QAnon conspiracies have ensnared possibly millions of Americans, leaving their loved ones bewildered, angry and sad.
HuffPost spoke to nine children of QAnon adherents around the country, ranging from 19 to 46 years old, who feel they've lost their parents for good to the right-wing conspiracy theory whose spread they blame on Fox News, social media companies and former president Donald Trump.
"They started taking everything from Fox News and everything out of Trump's mouth as gospel," said Sabrina, a 19-year-old whose parents bought into the conspiracy. "There's a lot of reasons to hate Trump, but the biggest, most personal reason to me is that he took my parents away from me."
Sabrina said her dad first got into QAnon last spring, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and she at first tried to debunk the theory's baseless claims, but eventually their clashes became so intense that her parents kicked her out of the house -- and she hasn't heard from them since.
"Telling them their beliefs were wrong only strengthened that belief in their mind," she said. "It just made them more convinced they were right. I wish I had just stayed quiet."
Sam, another 19-year-old, moved back in with his mother when his college campus shut down at the start of the pandemic, and he started noticing changes to her already nervous disposition -- her obsessive Facebook use quickly spiraled into deranged paranoia -- and he found QAnon was to blame after researching the #SaveTheChildren hashtag she'd been using.
"She wasn't always like this," Sam said. "It just keeps getting worse."
Sam's mother was convinced that Joe Biden was a satanic pedophile who stole the election from Trump, and she stocked up on food and other items to prepare for an onslaught by Black Lives Matter activists whose cause she once supported.
"It's hard. I don't know what to do," he said. "I do feel like I'm losing her."
Kara, a 46-year-old health care worker in the Midwest, said her mother's descent into QAnon paranoia accelerated after she retired, and she quit taking care of herself and her husband to spend hours binging conspiracy content on her phone.
"You wouldn't believe the stress in her face when she thinks that some big thing is going to happen," Kara said. "She looks like she saw a ghost. This has taken years off her life."
Pushing back against those beliefs only drives their parents deeper into an online QAnon community that's eager to embrace outcasts, several children said.
"She has told me before that — and it's wild saying this out loud — but that if I don't believe in this stuff, then I'm not going to 'ascend' or be part of the next world," said Elaina, a 28-year-old graphic designer from Missouri whose mother dove deep into the conspiracy. "It's like trying to convince someone of their religion being wrong."
