Looking back nearly 11 years later, I can say with confidence that I would never die for a cause that never benefited anyone. When I was younger, though, I bought into it, even as I questioned it. The ever-impending race war that extremists claimed was coming was always presented as both imminent and distant at the same time. I remember several discussion forums where users would talk about it, and make bold statements like, ‘it’s close, I can feel the tension’. Now, it’s not for me to say what they felt, but looking back, they seemed to spend a great deal of time focused on threats that were not real for them, and it makes me laugh.
This article came about after watching something online about death cults. My interest in darker subjects hasn’t changed, but now I keep my distance. When I was younger, though, I was neck-deep in something very similar. While hate-fueled extremism does not share the same fixation on death as some of these cults, it still centers on a narrative that includes the possibility of death. When I was first getting involved, the idea of a race war was presented as something extremists would likely win, but also as something you might have to die for. At the time, I had just lost my father, whom I was close with, the year before, and had barely graduated high school, so any hope for a positive future seemed almost non-existent. Online, I saw people I had gone to school with posting about how well their lives were going, and I believed I used the rhetoric I was buying into to escape the inadequacy I felt.
As I became more involved, I was encouraged to have children before I was ever remotely ready to ‘replenish the white race’, according to their objectives, and I never did. This was when I began to question the end-times fantasy we had all bought into. How would everything be for the children I was supposed to have if I had taken part in violence tied to the impending race war? Even if I played the trad-wife role, what would life be like for my children and me if my hypothetical husband went off to fight and left us with nothing? I knew we could not have it both ways - claiming to secure a ‘future for white children’ while also taking part in extreme violence. It’s mind-boggling now, but at that point, I felt hopeless about everything else in life, having been homeless for over a year, so I did not want to let go of an idea that gave me a sense of purpose.
During my first year of college, I started to lose interest. I was doing well overall in my class, making friends, and getting my basic needs met, though I was still living a double life and seeing group members outside of school hours. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why I no longer felt the same emotional pull I had in earlier years. Looking back, I can see that I finally had something good going for me, and I was not willing to do anything that might jeopardize it.
In 2012, I had to stop drinking due to a serious health issue caused by my substance abuse. I was only 22 at this time and valued my life enough to give up the vice I had relied on for six years. While sobriety was not easy at first, my outlook gradually became more optimistic. I was also told that I had broken a pattern in my family, as alcoholism runs on both sides, which meant a great deal to me - and still does.
At this point, I had a good job and was finally seeing a therapist, who took a particular interest in how my involvement in extremism was affecting my life. I remember in one session where he asked how the idea of a ‘race-war’ shaped my outlook in general, to which I answered, “it’s fucking exhausting - I don’t want to spend the rest of my life constantly thinking about this shit. Outside of work, I don’t even like thinking as it is”. I will admit that the latter half of that still holds true, but the first part matters more because it shows that I valued my life and sanity a lot more than the cause I had been buying into for years. My therapist laughed, and we started to make fun of the idea itself, recognizing how disconnected it was from reality. We also came to realize that the idea became less appealing to me whenever my life was going well. To this day, I have no idea how I did not drive that therapist to an early retirement. By the end of our time together, though, I could say without any doubt, as an ex- extremist and recovering addict, I have nothing to die for - and everything to live for. And for the first time, I meant it.
