but their loved ones who they said have 
fallen into queuing on conspiracies   are very much alive and in order to protect their 
privacy we aren't sharing their last names wheeler   is a 28 year old army veteran who said he now 
struggles to connect with his parents because   of what he described as their fascination with 
conspiracy theories it's been a very slow death of   the people that i once knew now i don't recognize 
them and in a way that's been more painful   because i haven't been able to fully grieve at 
any point wheeler served as an army medic for   two years he was stationed at fort hood in 2014 
when a gunman killed three of his fellow soldiers   and injured 12 before turning the gun on himself 
it was frightening it was traumatizing in a way   wheeler was discharged in 2015.

He told us 
he didn't open up to his parents right away   and only over time gave more details about what 
he said he'd experienced during the shooting   but he said the parents he returned home to 
had become more paranoid as they started being   influenced by conspiracy theories and they began 
to doubt his account of what he'd endured that day   when i told them i was there for that shooting 
and i told them what i had experienced it was   whiplash to me because i was met with a distant 
icy neglect so the q anon conspiracies that he   started following made him degrade into more of 
an angry more abusive more distant person who now   doesn't even really believe i don't think anything 
that i've said about my military service how does   it feel to have your parents not believe it 
happen a betrayal it feels like a betrayal   wheeler connected us with his parents who firmly 
denied their son's account of their belief in   qanon wheeler's father said he doesn't have 
enough information to verify his son's experience   at fort hood that day and was skeptical of 
what he saw as changing accounts by wheeler   he said the two haven't talked much in the past 
year the six people who joined us came from alaska   kentucky georgia maryland north dakota and canada 
they all had different stories with a similar   theme the devastation of families caused by q anon 
it's been over a year since i've talked to my dad   so like elizabeth said her father was her main 
support when she was struggling with depression   anxiety even thoughts of suicide like 
he was the person that stopped me from   going through with it all in the end um and from 
about 16 to 20 20 was about the last one that i   really was sitting there contemplating 
this and ultimately pulled myself back   thinking about my dad getting the phone 
call that his daughter had passed away   and that was also about the time that 
everything started to get really bad   so bad that elizabeth said a year ago she 
had to cut off communications with her father   she said he inundated her with facebook messages 
and text messages peddling conspiracy theories   although she told us she later connected those 
conspiracies to qanon she said her father denied   knowing what q anon is you talk about in a sense 
when you're going through depression and anxiety   and some of these really scary thoughts 
the idea of your dad saved your life   and he's now not a part of it how 
does that feel absolutely terrifying   that moment of cutting off contact with him 
was the hardest thing i ever had to do like to to just walk away and realize 
that he's not there anymore it's he's   he's not the guy who you know held my hand 
through everything who essentially saved me