Lauren & Angela

Activation warning: This episode mentions suicide ideation, suicide, and death. If you or someone you know is struggling, please get in touch with the 988 Lifeline for free 24/7 confidential support.

Lauren and Angela, both former members of the violent far-right, became friends when Lauren contacted Life After Hate around 2017. Their friendship is based on a shared sense of (dark, adolescent) humor, commitment to self-care, and more. In Season 3, Episode 6, they share an intimate conversation answering the same questions TDF asks the other Season 3 guests. Will the same themes emerge? 

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Transcript

Angela 0:00

You're listening to Season 3, Episode 6 of The Daily Former. This season, we've been interviewing formers themselves, allowing them to tell their stories on their terms, and asking questions that we get from our friends in the Discord, people writing in, and things we want to know in general. My name is Angela. Today, I'm here with Lauren, and we're talking to one another about our experiences. Lauren and I have been friends for years, but there's always more to know and learn about one another. How are you today, Lauren?

Lauren 0:36

Doing good things about you.

Angela 0:38

I'm doing pretty well. I'm sane. We'll say I'm still sane.

Lauren 0:42

It's quite funny. Actually, that does remind me. Someone recently asked me like, how do you retain your sanity doing this work? And I'm like, easy. I threw it out the window a long time ago, figuring I didn't need it.

Angela 0:51

For real, right? So over this season, we have touched on various themes from vulnerability to growth. Everything from self worth to making amends. What we're going to do is chat about some things that maybe we know about each other, maybe we'll learn new things, but it'll give the audience some insight into where we've been heading this season. My first question for you is, Can you paint me some broad strokes about your background, childhood, what was your family like?

Lauren 1:28

sure. For my family, I was raised in that kind of upper middle class. Vibe. My mom used to do land surveying and then civil engineering. Now she's semi retired and my dad spent 30 years on the police force. So from what I remember of it, mine was actually pretty sheltered, mostly because of what my dad did for a living. To be more specific about what he did on the force. He spent a lot of it interrogating child abusers and sex offenders. So that being said a lot of it, he would bring home with him without exactly realizing it at the time. There was one time my brother and I came home like one minute late from the park and we got yelled at him thinking that he got kid that we got kidnapped and stuff. And I'm we're like laughing at it at the time, just cause like we didn't really fully understand it, but looking back at that one now, I'm like, okay, if I had to sit in front of that all day, I probably would be the exact same way as him. Guaranteed. Yeah, so that was pretty much my family. So it it was like that white picket fence thing from the outside From the inside, though I'm gonna say underneath our roof anyways. We did have our problems, but it was the typical thing of what most families go through. My brother's two years younger. We went through that phase where we would fight like cats and dogs. And, of course, I would always be like, oh, he's the younger one, so therefore he gets favored. As far as our extended family, though Let's just say that there's been a lot of friction over the years on both sides. With both my mom's and my dad's. Dad's side We just never felt like we fit in with them at all or we were never part of them So my mom wanted us to have grandparents in our life and stuff like that. So we were in front of him pretty much on a weekly basis, listening to racist and homophobic rants. And of course, my mom, having grown up with this at the time. It wasn't necessarily appropriate to her, but it was normalized to her if that makes sense. And I also would say that both my parents were pretty strict. What I'm talking about is very school strict. So it's okay you better be dead or dying. If you're not going to school that day. I remember going to school like with really bad head colds and shit, but at the same time both of them had to work, so it's not like they could take days off every time my brother and I would get something. As far as where we're from, geographically it's about 40 minutes outside of Toronto, so I was raised in this little town, or it was little at the time, called Whitby.

