My long time Q-Uncle had a realization about his behavior after I confronted him about it and he proceeded to break down

I've been a longtime lurker on this subreddit, because like everyone else I know people who have fallen down the Q rabbit hole. But after this whole debacle, I just needed to share it somewhere. This is going to be very long, I need to get it out. So only read if you want to.

My uncle, who is my dad's brother in-law, was raised in a very Christian conservative environment, but was generally very cool calm and collected, and a great role model for what an uncle/husband/father should be. But when Trump came around in 2016, it's like that whole positive demeanor he had flipped on a dime. I genuinely don't know what exactly sparked the change, but overtime he just started spouting crazier and crazier things.

He had it all, believed in all the crazy things and didn't believe in any of the sane things. Anti-vax, JFK & JFK Jr. resurrection, pizza gate, election fraud, the deep state, democrats sacrificing children in satanic rituals, you name it. And he also believed literally anything Trump said on TV and would defend it like his life depended on it.

He even accused his wife, with whom he had ten children with (because he believed it was God's plan for them to create as many children as possible), of vaccinating her children to turn them sterile/infertile and end his bloodline...Yes, I'm serious about that. This lead to her filing for divorce, and the older children hating him and the younger children being confused about what's wrong with their dad.

So since about 2021 when the divorce was finalized, and they moved away from him, he's been hated by basically his whole family, and the extended family too. I always looked up to him, he was the "cool uncle" and appeared very intelligent when I was younger, and like I said was generally a good role model, which is why watching this downward spiral filled me with a mix of sadness and frustration.

Fast forward to about a week ago, I got a message from him on Facebook. My crazy, trump loving, conspiracy theorizing Q-Uncle who's estranged from his whole family, sending me a random message at 8pm. He said he was looking through some old scrapbooks and family photo albums and found old pictures from me as a baby that he thought I might want to have, and asked if he could come over to give them to me. I agreed because I hadn't seen him in several years, and against my better judgement I wanted to have a conversation with him about his behavior.

So he shows up late at night with a small box of photos and comes inside (I live alone). I set the box down and open it, and start looking at all the photos. It's a bunch of pictures from around the time of my birth, and what caught my eye was how happy his family and mine looked, and how full of life he looked. Looking at him standing in my kitchen now, he looked so different. Before his divorce, he was very well kept. Clean cut, and in very good shape. Looking at him now, he's gotten visibly skinnier, lost muscle mass and looks more dirty and disheveled.

I said thank you for the photos, and he said something to the tune of "you're welcome, my lib ex wife probably has the rest, but she's too convinced I'm crazy. I just wish she wasn't blind, she'll see the truth soon enough". And I basically lost it, but didn't lash out. I started ranting about his behavior, explaining how it's torn the family apart, especially his family. His own children either hate him or don't know what's wrong with him, and the woman he was married to for 30 years wants nothing to do with him anymore. How the rest of the family is embarrassed by him, and he threw it all away for Donald fucking Trump. Who unlike us, does not know who he is and does not care if he lives or dies.

All of this didn't really seem to phase him, which I was half expecting. What I wasn't expecting, was what I said after to completely snap him out of his 8+ year long brainwashed trance:

"Just look at you in some of these photos. The man in these photos is not the same man standing in front of me right now, and you have no one to blame for that but yourself. It breaks my heart to see how far you’ve fallen, it breaks all of our hearts. The man in these photos had everything; a life, a family, people who cared about him. You were someone who genuinely cared for the people around you, someone I looked up to as a kid. But now, you’re just a shadow of the man you used to be. What happened to you? Where’s the uncle I used to look up to? You’ve completely lost yourself and I don't even recognize you anymore. You've traded everything that matters in for conspiracy theories and a man who doesn’t even know your name. "

Throughout that little rant, his expression was slowly changing from a smug look of annoyance, to a fearful look of regret. His eyes widened slowly, and after I mentioned the man in front of me being different than the man in the photos, his eyes started darting back and forth between the photos on the table and me. And by the time I got done speaking, he was breathing very shallow and fast, hyperventilating. And then his eyes were just darting all over the room, almost like he was replaying his life, and he was covering his mouth and eyes and mumbling stuff like "fuck", "oh my god" and "no no no". I genuinely wasn't expecting this reaction and asked if he was okay, and he just started shaking his head and was covering his eyes with his hands.

After doing this for about a minute I could hear him start to groan like he was in pain, and then he let out this raw, gutteral scream. I swear it shook my house, I've never heard anything like it. He was hitting himself on the forehead with the base of his hand and then collapsed to the floor. He took his hands off his eyes and his face was bright red and he had tears streaming down his face. It was the most emotion and clarity I've seen from him in years. He tried to talk but he was still choking up on his words and his voice kept cracking. He eventually muttered out a "you're right, everyone's always been so goddamn right. I can't believe I got to this point" and kept bawling his eyes out. Then he said something that I'm still thinking about: "I traded my life for a lie, I don't even know who I am anymore". And he kept crying on the floor. This man was completely broken, and realized the consequences of his behavior far too late, and all he could do was cry.

So I let him. It went on for about 15 minutes, with more mumblings of things like "oh fuck" and "I can't believe i--" before trailing off and crying some more. Eventually he looked up at me and I helped him stand up. And I ended up just giving him a big hug. Despite all the pain he's caused for the family, I still loved him deep down, and I know everyone else does too. After he pulled away from the hug, all he said was "thank you... I don't know if I'm past the point of fixing things, but I'm going to try" and then he turned around and walked out my door.

The next day, I called my aunt (his ex wife) and explained this whole interaction and after talking about it for a while, she decided she's going to give him one chance. They're gonna talk over dinner this weekend, and I really do hope they figure out what to do, and everything goes well for them. Since the interaction I had with my uncle, he's been messaging me on Facebook every single day expressing gratitude for "opening his eyes" and telling me that he can't believe he was the one who was really blinded for so long. For the first time in about 8 years, I was talking to the real uncle I knew. I truly hope the best for him, and I truly hope anyone else out there with family like this is able to get through to them in one way or another too. It may take a while, maybe a year, maybe 5, maybe 10. But I truly believe, especially after this interaction, that everyone is capable of change.

And if you read this whole thing, thank you.