Conspiracy Theories - To the Point of Disrupting One’s Life

Not being the first time but in an effort to get more in-depth and to see if could help with this problem I recently had about a 3 hour discussion with someone (a childhood friend from my old neighborhood) who is deeply troubled by some conspiracy theories although she mostly does not admit to being abnormally troubled by it, but insists it is a problem that she can not ignore. She appears normal in many ways but she suddenly will get into a tangent about Department of Justice and cover-up conspiracies which take place against “whistle blowers in the workplace” which she considers herself to be affected by and to be a victim of. She claims to have been fired from multiple jobs and kicked out of two schools because of these conspiracies against her, but I strongly suspect the reason for this is in the way she talks about this. I would say she displays paranoia and mild signs of schizophrenia and this definitely affecting her life. She did admit to being on disability for mental illness, but to her this is also part of the conspiracy. She also told me that a doctor told her if she keeps talking about this that she will be committed; to her this is also part of the conspiracy. BTW, a suicide of a co-worker over job issues back in California seems to be the start of this thing for her.

I talked about God with her and she says she believes God wants her to uncover this conspiracy and is using her to do so and we had quite a talk about that also. She’ll bring this subject up to whoever will listen and I see it as a cry for help. I somewhat convinced her that God was not putting her up to this and we talked about what He does want from her in the world, putting these worries into His hands etc. and she seemed to find some comfort in what I told her but I got the feeling it will not last because she seemed to be looking for ways to get around this and to justify her actions and belief, she just couldn’t do it while we were talking because I had too many answers for her. She does believe what the Bible tells her but the battle against these worldly influences keep overtaking her direction of where she needs to be to find peace.

She says she remains strong, is not crazy and people just don’t understand while saying has lost friends over this and I addressed that to and that this should be a sign to her that this is causing her undue stress and burdens and that it is not her job to solve the world’s problems…on and on… I tried to reassure her that she would not lose my friendship over it but I might tell her that I don’t care to dwell on it and that I thought she should focus on other things, that this would be more healthy for her, whatever she practices she will get better at etc. etc…

Anyway, I was doing some research today on this while thinking most of us probably have a little conspiracy theory leanings about something and thinking about how, when and why does this sometimes get out of hand? I found this research project questionnaire interesting in that it is revealing that we all sort of take part in this but it doesn't address when this becomes obsessive and begins to appear as mental illness:


http://www.psych-research.com/s/conspiracy/