Angela 3:43

as you share those things, I noticed that some of the themes resonate with me because like, oh, yeah, that reminds me of this and these different things My father was the breadwinner. My mom was a stay at home mom and There were very typical yet misogynistic expectations in my house women had a certain role in a certain place and Girls don't do this and, like those kind of things that was a little weird growing up. I don't really remember politics like affecting my family. I couldn't tell you if my parents were like Republicans or Democrats or something else. I was raised. I was raised in an environment with a lot of racism and homophobia. But it was from my parents. And between socialization and what I internalized, it's been an awful lot to work out over the years. I grew up in South Florida. It was still like a rural area when I was young. But now it's like this bustling, hustling, like it's overflowing with people place. And you mentioned like strictness with school. That resonated with me a little differently, because my parents were like, You better get A's, but if you don't get A's, fine, you can slide with a B, but nothing under a B. They considered that even a C was, like, not acceptable. And my parents used to torture me, I feel like to the point that I would have night terrors and horrible nightmares about like my studies. Even in like grade school and very young, like I remember this one time I had a vocabulary test and my mom would make me say the words and spell them and write them out and she would quiz me and test me and if I got anything wrong I would have to do them all again. And I must have been like between eight and ten, like I was young, but I was so stressed out this one night after like this rigorous preparation for my test. I ended up peeing my pants in bed and sleepwalking to my parents bedroom door where I cried hysterically with peepee pants because in my night terror, I couldn't find my vocabulary shoes. And if I didn't have them, I couldn't never pass the test, like it was impossible. And those kind of things used to happen to me because there was this large amount of pressure around school. And, getting good grades and being like an exemplary student and all of those kind of things. My family life was not so normal for long, if you could call any of that normal. My parents split when I was about 13, and by that point, I should say I realized that I did not fit in the quote unquote straight category, but I was taught things and specifically told things like Oh, you're our daughter. We'll always love you, but never bring home a black person or another woman and not in such nice terms. So there was a lot of weird pressure and just weirdness in my. Family life growing up that I knew definitely wasn't the same as my friend's parents or my friend's families. how old were you and when did you first realize that there was, like, a movement out there?

Lauren 7:43

For me, I'm going to admit that I was completely oblivious until I was literally contacted by somebody. I was 17 at the time. A year before that backtracking a little bit. A year before that we lost my dad to leukemia. And actually, it's a weird thing. What had really happened. He was sick for 9 years and then did about 6 months of chemotherapy. It was actually something that went wrong during the chemotherapy that killed him, bacteria got in the pick line and like the first day he was in treatment, so they spent a lot of it actually trying to fight the infection. So technically a sepsis that he passed away from. yeah, but I remember that when all these years later, but in terms of how grief impacted me at the time. Let's just say that gets complicated. Grief is 1 of 1 of the more. Layered issues I have ever read into and experienced and this is just me speaking for myself, but in terms of 1 of the ways it had impacted me, I was almost looking for someone to replace dad, like an older male figure or someone like that. So this individual had come along. I got a message from somebody online. My mom and I nowadays call him the recruiter. And I feel that's fitting. It had said, I was wondering if you are an answer, just listen to NSBM national socialist black metal. I'm like, what the fuck's this guy on about? But yeah, we continue chatting and it was just nice to have somebody. Because at the time my mom and I had always butted heads. It got far worse after my dad's passing. I was looking for that role model figure,

Angela 9:14

were you and your dad close?

Lauren 9:15

Very. And it's, jeez, how long has it been since he passed away? 17 or 18 years now? I still have him showing up in my dreams sometimes. What I've realized over the years is the closeness obviously stays, whether they're here or not.

Angela 9:31

I guess that would make sense if you were butting heads with your mom even more after he passed. That it must have been terribly difficult to process,

Lauren 9:43

And, side note, so many people have asked us before what more could have been done, and I'm like, on my mom's side, I wouldn't expect anything. She's a single parent trying to manage. What more can you ask?

Angela 9:54

And dealing with her own grief, losing her husband and life partner, the father of her children. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you, your brother, and your mom to all process and work through together. And like you said, grief is It's such a layered complex process and we don't experience it linearly or all the same.

Lauren 10:20

yeah, exactly. And in terms of grief, too, so essentially, it's loss of connection to put it in really simple terms. And as far as I've read, too and even looked into during EMDR therapy when I was doing it. So we had looked into what had caused my addictive behavior at the time. It was literally loss of connection. We went back to the day before dad's death several times when looking through that.

