Anonymous, California, 7/6/24
My father has always been a family man. He grew up a Catholic, white man in the U.S., but has known hardship for most of his life, and still does. He had some of the racist tendencies you'd expect of a person of his upbringing. Mostly using confirmation bias to boost his opinions.
Nonetheless he had always been focused on his own little family he created. Doing his best to raise his children with his wife, despite his history of drug and alchohol abuse, and mental illness. Quitting for his children and being put on medication.
As life progressed after the main COVID era some might say, he was never the same. It went from constantly watching the news, to getting upset with people wearing their masks in the car. More and more propaganda flooded his brain, and capitalized on his anger at the world.
Soon this took a toll on his mental health. Doomsday preppers convincing him we had to stock up on food and water. It started with just buying canned goods. To solar powered generators. All the way to thousand dollar bullet proof vests.
This negative approach to the world around him shot him to into survival mode. Consuming violent negative media at any chance he could. He could hardly cope with his previous struggles and now it had become too much. His phone always playing in his pocket, aloud, the people he listens to on YouTube. Right extremist ideals, and doomsday. The worst is SaltyCracker.
My father confirms his own opinions and biases every single day by indulging this content. Never checking the facts. So much to the point where when he talks. it is the extremists talking for him. I no longer recognize my father. His mental state is thrashed.
He does not listen to anyone but the overconfident extremists on constant play. He has spent our savings, and other money we don't have. He is raising my little brothers to pass on his conservatism ideals in a world that is rejecting the hate and bias he carries.
It is a lonely journey trying to bring back the person you once knew. And save your siblings from the anger and rage of your father, while trying to create a life for yourself.
A man turned sour by people who capitalize on those who needed answers in such an unpredictable time. Depleting their mental healths. Stripping them away from their families. I wonder if he could handle this reality if he were to read what I am writing right now. And what so many others have been brave enough to share.