In 2012 I began disengaging from the extremist underground and I would love to be able to say that I made a clean break over night, however I would be lying through my teeth.
From the outside looking in, my childhood seemed perfect. I grew up in a middle-class family with my father, mother and younger brother. Beyond the surface, I encountered toxicity from my grand father. Interestingly he is originally from England and fought in WW2. One would assume he would have taken a more direct opposition to fascism, however many of his remarks mirrored what I would hear later on in the far- right circles. On many occasions, he would tell me that Black history month was racist towards white people. I would regularly hear the N-word used and took the hint that if I ever brought home a person of colour or another woman, I would be disowned. Additionally I experienced body shaming from him in my early teens. I tried crash dieting, however it did not end very well. Within a few years I was able to shed the weight, however my low opinion of myself still remained.
I picked up bass guitar when I was 14 years old after a summer at band camp and shortly after found heavy metal music. Metal had this comforting effect on me and became my safe haven. I could often be found trying to do power slides across my bedroom floor with my bass in hand and the amp volume at full tilt. To this day, it still amazes me how a second hand squire precision bass kept me from going off the deep end at this point in my teenage years; I could always fall back on it.
