This is de-radicalization going terribly wrong. This is keeping the tactics you learned in a hate group, but turning them on others. This is not unlearning. This is changing targets.
This is weaponizing what you learned to harm those who personally don't back you.
Look, I could sit here and break down my life. Break down the threats I've faced. Break down the ways I learned to find people IRL. Break down why I endorse being anon if you need to. Break down why this behavior is wrong.
But you know what? Screw that. Others covered that.
What I am going to say, is that it is a tactic of cults to teach you that you are the bravest, the strongest, the best, because of your membership in a group and your goals. That you are better than the masses. Above them. You are superior. "The Alpha", as Amy says.
It teaches you to be belligerent. Aggressive. If they're not with you, they're against you. It teaches you to center yourself. Everyone else doesn't matter. They don't understand. They aren't on the same level as you.
It's a delusion.
It's all about winning. Being on top. Being right, being competent. It has no empathy, no humanity. It's regressive, defensive. No matter what, you have to come out on top. You have to be right, the good guy, the one who was wronged. You can't ever be the bad guy.
Even in de-radicalization, there'll be justifications and excuses. I can make them now. I was newly disabled, vulnerable, isolated, closeted. Unable to work, unable to get disability. Perfect target. And in admitting that and turning away, I feel and look like the good guy, yeah?
Look at me, I rejected the awful things I was taught. I passed the bar of basic human decency and left a hate group. I'm so enlightened.
That's how it feels.
Because the alternative is embracing just what you did, and asking yourself what kind of person that makes you.
Yeah, sure, I was roped into a hate group because I was vulnerable.
Sure, they kept me vulnerable and isolated, because that's how they keep people.
But that doesn't make me blameless. It doesn't remove the burden from my shoulders.
And facing that near broke me.
I let my hate, my pain, and my anger get the better of me. I let my loneliness and self-loathing devour me. I lived in my negative emotions because they made me SAFE. And keeping that shield mattered more to me than other people.
I can't undo that.
Anger was easier than that.
Anger is easier than owning what you did. It's easier than stepping away and looking in the mirror. You were hurt, so you fell in with the group. You were rejected by them or left, so you're hurt more. And now, your hurt makes you wanna do worse things, because it owns you.
Your emotions devour you, till you feel like you're the center of this great grand conflict, the only one with the eyes to see it. The only one with skin in the game. Everyone else just doesn't get it, do they? They don't understand how important this is.
Emotion can make you deny all reality, even when presented with it. Combine that with cult mentality, trauma, abuse, and isolation, and it can all really just screw your head up something fierce.
You lose touch. You fold into your own universe.
Look, half of this is coming from me dealing with my endless trauma and my BPD, and like, 20+ years of therapy for that nonsense. Sufficed to say I'm speaking from experience. My own mother trying to kill me is what started the dominos that ended with the alt right.
When I say that I get how real this stuff gets... I get how real this stuff gets. More than once, I've fought for my life, my safety. For the life and safety of others. I get how that pressure, combined with all others, gives you a complex and tunnel vision. That's human.
But this? This posturing, this aggression, this bitterness that Amy is showing? That's not something I support. That leads you right into the arms of another bad person, group, or situation. Because it prioritizes everything over healing, and self-reflection.
A reactionary identity and personality isn't your real one, it's based on the current stressors in your life. Until you remove yourself from them, you're gonna be hostile AF. Like, forreal, alpha wolves? They come from wolves under duress, stressed and fighting. Not stable ones.
There's a very clear irony in that here. If you shove yourself into a situation that runs contrary to your well-being and sense of self, constantly under stress, you're gonna become hostile and violate.
In summary? Get the heck offline if you're deradicalizing.
Get the HELL offline, get away from the discourse, the issues your group fought for or against. Leave it all behind. You are no use right now. If you stick around, you become this. A ticking time bomb of unresolved trauma.
I've been there. It sucks for everyone.
The world does not center on you. The struggle does not center on you. And you're no good to anyone or anything if you behave like this.
We've all bled and fought for this. We all have scars. If you think yours are more important, you're wrong.
Get over it. That's life.
I wish for Amy to get their act together and get their head on straight. Get off Twitter, away from this stuff, and into therapy.
Because otherwise, I worry what their future might be.
And the damage they might do in the meantime.
