Apologies if this is not relevant to the sub. I am really struggling. My beautiful, healthy, Gen X, 52 year old mother called me last night with stars in her eyes talking about how incredible she has been feeling since taking this “supplement” called ASEA for the past few weeks. She wanted to “wait until she tried it” to tell me because she thinks I “like to shoot things down”.

She has avoided lots of big ones but she is a certified life coach, and got sucked deep into Liberty League International when I was a teenager. Hearing her buy into yet ANOTHER scam(she also has tried essential oils, healing with magnets, regularly uses MMS- don’t even look it up it is too sad) is extremely distressing, and honestly, triggering for me.

She has been depressed and getting into this MLM is giving her something to focus on, and she says the product is making her feel great. I feel terrible trying to burst her bubble but it breaks my heart to see her so deluded. I want her to be strong on her own.

I have been with her thru all these ups and downs. She even admitted to me that she was wary of ASEA being an MLM, saying she “told her upline that she doesn’t like pyramid schemes”. But the “product is just too good”.

The product is electrolysized saltwater in a $50 bottle. Which creates sodium hydrochlorite. Which… is bleach. It’s a process that was invented to have a chair-side bleaching agent for root canals. Luckily it apparently loses these properties once it sits for a while, so after bottling it is probably harmless, unlike MMS, which you ACTIVELY MIX to make it a bleach before consuming. I learned this after maybe an hour of research. She has been into this for weeks.

My mom is smart, she has been online for a long time, she was an early adopter of eBay and Napster. She is going through the once in a lifetime pain of losing her mom to a slow and terrifying disease and coping with it by believing this is a miracle cure that will help my grandmother get her memory back. So she bought her a case.

The MLMs are just the tip of the iceberg, she is also completely glued to GAIA tv/antivax conspiracy stuff, regularly speaks fearfully about “where the world is headed”. All of this hurts me so much. I am looking for any advice or resources on how to essentially deprogram somebody from this self-lead cult-like thinking.

TL;DR I love my mother so much but she is determined to drink bleachwater and won’t listen to reason or compassionate attempts to connect. What do I do?