New member here so hope I'm not out of line. I literally signed up to comment on this post (truncated above).
I have an acquaintance who is under long term treatment for bipolar disorder. He is easily swayed by counter-factual conspiracy theories and is easily (to me) fixated on particular ideas, concepts, or even crusade-like rants for or against things he believes deeply. However, he is fully aware of his condition and when his friends and acquaintances point out that he's being obsessive, he stops and reconsiders his actions, and often moderates his position or rhetoric on the issue.
To be perfectly clear, he quite often has a very good point, it's just his approach is not what most of us would consider "normal", like aggressive arguments around very little little factual context.
My point is that when properly treated, delusional thoughts can be controlled, but I fully agree that diagnosis and treatment is spotty and expensive. I've lost two friends who were fully convinced about chemtrails and I simply couldn't get beyond what I saw as a delusion and stopped associating with them to avoid conflict. In retrospect, I regret my actions in distancing myself from their friendship, and I've grown more tolerant over time, but it's tough to hang out with individuals with such a divergent world view.
Anyway, thanks for the Forum.
Personally I've never gave up on my family or friends, talking about issues with my cousin above ties into this. I my self am a very good listener, I love to talk trust me lol but if people have something to say or get off their chest I'm there and patient to listen to what they want to say say, and when I say listen I mean listen. I had a friend (we've naturally just drifted apart) who used to spark very misinformed and nonsensical conversations, and present the most bunky videos you've ever seen to express his views with very little facts. But I still stand that in most cases (where this isn't an issue that actually harms someone) just letting them burn them selves out really is the best way.
Because generally
most people who are neurotypical understand things like social interaction, the art of conversation, body language, and things like that. Most people would have the skills to recognise that someone is becoming tired of a conversation, that they are changing a conversation, or that they're ignoring you or subtlety telling you to "stfu". One of my other friends would literally just say "stop talking s**t!" and that would be the end of it.
The worst thing to do is to engage them in nonsensical conversation, because then you become an enabler, you become a rock for them to reinforce their ideas and a channel in which they can express it, you become a pillar of reaffirmation.
There are some examples in here that are really serious, such as self medication, those issues are really serious and require strict intervention. But for your average person where their beliefs don't harm anyone, just let them think what they want to think, it doesn't mean they can't live productive lives. My friend was a care worker, it didn't stop him from caring for people, my cousin was adventurous, it hasn't stopped him from travelling the world and doing what most of us will never do in our life time.
It's no different to being religious. You can't go around the town linking everyone to metabunk to convince them that God isn't real because they talk about it in the bar, because they're not going to listen to you, and they're going to continue on with their lives regardless of your opinion. This is why I think where in most cases where things are really bad, there are mental health issues at play, or drugs and alcohol, that prevent people from thinking properly. How many people have lost their friends and family due to addiction? It's exactly the same thing.
Someone who pushes someone away doesn't understand how hard they are pushing. I think those are much deeper and more underlying issues than the subject of conversation, because the same applies to relationships, addiction, all sorts of different scenarios. Often enough it comes back to the issue of enabling, be it partaking in conversation, entertaining unnecessary arguments, or giving people money for drugs, the act of trying to be an opposing force by trying to help a person's behaviour inadvertently becomes a force of attraction instead, and only serves as a means of spiralling them deeper into their own negativity.
Thus is just my personal experience of course.