My mother has been having an existential crisis for the better part of 20 years, and in trying to solve that she’s gone deep into the world of alternative medicine and “woo” shit. If you’re not familiar with that kind of stuff, it’s a far-right pipeline grift. She’s just turned off her brain and dives ever deeper. She thinks she’s apolitical and doesn’t pay much attention to current events because “it’s all so negative.” What hurts me the most about this is I feel like I got my empathy and humanist values from her, and now she thinks that medical doctors aren’t to be trusted, essential oils can cure everything, and Jordan Peterson has a lot of good points.

My paternal grandmother has also basically turned into a Ukrainian nationalist since the beginning of the SMO, but I can’t really hold it against her. The family mythology is that all four of my paternal great grandparents fled Ukraine due to Stalin’s religious persecution. She grew up somewhat connected to Ukrainian diaspora communities as well, where many of the people her parents age were almost certainly Ukrainian nationalist soldiers.