I ticked all the boxes in high school. Ironic-but-not-really fascist, incel, anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, pick a reaction, really. Now I’m happily married, father, Kinsey-1, reading theory, with growing class consciousness and looking to build solidarity with those people that a worse version of myself once dismissed as lesser or ungodly. It took leaving home, developing positive and loving male-male friendships, and being told that I was good enough and worth love irrespective of my accomplishments for me to start to develop the capacity to love others in the same way. Those who have traveled a similar path, what did it take for you?
I was perpetually miserable and lonely living in a suburb to the point where I had suicidal thoughts in the second grade before I even fully understood what that entailed. Always disliked the status quo or the system although I lacked any way of critiquing it. Got interested in conspiracy theories but managed to somehow avoid getting into any weird right-wing shit thankfully, even though I did get very paranoid at one point. A teacher in highschool showed us the third Zeitgeist movie which finally introduced me to anti-capitalist thought and systemic thinking. After that I was in a weird place where I was anti-capitalist but didn’t want to side with the sjw’s; I would pretty much agree with any argument that was against capitalism but didn’t really understand anything else they brought up to be honest. In 2019 I had what I think was an anxiety attack so I decided to watch some Anita Sarkeesian videos to distract myself before moving onto other things that were more solidly left-leaning.
I guess for me it took the mundane misery of a suburb punctuated with two very bad periods and a teacher showing me the the third movie of a guy who also transitioned from an anti-religion viewpoint, to conspiracy theorist-like thinking, before finally becoming fully anti-capitalist. Fortunately I never really fell into right-wing thought somehow, just managed to stay in the “apolitical” both sides area.
