'Trump just used us and our fear': Ex-QAnon supporter explains why she stopped believing

A former believer in the thoroughly discredited QAnon conspiracy theory has given a lengthy interview with the New York Times explaining how she deprogrammed herself and started living in reality again.

Michigan resident Lenka Perron tells that Times that she was a Bernie Sanders supporter who grew disillusioned with the party after WikiLeaks released internal Democratic National Committee emails showing that the party establishment clearly preferred that Hillary Clinton win the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

It didn't take long for her disgust with the Democratic establishment to take her into the realm of conspiracy theories, especially the QAnon conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton is involved in a global pedophilia wing.

Her obsession with QAnon deeply damaged relationships between friends and family members, as she would frequently stay up late into the night reading about former President Donald Trump's plan to take down the Satanist pedophiles who were his sworn enemies.

Along the way, however, Perron noticed that Q's predictions about mass arrests of Trump opponents were not coming true.

"People claiming to be sources inside the government had posted on Facebook that John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff, was about to be indicted," the Times writes. "And yet on her phone she was watching a video that showed him chatting casually in front of an audience. Around the same time she saw Hillary Clinton, another supposed target for an indictment, walking in Hawaii, looking relaxed and holding a coffee cup."

Now she tells the Times that she regrets letting herself be manipulated by whoever concocted the QAnon conspiracy theory.

""Trump just used us and our fear," she said. "When you are no longer living in fear, you are no longer prone to believe this stuff."