[throwawaydad12]

Thanks for the link. I think you should seriously contemplate this. If my kids did this to me, I'd ban them from my house, at a minimum.

More abstractly, suppose your thinking is correct, and now they're "de-programmed". If you were right, you could now tell your parents what you did, and they'd thank you. Does that sound like how it would play out?

[allenbrunson]

a couple of years ago, my best friend had a major pyschotic episode. among many other unfortunate incidents, she drove her car into the yard of a stranger in the middle of the night, and knocked on that person's front door.

in response, i took her car away from her. drove it to a spot she didn't know about. she was, of course, furious with me. and my actions were no doubt illegal.

despite that, it was the right thing to do. if a similar situation were to arise, i would do it again in a fraction of a second. and now that my friend is in her right mind again, she agrees that i did the right thing.

would i have reprogrammed a router, if that had been a factor in distracting her? absolutely i would, without a second thought.

[newshorts]

My mom had a psychotic break a few years back. My whole family let it go on for weeks, with the attitude “she’s an adult” etc.

As you reference in your threat about your kids, I knew the consequences of going against her will.

However, when I was finally able to visit home I realized she has lost weight and was a danger to herself, even trying to “take a walk” at 2am on a cold winter night.

I lied to her, convinced her to get in the car and drove her to a mental facility where she received treatment and has recovered mostly.

To this day she resents me and doesn’t fully trust me.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems in my family I’m the only person willing to trash our relationship to keep her safe.

This could have been avoided if she was self reflective and open to feedback, but her ego cannot take it, she’s simply too fragile.

[throwawaydad12]

These are hard cases, and you have my sympathy. (Same for sibling post.) Quite possibly I'd have done the same.

This sounds very different than the case under discussion, which seems to be that an adult child decided that he didn't like the information that his competent parents were listening to, and that it was making them unhappy, so he secretly sabotaged the parents' router.

[thomastjeffery]

That's more-or-less the plot of the movie "The Brainwashing of My Dad". The Dad in question is interviewed in the film. He is generally aware of what happened and happy about the situation.

Is that a guaranteed result? No. But it's more likely than you might expect.

--

The problem in these scenarios turns out to be that people aren't "brainwashed" or delusional or psychotic; but that they spend enough of their attention on bullshit that the bullshit feels like their identity.