....or did it???

How many times have you clicked on a juicy thread title just like this one because you just couldn't help yourself! I know I have! Totally understandable of course due to our innate curious nature as human beings.

Now that I have gotten your attention due to my sensational thread title, I don't expect many of you will stay to hear what I have to say when you find out that I am not touting the end of the world after all. I know, I know so sorry to disappoint!

I'm afraid no doom and gloom here but I was hoping I might be of help to anyone who has fallen into the same traps I did or are wallowing in a state of paranoia due to innocent naivety and overload of 'alternative' information, if so, then this thread is for you. If not, then may you quickly find your 'back' button in your browser and a speedy safe journey to you!

To give you some perspective on my experience and where I am coming from I will back up just a bit. I am 26 years old now, but without going into too much detail, I was born into a very christian family. We were part of a small organization, a church, who believed so much in the 'end times' and preached constantly that we would all be sent to concentration camps many of us murdered for Jesus, and that we should always be prepared. I was 2 years old when my parents joined this organization, and therefore was brainwashed from that age until about 16 years old when we finally broke away. So I was very indoctrinated and raised to be very fearful of the world around me. Everyone was out to get me, the black helicopters were surely going to land in my back yard any time and cart me away to a prison where I would rot away for my beliefs and probably be tortured until I died. The world was going to collapse in the year 2000, and all of us children at the church would talk amongst ourselves in fear and excitement about Jesus coming back and the trials and tribulations that would befall the world. "Get your heart right with God" was drilled into our heads over and over again. I even had an overnight bag packed with canned goods and silly other things a 7 year old might think to put in a bag to prepare for that night when 'they' would come to round us up! We were not taught to think critically about anything, in fact all of our questions that were unable to be answered were brushed aside and we were told that God had a purpose for not giving us that information and we were to just blindly trust whatever the leaders told us because they were the voice of God. When I was about 15 or 16 years old my family finally broke free of this cult like organization, I was so quickly immersed into the "real" world and all of its wonders that I, for quite a time forgot about all of this other end of the world nonsense. Sometime after the age of 16 I experienced a complete break down and deconstruction of all of the religious beliefs I had been brainwashed by, I felt like I had some sort of ephiphany and there really was something more to the world, and while religion for me was not the answer, I had such an overwhelming thirst for knowledge that I wasn't willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak.

Fast-foward to '07, where I somehow managed to stumble across some 'alternative' news forums. Now I should have been smarter then because of my previous experiences, but because I had this unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I launched myself headfirst into the crazy world of conspiracies.

I didn't know how to filter out the nonsense. Alex Jones, David Icke, Wilcock, you name them, if they were on the forum I would read the information. I just absorbed absorbed and absorbed until one day I had the worst 6 hour panic attack. I have never experienced anything like it again and hope I never will. All of these crazy threads from unverifiable sources about Martial Law, the New World Order, FEMA camps, HAARP, Chemtrails, etc. started having a terrible effect on my subconscious. Consciously everything was fine or so I thought, but my mind was just absorbing all of this negative information to the point where I started feeling paranoid about everything. Suddenly I realized I was back to my childhood and all that nonsense that had tried to keep me so wrapped up in fear to even step out my front door!

I began to think critically again, I stepped away and started to see the patterns. The very sensationalized news headlines that had me so freaked out before, I suddenly realized had never actually come to fruition. Aliens didn't actually take over the world, martial law in my neighborhood was never declared. George W Bush rode out his term and another leader has taken his place. 5 years later and here I still am, and the same thread titles are still popping up everywhere! And yet here I sit in front of my computer screen. Nobody came for me, I didn't end up on a cattle car en-route to some distant FEMA camp, no black helicopters landed in my back yard, no government agent in an unmarked vehicle parked on my street to watch me for my internet clicks and curiosities.

