Every day brings a new absurdity from Germany’s dumbest newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Today, we find this piece, about some lunatic 59 year-old woman who left her husband of 23 years, because he subscribes to various “conspiracy theories,” does not take Corona seriously enough and refuses to be vaccinated.
So traumatised was she by her inability to persuade her husband to believe what she believes and to do what she does, that she decided to found a “Self-Help group for relatives of Corona deniers, Corona trivialisers and conspiracy theorists.” With a little poking around on the benighted website of the Munich Self-Help Centre (alas, there is such a thing), I found her group and its description:
Since March 2020, Corona has dominated the world and our minds. It’s great if your partner and your family have the same views on this as you do, and you can support each other. If, however, you have different views of Corona, there is great suffering, in addition to the “normal” Corona anxiety: Endless, draining discussions with no satisfying resolution. This leads to [a sense of] powerlessness, and in turn to alienation, denigration, anger and, in the worst case, separation.
It’s important to emphasise that partners/parents/children who deny or trivialise Corona are conspiracy theorists. They see a plan, a “plandemic,” behind all of this, and subscribe to various conspiratorial myths. These aren’t people who are “only” afraid of the side effects of vaccination.
As a woman with a very differently thinking partner, I had a very fearful time with Corona in 2020/21. One of my main worries was that he’d infect me, because he didn’t protect himself very well. This fear disappeared when the vaccines came, but the fighting remained. The endless, destructive arguments about Corona dominated our lives and destroyed our otherwise good and even beautiful 22-year relationship. In mid-November, we broke up; everything seemed destroyed. Then I went through a very self-critical phase as I realised I’d been living entirely focused on Corona, and that I’d lost sight of what was good, so we tried a reunion and now we treat each other respectfully. …
By founding this self-help group, I’d like to offer support for people like me to enter into mutual dialogue. Since there is otherwise no help here, “we have to help ourselves” …