Angela 10:45

you've shared about it over the years that we've known each other and it's one of the core things I know about Lauren is that had a. a great impact on you on the person that you were at the time and the choices that you were making as a young person. back to the recruiter. After those initial messages, it must have given you like some sense of importance to be sought out by. someone else to even ask you these questions and to want to know if you had ever considered that type of music or if you listened to it. So how did it progress from there?

Lauren 11:26

It's interesting because he really held me up on a pedestal at the time, and for my 17 year old, very egotistical self, this felt fucking amazing. Realistically, it's like an emotional pull into it there was really no logic or anything, or I don't remember a lot of logic behind what this guy said at the time. It was basically the way I was being treated, but at the same time nowadays if I was to talk to my 17 year old self, I'd be like, okay, that's a manipulator right there. If they're friggin blowing a bunch of smoke up your butt right out of the gate. That is something to watch for, but lack of awareness at the time, obviously about that. I do remember it going into the rhetoric a bunch of times, and I did try to avoid some of the conversation, but he would always bring it back to that. And then eventually I would engage in it. And what my mind had gone back to actually, is this is. Stuff that I had all heard from my grandfather growing up or it sounded very similar, and it was to the theme of us against them something's being taken away from us as white people, so I'm like, okay, I've heard this theme before, I'm actually familiar with it, so I'm just going to start spitting it back out. Cause I did want to keep this person around as a friend, like just not to feel so lonely, maybe have some sense of guidance, but I also am going to admit that when I was given my first pair of combat boots, this was like a couple months after being in contact with this guy. He handed me those. It's like a trophy that I heard that I had earned at the time, or at least that was the feeling. So I wore them to school and it became almost a power trip. It was a symbol of, oh I know something that my classmates don't. Because I also am going to say that I never really fit in with the people that I had went to school with. So this was basically another way to throw it right back in their face.

Angela 13:12

this is part of on my end, the connection that we've had since we met because those underlying feelings and needs and themes are there even though our experience getting there wasn't the same. I stumbled into it and it was at a time when I Have never put it in this way, but in your terms, I had lost connection. Like I, I was not emotionally connected with my parents. I didn't feel like I had anybody in my life that I could really count on or. That wasn't so far up their own asses that they cared about, like what I was doing and what was happening, in my life. I don't think my parents ever meant to be, but they were abusive. My gosh, I don't even know what to call them. My diagnoses from the mental health provider. There's a lot of stuff. That I've gone through and suffered from that was caused by my parents or like the examples they set, the rules they set, things that they expected or did or drilled into us, But that lack of connection to someone, almost like to hold you down and ground you. It was non existent for me, and I felt the same kind of attachment that you were talking about if you, it didn't seem like a big deal to go along with something if you were going to get it. needed attention or, somebody would seem like they cared about what was actually happening in your life or what you thought or what you were feeling. I felt a ginormous level of disenfranchisement when I was younger. It was like, you're a kid. You're not allowed to have feelings. You're not allowed to have an opinion. You're not allowed to have thoughts, preferences. Nothing. Pretty much you take what you get and be happy with it, the beginning, what do you think the most important part was for you? Was it that you were getting something emotional out of it? Was it that it was exciting because it was something new that you were getting involved in? Was it something different?

Lauren 15:37

I think it was all of the above and possibly a little bit more. The way I describe this quote unquote movement, or I call it an underground, I feel like any terms fitting here. The way I describe it is. They make it look like it's this miracle solution for all the needs that you've been looking for and yeah, it's basically like an ugly present wrapped up in nice paper and shit at

Angela 16:02

Right? A pig with lipstick.

Lauren 16:05

Yes. Nice. I like that. Yeah. And actually, it sounds like it was the same for you because I feel like, for both of us the theme I'm hearing is throughout life just because of the things we experience our bar was set pretty low in terms of expectations of how we should be treated.

Angela 16:23

exactly. You hit the nail on the head with that one.