The point of this is to remind us all that sensational news is found here on ATS and all of these conspiracy forums just as well if not more than on the MSM, and much of it has the same purpose: Shock value in order to gain ratings, or S & F's. Now I know there will be those who will purposefully misunderstand my point and I am not saying these things will never happen, because they very well may at some point! But there is so much more to life than being scared of stepping outside your front door because of things we read online or sensationalized newscasts we love to watch. I love coming to ATS I love reading about crazy things, but I now enjoy doing so from a much more objective point of view, taking everything with a large grain of salt. And I am in now way accusing all forum members of posting titles just for stars & flags, however there are those few that do.

I'm not suggesting we walk around blindly to the world events that are clearly happening, because lets face it, big life changing events are always going to happen, and I would venture to say that many of us are here because we want to change the direction our world is heading in, and help to bring about a positive change and a better world for our children. But what I am suggesting is that we be careful to a different kind of blindness. A situation where we might find ourselves in where we are so busy absorbing all sorts of questionable information from usually very questionable sources that our subconscious begins to become addicted to the shock value attached to all of this information. So then, instead of keeping our eyes open and our minds thinking in a logical manner, we begin to shut out the very real world around us. The world in which our families are growing up, our friends are existing along side of us, the birds are singing and the children are playing outside. We become consumed by a bazillion and one end of the world scenarios, we become paranoid and withdrawn, and oftentimes we become judgemental to those closest to us, and of course those 'sheep' who we all love to hate. We begin to lay blame on the worlds state of affairs on everyone and everything outside of us. Many of us become obsessed with the world ending so much so that we are wishing it upon the 'sheeple' because in our skewed perspective we have decided that 'they' deserve a horrible painful end to their existence.

Continued....

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Well said. I agree with everything you're saying. I had the same experience minus the religious upbringing. The more you read into things without critically thinking, the more paranoid you will become.

A good quote I find very suitable, used by Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Dawkins, and most often attributed to Richard Feynman:

"Keep an open mind –
but not so open that your brain falls out."

Originally posted by paradox
Well said. I agree with everything you're saying. I had the same experience minus the religious upbringing. The more you read into things without critically thinking, the more paranoid you will become.

A good quote I find very suitable, used by Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Dawkins, and most often attributed to Richard Feynman:

"Keep an open mind –
but not so open that your brain falls out."

That is a great quote which I also love!
Thanks for sharing.

I joined up after reading this just so i could post a comment of how i litereally got up and started a slow clap after reading the whole thing.

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Very true.

Back in 2006 i was unemployed and thus had a huge amount of free time. I spent all of it on Inforwars and ATS (under my old username that i forgot the password to )

It made me so paranoid and scared and upset. All the time just worried and fearing what was coming. I had to make the judgment call to step away from it for a while. It wasnt until somewhat recently, last year or so that i came back to ATS. Mainly to read about and watch UFO/Ghost stuff since its interesting without being so outwardly terrifying.

I joined again recently just to start contributing again. But i still don't go to Infowars or Prisonplanet ect because of the negativity.

Im not saying those sites are wrong, or that they lie, not at all. I just can;t let myself get bogged down by that stuff all the time. I dont have the financial resources nor the mental fortitude to handle spending 100% of my life being prepared. You have to just live as well.

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I will say that I don't hold with the typical shtf end of the world scenarios. You're right in that it's foolish to be totally obsessed with this stuff. But I also believe that it's foolish to completely ignore what's going on right in front of your eyes.

I believe that there is manifestly something going on in the world that will lead to some big changes. The trick is to not get so crazy about it that you start envisioning zombie hordes and scenarios like "The Road".

Very well put Seeker and Congratulations on your awakening.

It's amazing how many people simply crave the next big title, news or goss. They need that shock value to satisfy their craving. And like all cravings, comes addiction. Much like drugs and alcohol. It can be very difficult for some people to resist.

What it does go to show is that we can all experience the reality we want. If we want to experience shock and awe from news titles, we can. Likewise if we want to experience the delightful beauty of nature outside, we can. Its fascinating that our realities can completely change simply by altering our perceptions or level of consciousness.

We each have our callings, and each step we take in our life paths will teach us something new about ourselves if we know how to read those steps.

Again, well done seeker and thanks for your efforts.

"CONSPIRANOIA" was a word I heard the other day that describes how you WERE felling perfectly I think!
Really enjoyede the read, thank you.