Psychological causes

Tom was working in an accounting office, raising two children and trying to ensure the best possible future for them. He was not the type of person who spent a lot of time in front of the computer, preferring instead to watch a soccer game or go for a walk with his family. However, a series of unfortunate events caused him to delve more and more into the online depths of medical misinformation.

The first moment that shook his faith in official medicine was the death of his uncle. Uncle Marian was suffering from an advanced form of cancer and – despite costly treatment – eventually lost his battle with the disease. Tom felt that the doctors had not tried hard enough, that perhaps there were other methods that no one had told him about. He despaired that perhaps there was a “secret therapy” that the doctors had not used. The seed of distrust began to sprout.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and at first Tom firmly believed in safety rules: washing hands, wearing a mask. Over time, however, he noticed that there was conflicting information in the news – one day someone was saying that masks were crucial, the next that they were irrelevant. Various scientific “authorities” were making often inconsistent recommendations. On top of that, there have been rumors that the government wants to “cash in” on vaccines, and pharmaceutical companies are hiding the facts. Tom, already prone to doubt, began to feel a growing distrust: of doctors, of scientists, of politicians.

The confirmation effect was reinforced in his mind: he sought only information that reinforced his belief that “something is wrong.” Whenever he came across an online forum where someone wrote that various diseases could be contracted through COVID vaccines, he immediately remembered similar “stories” and treated them as evidence. In contrast, reports proving the safety of vaccines in his eyes were irrelevant or “false” – “after all, sooner or later the media will twist the facts anyway.”

He also began to struggle with elevated levels of anxiety. He spent long hours reading blogs and watching YouTube videos in which self-proclaimed experts preached “secret cures” – herbal concoctions, hunger pangs, “healing” sound frequencies. Each promised simple answers to extremely complex medical issues. Tom became increasingly overwhelmed and confused over time – until he finally decided that these simple, alternative methods were the only “truth.” In essence, he wanted to feel special, better informed, more informed than the rest of the population, whom he believed had been “brainwashed.”

In addition, Tom had been struggling with a sense of low self-worth for a long time. At work, although he was a solid accountant, he felt undervalued. So when he started visiting Facebook groups for people distrustful of science, he found like-minded people there who appreciated him and supported his beliefs. He became more and more engaged, commenting on posts and getting hundreds of “likes.” This heightened his impression that he had finally found a community where he felt important and needed.

Over time, experiencing further disappointments in his personal life (his wife left him, deeming him “completely crazy”), Tom closed himself off even more tightly to the online world. This was a form of defensive reaction to failure – he found it difficult to admit that maybe he should just seek specialized psychological or psychiatric help. Instead, he took refuge in simple answers to complicated questions and, more importantly, in the human kindness he found among like-minded people.

Eventually, he found that he no longer had time for anything else. He obsessively tested new theories – increasingly radical and contradictory to official medicine. He believed that viruses were a lie, that the “real cause” of most diseases was “disturbed cell vibrations,” that chemicals in drinking water were a conspiracy by corporations, and that doctors were deliberately prescribing “harmful drugs” to make patients addicted to the system.

He stopped going to the doctor altogether, although he had been struggling with high blood pressure for years. “I’ll brew myself some herbs, I’ll cure myself,” he said. – he repeated with conviction. He warned all his friends that official medicine was “a fraud on a huge scale” and that the only way to health was to completely reject modern pharmacology.

Anyone who tried to discuss with him substantively was immediately labeled a “sacrificial sheep of the system” or an agent of the corporations. Tom defended himself against any criticism because he felt he had finally found his worldview, which gave him a sense of meaning and belonging.