Lauren 16:27

And it's interesting, too so going back to the sexuality piece so I'm not entirely straight either. I'm bi. I remember it was, like, grade 9 or so. That's when I started first experiencing sexual attraction, but it was actually women that I noticed first. Guys came along a couple years later. But at the same time, it's okay, so obviously I know that something's making me different. I don't know how to process any of this. And, by no fault of my parents, of course, they're at home going, Oh, do you have a boyfriend yet? And I'm like, ew, no. I heard that shit throughout my entire childhood. And of course, like, when I was quite a bit younger, it's EW, BOYS, YOU'RE GROSS, as we all say. So it's yeah, it's just one more thing I'm fucking tired of hearing, but at the same time, it doesn't necessarily help when straightness is the, quote, norm.

Angela 17:13

This is true. That kind of makes me wonder something though. Do you think that since we're both part of the LGBTQIA community that we were first attracted to women that maybe we weren't. Women felt safer in some way.

Lauren 17:33

That's interesting only because I'm not sure if anyone really felt safe to me at the time, because I gotta say I literally just remembered something from elementary school as you were saying that. So I had this female friend, I'm gonna leave her name out of this podcast, but I had this female friend in elementary school who befriended me just to bully me. So I actually spent years not trusting other women, but at the same time I couldn't figure out my own sexual attraction to them later on. So I'm like, okay this is confusing as hell. Like, where do I even stand with any of this?

Angela 18:04

that makes sense. once you were involved, what was your favorite part of being involved in the violent far right?

Lauren 18:14

As strange as this is going to sound, I'm going to say the image because I remember the outer image that I had presented once I got into this underground. It did scare people off to some degree, so I enjoyed that at the time only because I felt like I was protecting myself in my own really strange way, and I get a really odd feeling it might be same or similar for you.

Angela 18:34

there was a lot to it that I didn't recognize at the time. At the time, I never would have been like, Wow, I'm a young person that's experienced trauma and abuse, and so that would lead me not to feel this sense of self worth or deserving, and I don't know. I was a real asshole. It was like, I wanted to make everybody else as miserable as I was. And that was an avenue to do it, and I liked that other people looked to me for something, even though it was something terrible and negative, and that was violence. I used to get attention because, For males it's very humiliating to be, like, belittled or degraded by a woman. And I was so violent that the men that the other guys wanted to really punish, they would have me beat them up or embarrass them. And I used to like that attention because I was like, wow, people are paying attention to me. This is something that I can offer and for a time, I think that I thought it was an important offering. It wasn't, oh, wow, this is violence. This is terrible. It was, wow, look what, this is bringing me I feel like I got a false sense of protection out of it. Were involved, it was all about women are the bearers of the future and you're so important. And we're placed on this pedestal only for the man to turn around 10 minutes later and slap you upside your head if you look at him funny. And those were very difficult things to process and make sense of. And I feel like in a lot of ways, like as much as I felt like, wow, I really liked this one part of it. There were gendered dynamics and ways where I was exploited and taken advantage of, and that's not a good feeling at all.

Lauren 20:43

No, it isn't. And that's totally relatable to my story, too, because I remember the entire time I was there, when are you gonna have kids? When are you gonna have kids? And I'm like, I'm not even 18 yet. Like, when I first got into this, so I'm like, why the hell am I even being asked this? But I was asked it all the way through, and eventually I think I got to a point midway in my involvement where I'm like, I've heard this shit throughout my entire life. Like, why am I still listening to it as an adult? And It's interesting how we're talking about being exploited or taking an or taken advantage of. And this actually still pisses me off to some degree, even all these years later when I think back to this memory. It was close to me leaving, and I was telling one of the other women in the group about the conflict between myself and my partner at the time. We were arguing over whether to procreate or not to procreate. He wanted to, I didn't. And she's it's just easier if you do what they say. And for me, of course, I'm like, what the fuck? Because my dad used to hear that shit in the interrogation room from victims that he had to interview regarding their abuser, so I'm like, this is fucking stupid. Like, why am I even here? And also like, how do I word this? The degree of which some of these women were traumatized and the things that they would do just for survival that's the thing that kind of gets under my skin even all these years later. But at the same time I remember I was in the music scene and I had written this thing called the anti feminist song. The lyrics are just completely off the walls. If I was to look back at it nowadays, I would slap my old self for that one. So it's not as if I didn't promote this type of rhetoric either. What I was thinking at the time was, oh, maybe if I am louder, sound more ridiculous than even the guys, then I'll be left alone and, yeah, they won't pressure me to do my, quote, womanly duty and have children.

