@deirdre: Thank you. I did see that part of the forum, but haven't spend too much time reading it. What I need is people who have helped loved ones to escape the rabbit whole in similar situations and how they did it.
I think getting as much insight into
why they are thinking like they do, might be a good primer for you before engaging her. Plus they do talk about what helped them out of the hole.
It's really only been once she retired that these things happened
ah. Was she active on the social side of the internet before retirement? if not, perhaps showing her bunk not related to her beliefs might help her realize the true nature of the internet.
Is she lonely since retirement? are perhaps these social media friends filling a loneliness void for her? is she the type of person that would join a community (real life) group, if she is indeed feeling isolated since retirement?
My mom is only slightly older than yours, and she 'lost it' about 5 years ago. Not conspiracy related, something fairly normal happened and although it has happened in the past, this time it freaked her out really to the point of PTSD about it. (fear of burglars breaking in type stuff). This reaction was very unlike her. She is slowly getting better, but we've been implementing a lot of strategies to help and it is still a slow process... as she was
that traumatized by the event. Nothing at all bad happened, it was just a false alarm that scared her.
We've (including her) been discussing "why" this freaked her out so bad, and we're still not really sure.. basically we are chalking it up to age. She has a friend about your moms age that is suddenly terrified of her house too (for no apparent reason).
I'm only mentioning all this, since you don't mention having a sister, and ..well handle her gently because woman can go off the rails at times for no truly recognizable reason. It's all obviously fear based, but its hard to pinpoint what the internal fear really is. If my mom knew how to work the internet at all, I could see her transferring her internal fears to some externals fears she sees on the internet. Their entire world's are changing.. they are physically more vulnerable to many things (breakins, disease etc) , retirement signals a "last stage of life" (scary to deal with), society is vastly different than what they grew up knowing, my mom has a very, very good retirement 'income' and she's still nervous about finances, etc etc.
be gentle with her, I know it's hard not to take things personally (been there), but try and remember she is 'not herself'...