of my fear. The world is not that bad, it's OK."
Kindness from others has also been key to Mr Jadeja's recovery from QAnon.
Shortly after he abandoned his beliefs, he wrote a Reddit post about how he had been misledand the guilt he felt for pulling his father into the rabbit hole with him.
While he expected users to "rip me apart", he received waves of supportive comments from the online community.
"It was like they gave me permission to retain some semblance of self-worth and dignity,"Mr Jadeja says.
"They gave me a pathway back to society that I didn't think I deserved."
*A name hasbeen changed for privacy and safety.
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