Angela 22:34

It was actually for you because you were so persistent with the anti no, I refuse, that pretty much carried you through and right out.

Lauren 22:46

It did. And I think, my thing with anti feminism too it's gonna sound stupid again, but I didn't have the greatest experiences with feminism growing up. I've got this one aunt on one side of my family who self identifies as such, but I look at some of the things that she says and she's just completely off the wall. I've met feminists in recent years where they would probably just correct her and put her in her place right away and say, you're fucked up.

Angela 23:11

There's also that whole aspect of the abuse we're willing to suffer as women to be accepted. To be loved or to feel like we're loved, to, feel like somebody cares. I remember being 17 and in a relationship with a man who was closer to 30 than I was to 20. And this is really personal, but he treated me like property to the point that like, He assaulted me in my sleep, like I would wake up with him assaulting me. And at the time, I was like, wow, he must really love me, or want me, or whatever. And at the same time, it was such a disgusting relationship. Because it was like, oh yeah, women are these great things, you're gonna produce the future. But then there were the men that were like, yeah, you get knocked up, you're getting a job. I'm not.

Lauren 24:18

Eh.

Angela 24:19

It was like that whole thing that I didn't know how to make sense of and I think that drove my anger even higher and me deeper into involvement. in the far right. That was a weird one. You're experiencing these things. You're being told left and right that you should be popping out little children. Was that what made the veil lift for you or was it like a series of experiences? Can you pinpoint something that, that was that point?

Lauren 24:51

it was a whole series of experiences over time. But I was going to say to actually first of all, thank you for sharing the experience with the partner of yours at the time. I remember something similar to where my ex partner had tried to replace my birth control pills with placebo pills as if I wouldn't notice. I remember actually getting somewhat of an inclination or just like a gut feeling or whatever that I should go take care of it before he does anything stupid. And thankfully I did. Most embarrassing moments in my life were going to my doctor and saying I need something that my partner can't tamper with. At the time I got one of those copper IUD things put in. It served its purpose for the years, but thankfully I don't need to deal with that thing anymore. Anyways it's just stuff like that. I think overall just in terms of the more women specific experiences, if we want to use that kind of phrasing here, it's more or less okay, so we finally stopped seeing ourselves as objects. And of course I got all the scenes playing in my head right now from your story and from mine. And I'm like, are these fools ever going to realize that we're not just property? Probably not until, of course, they decide to get out and maybe look at this a little bit closer. But, yeah, as far as the veil starting to lift, so it isn't just me not wanting kids. It's me realizing what I would be exposing that kid to if I were to have 1 and with that being said 2012 was the year of the slaps in the face for me or so I call it. One close friend of mine was murdered as a result of his involvement and just like where his life had spiraled into and So yeah, later that year in 2012 I fucked up my liver pretty good and I had cirrhosis. I was told that I needed to stop drinking now, and by now Really meaning now. So I did. And of course, it was difficult to tell at first. I had started seeing a therapist at the time. I thought that I was just signing up for that so that I could get some tools to be able to stay sober. But instead, we end up getting into everything else. Finally, tell him the full picture of what I'm involved in and he's okay, this does explain a lot. I'm not giving up on you, of course, but there's going to be a lot more that we're going to have to do here. Your appointments are not going to end anytime soon with me. Ideally. Let's just say that when you're seeing the world through a sober lens, especially what's right in front of you, it becomes a hell of a lot clear. Of course, I'm getting pissed off after every time I'm going to an event, a show, a group gathering, whatever it may have been bringing it into his office. And, of course, he in a kind of more polite way than this had said. We wouldn't necessarily need to touch on this conversation every time if you just stop going like friggin remove the stressor from your life, please.

