I’ve been working inpatient psychiatry for almost a decade now and here’s how we talk people out of delusions…

…you don’t. Confronting the delusion directly helps their brain practice protecting the false belief system and strengthens the neural links / pathways. It’s like the ruts made by a wagon wheel, the more the wagon travels the path the deeper they get. You can try and haul the wagon up out of the ruts onto a different part of the road using brute strength but 10 seconds later it’s gonna fall back in and you’ll exhaust yourself trying to wear a new track so close to the old one. You’re much better served just sending the wagon somewhere else entirely and waiting for the ruts to erode on their own (this metaphor also maps well to addictive / difficult to discontinue behaviors; it’s often easier to disengage from the entire constellation of behaviors and stimuli around the habit, including things like people and places, than it is to just stop the habit itself).

So if you really do love this person and want to bring them out of it, do your best to send the wagon somewhere else. Just glaze over for a second while they rant, then change the subject and engage fully with something reality based you can create a connection with. Try to connect over knitting or gardening or woodworking or music or old movies or sports or whatever other hobby or social activity / discussion you can use to connect with them over that’s reality based.

That’s how COVID sucked them into all this. It broke up the knitting groups and gardening clubs and cooking classes and all anybody had left to socialize with was Facebook conspiracies. If we want out, we need to focus on rebuilding those communities.

I broke contact with my family over twenty years ago. I learned that blood doesn’t make family, good relationships do.

Over 20 years ago I cut that sort of shit out of my life . I stopped wasting my holiday’s on my worthless idiotic shit family.

Cut that shit out of your life.

why do you want those people in your life even if they are relatives?

If they can’t take a “sorry uncle Bob, but I disagree with everything you think of X. Why don’t we just avoid this and enjoy dinner”, then they are too emotionally immature/toxic to have in your life

Provide no opinions. Pretend like you know nothing about politics. Ask questions. They will argue themselves into a corner, get embarrassed, and then stop talking about it. It requires little effort from you, and they do all the work.

If you engage even one out of ten times, you’re reinforcing it. You can redirect the conversation. Talk to another person, change the subject, completely disengage with them on that specific topic.

You can set expectations privately going in. Set the boundaries. Reiterate them gently but firmly in a general manner. Polite and businesslike when the forbidden topic comes up, cheerful and interested when any other topic comes up. Again, never directly engaging with the forbidden topic.

All this assumes you still want to get along with this person.

I am thankful I do not have such relative.

And if I did, to the discard bin.

Don’t invite them? If you know what’s going to happen, and you don’t like it, avoid it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=to5qRLRSS7g

Maybe search for ways to converse in healthier ways with people with BPD?

What happens if you actually leave the conversation?

Hair that covers ears and an earbud

Just turn on FOX News for him. He’ll zone out on it as usual and leave everyone else alone.

Develop an extreme interest in whatever sport is playing and say you have to watch it intently. Alternatively get a friend to ring with afake emergency

“How do I deal with friends or family members that are autistic?”

Well, one way is to try to actually understand them and where they’re coming from and what they’re really saying. Actually have the conversation and engage.

If you haven’t actually tried to do that, then this is 100% on you.

If you HAVE tried to, and actually cannot have a conversation, you still have choices. You could hold a side conversation with somebody else. You could leave the space. You could try to out-compete them in talking over you, if that’s the case, and hold your ground. You could also just stand up, and give them a hug and tell them it’s gonna be okay, as a lot of people just come from a place of fear.

However, something about your wording and perspective leads me to believe you are not the type of person who can rise to an occasion and converse with difficult subjects with upset people, or have the emotional fortitude to deal with a neurodivergent person. Have you thought about maybe just not inviting them, or just avoiding them, altogether? Because being passive aggressive like you seem isn’t the way. Even if, in your gatherings, it is acceptable or common, I encourage you to not sink to that level of toxic manipulation, if you can really help it.

Depending on the subject of your subject, you may steer the conversation into a more entertaining perspective or topic that’s good for both of you.

In the worst case, though, you can always go outside for a quick run or walk and refresh your mind.

Edit: if it is just straight up abuse, which your description does not lead me to believe, but other comments presume, I do encourage you to treat it as the conflict that it is, appropriately.

You could try bring an overactive listener. Ask a lot of questions “What does that mean?” “Can you give examples?” if you time them right, it’ll completely mess up his for when he’s monologuing.

Or, at the very least, you can have fun trying to see who can ask the stupidest question about Uncle Dave’s obsession.