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This weekend was the one year anniversary of the tragic events in Charlottesville, when we were again reminded of the pain and recoil of a nation seemingly in conflict with itself and its history. Some may say there are “fine people” on both sides, but I tend to disagree. One of the main things that sticks out to me when I reflect on my time in the neo-Nazi movement is the sheer exhaustion of hate, of constantly monitoring members of the movement to ensure that they were living up to some manufactured ideal, and of constantly monitoring others and their behaviour for evidence that our grievances were legitimate. After years of this, your spirit is left drained.

This exhaustion is not exclusive to me. There are many within these movements whose hate is weighing on their psyches. They need resources, and they need support to disengage. They may be disillusioned, but they also don’t have a family outside of the movement. We were utterly convinced that there was no life outside of the group, that we made a wrong turn somewhere in our past — we made our bed, as the saying goes. Any other life seems impossible.

Today, there are groups like the Against Violent Extremism Network, a community of former extremists and survivors of extremist attacks, and Life After Hate, with its cadre of former extremists who counsel and support individuals who want to disengage. This is a step in the right direction. But many of us stay so long in these movements that we get married and build families. For me, it was this very thing, the terrifying thought that I was bequeathing hate onto my children, that saved me. Living this double life — the happy home with my beautiful children and the slow realization that the tenets of the movement weren’t actually true versus the constant need to perform for the group — was utterly exhausting.