Angela 27:39

He wins top suggestion of the year award, but it makes so much sense of if you quit putting yourself there, you won't have a reason to feel these things. How long did that take to sink in? What did you get mad when you first heard it? Were you like, fucking asshole?

Lauren 27:58

No, I wasn't mad at him. In the back of my head, I'm like, okay he is obviously right, but, I've attached myself to this for the last several years. Like, how do you just throw it away? we came up with a bit of a plan. What I had started doing was making excuses not to show up to gatherings and stuff. And of course, the guy that I was dating at the time he did something stupid one day and injured his knee. This is his driving one, so he's I need you to drive me to, like, all these places now since I can't do it, so I would say, okay, I'll just drop you off and then come get you. Regarding group gatherings, and he's why don't you just stay? For a while, I would just grudgingly stay, and eventually I told him, you know what, it was your own stupidity that fucked up your knee. You deal with this.

Angela 28:39

Nice. Me, I would have to say it was probably, I thought about leaving at one point, and I tried the withdrawal, and I was on house arrest, so I was like, hey, I have an excuse not to be out at shows or doing stuff, but it still didn't work, because just not answering the phone, or returning calls, or having people come to my house since I mostly couldn't leave, even those little slights. I was threatened my, one of my younger siblings, like their life was threatened because I made the slightest little change in like my interaction. It wasn't until I was like on my way to prison that, actual bars kept me between me and the group that I was able to actually. Disengage and land on the path that I've been on for the past few decades. I wonder what would have happened sometimes if I hadn't have been incarcerated. And that really drives something home for me because I was totally one of those cases that either I was going to end up in prison, which thankfully that was the outcome, or I was going to end up dead. Because the things I was. Involving myself in were dangerous things, and I was basically a dumb kid that was like little know it all, don't tell me, I'll tell you, and that didn't work out for me very well back then. It did end up being an internal struggle. Even once I was incarcerated, but having women in front of me that showed me compassion totally turned my life around, because they were women I would never have given a second thought to. I would not have seen value in them, and They saw value in me as a human being, like when I couldn't value myself as a human being.

Lauren 30:52

Yeah, actually to me there's the many layers of going to prison in that one. Thankfully, your experience with it was good. I've heard kind of mixed stories about jail before. The big thing, obviously, being the physical barrier, let's say, between you and the group. And then, of course you make all these new friends in there and everything. I feel like it had less to do with their skin color and more to do with just their personality. They just sound like better people.

Angela 31:18

they totally were. And to be clear and make sure that we are all on the same page, it's very different for women who are incarcerated than it is for men. There's less violence, but also I was in the federal system and not in the state system. And we all hear the jokes about federal prison, like it's going to college with razor wire around it. And it is. Like I was arrested and incarcerated quite a bit in my younger years. And going to a federal prison was far nicer, far cleaner. than being in like a state institution. I don't feel I would have come out the same person had I been convicted in a state offense and gone to state prison. For fuck's sake, We had a track to walk around. We had a music room. We could go pick out popular CDs and listen to them, in the quiet of like almost a little music booth and I fell in love for the first time with a woman in prison and that was Pretty life altering. Is there anything that you would say you're proud of from your time being involved in the violent far right?

Lauren 32:42

Not that it's fully related to my time in the far right, but the fact that I had got through homelessness, because I was homeless for about a year or so I know that it's a very difficult thing for anyone to get through. Frankly, sometimes I'm like, how in God's name am I still alive? Maybe I have a horseshoe up my butt or something. And as much as my mom probably doesn't enjoy hearing this. I have said it before. The things that I learned on the streets are stuff that I never could have learned at home from my parents. So the reality is that you do need to leave the nest at some point and figure things out the hard way. And I am happy that I did. And I have also met several other people. Who've struggled over the years and everything, who have also got out of it. All of them will agree here that homelessness is the absolute worst to deal with.

Angela 33:30

It is. I experience brief periods of it, not anything like the time that you experience, but even those brief moments, you feel so vulnerable to everything and feel like there's literally nothing you can do except put your back to a really hard wall. And it felt like that a little bit in prison. Because I was, I went in there convinced every person is going to hate me and want to kill me. And I was envisioning being shanked or being beaten with something weird I don't even know, a newspaper or something. And I Like crazy shit happened in there. When I first was incarcerated, I was placed into the special housing unit with Griselda Blanco, and I didn't even know who she was. It wasn't until a year later. I'm sitting in another prison flipping through a magazine and I'm like, hey, that's that little old lady I was in the cell with when I first got arrested. And like all the people that I was friends with at the time were like, do you know who the fuck that is? And I was like, no, no idea. And it also led to a reflection about the times. That I came so close to losing my life outside a prison, but being involved in the movement. I did some stupid, destructive things. And basically was like, go ahead, take a shot. And like you mentioned. There is not a week that goes by, even now, that I'm not like, How am I still alive? I don't even know how I made it through that shit.

Lauren 35:17

I'm going to admit, as far as where I think I'd be if I had never left, I'm more siding with more than likely killed by another group member, because knowing my mouth at the time, I love pissing people off, including the other group members. Eventually, that would have caught up to me.

Angela 35:32

me too. I could go on probably for a long time about all the dumb, dangerous decisions.

Lauren 35:40

a lot of that kind of feels familiar because I did do similar at the time, but mostly it was to take the attention off myself. If there was conflict with me at the time, so I'm like, okay, let's create it elsewhere. That way, it's like a distraction.

Angela 35:51

I think that we've covered some of the issues that we had with the movement. I can say in the beginning, I did miss some stuff about it. I miss having people around me. At one time I called them friends, but Once I started healing, I was like, who needs enemies when you have friends like these, I don't like being lonely, but I'm also the kind of person that's leave me alone. I don't want to be around people. And then I'm like I'm lonely, I think I'm proud of a few things, too, and I think we've talked about this lately I learned survival skills in the movement that I have used outside, camping get away from that poisonous insert, plant, rodent, reptile, whatever. There are things that I've learned that I don't like and will never allow for myself again. I don't know I don't think there's any great accomplishment. I'm not like I reached this stage of Most aggressive female, I'm certainly not proud of any of that. What was it like for you when you decided consciously to get out and disengage?

Lauren 37:12

I was actually pretty mentally burnt out at the time. I'm just trying to put myself back into 1 of the memories from that time period. For whatever reason. I've got the memory in my head right now of me sitting outside on my front porch, smoking, just really dissociated and zoned out, almost where I'm like, okay how the fuck am I getting out of this? And I was also experiencing really bad suicide ideation at the time. I know it's a sensitive topic to bring up, but I will put it out there that it is entirely normal, especially during early stages of disengagement. And also that's. Like it's fairly common to go through just cause like you feel so lost at the time. So even though I've never made an attempt on my life, yes, absolutely. I have thought about it. For anybody listening to this, like for what it's worth, you're not alone in that regard. But I think that just shows just the amount of like time and energy that I had invested into this whole movement for years only to get absolutely nothing back out of it. That was another thought I do remember having at the time. Yeah, as far as navigating burnout, trying to do therapy and trying to figure out how to keep all the ideas that I'm currently in contact with at bay for the time being, it was actually pretty exhausting.

Angela 38:24

Yeah, it is. It is. it has always been a very present thought with me. How different my disengagement would have been had I not been incarcerated. Because being incarcerated, it took those questions out of my hands. because my own freedom was out of my hands. Like my own, sense of self as An adult, even though I don't think I had learned to be an adult when I became an adult. But thinking about the emotional and mental ties I was trying to disengage myself from I don't know that I would have been able to do all of that if I was worried about oh my gosh I have to move I have to move to another town because this is where my activity was for the most part or so many of my old crew live here still or those kind of things. I feel lucky in a way that incarceration was my route to disengagement because that number one was not death. And come to find out, I did not want to cease existence. I just didn't know how to live. And was, I think it was actually even scarier for me on my way out of prison. Then on my way in because on my way in I knew like what I was in store for me I know I'm gonna be incarcerated. I know I'm losing my freedom and a bunch of like other smaller Liberties that you know, we take for granted But if like I said if I would have kept going like I was going it would have been death would have been the alternative so I'm grateful that it wasn't death and I'm grateful for the experiences I had while I was there because they were some of the most human experiences I've ever had in my life. The times when I went from being so closed and closed minded to blooming into an open person that saw the whole world in bright colors after I shed it. That heat and that anger and seeing different perspectives. It was, I used to call it or describe it as like almost being reborn, but not in a religious context, but with that fierceness. of experiencing life anew. do you think that it took a long time for you to mend relationships once you were able to disengage and start working on that relationship with yourself?

Lauren 41:19

It took forever. Yeah, the relationship to myself was actually the longest one, I will say. But as far as what it looked like between myself and my mom and brother, for instance, it was a slow process as it always is where it's like you just need to build up the trust and the relationship back over time. And This is actually what led to my mom and I writing a book together. Originally, we were doing it just to heal ourselves as a family, and then decided, you know what? Let's air out all of our dirty laundry for the world to see, because why the hell not? but I think overall it's because my mom had also said for years, like she wished there was like some kind of manual or book to get her through it. And I'm like it's too little too late for us, but it doesn't mean it has to be the same for someone else. And she had also used my bookshelf as her own personal library. Eventually she wouldn't even knock on the door. It's like borrowing a book and I'm like, all yes. Mother dearest. And she had noticed like books that I had about other formers and stuff on my shelf. So she was interested in reading those and then eventually just led to us working on ours, but it took forever. And even we started writing our book around twenty eighteen. That was about three or four years of me being, like, fully out of everything, and even throughout the book we had a couple arguments here and there we don't always see eye to eye on everything nowadays, and not that we have to, but eventually our publishers had told us, and our editor told us the same thing, you guys don't need to agree on everything in order to write this, and the same also went for our relationship too. You don't need to see complete eye to eye with the person in order to get along with them.

Angela 42:55

This is true. Do you and your mom butt heads less nowadays?

Lauren 43:00

So because I don't live at home anymore, I'm going to say quite a bit less. Occasionally I'll still get the odd text from her. But overall what she says now is she's you know what? You're an adult. You're not doing the same stupid shit as you used to. So yeah, make your own decisions.

Angela 43:16

Yeah, you know though. She's never gonna stop caring. She's your mom.

Lauren 43:20

I think in any healthy relationship someone has with their parents, the umbilical cord is never truly fully cut.

Angela 43:27

True sorry What are some ways that you've made amends or taken accountability? Would you consider that like the not as frequent headbutting with your mom as a Place of amends.

Lauren 43:43

I found it was actually like, the little things that I would do day to day aside from doing this type of work, it's like, how I interact with people, how I think of them, how I treat them because I do often say that change behavior is the best apology. Now, when it comes to this work, on the other hand, I think I reached out to life after hate around 2017, just after the Charlottesville rally had happened. So I did start doing some media engagement and public speaking, but. Fully willing to admit that I didn't really take it for serious until, of course, 2018 rolled around and I was in the area at the time of the Toronto van attack. Having almost been on the receiving end of hate, I realize it's a different form of extremism. The guys in and sell, but at the same time. It's the same end result. It is. So after having been almost on the receiving end of that, it took me years to like, get the screaming out of my head. Cause even though I didn't need to see the body count at the same time, it's like just knowing what happened that day, never forgetting what it sounded like. For me, it's okay I feel like I needed to see the other side of the coin or like just the other side of this in order to. Have a better perspective on things. So let's just say, even at that time that I started volunteering and doing public speaking, I did have some growing up to do and eventually was forced to do it.

Angela 44:58

as human beings We're in a constant state of growth like we're not the same person from day to day, you know depending on what we experience and learn and lose and so many things going through it, there was nobody to talk to there, there was not other formers, it took me some time of trying to balance out what I thought was expected of me and what I expected of myself. I think I probably have put myself through the ringer more than anybody else has done. And that's saying a lot because I've been called names, I've been called disingenuous, like in the beginning. it probably is good to mention, too, that we don't all reach a point where we're like, we're healed. Ding! The take the bird out of the oven. It's done. We go about our lives. And as we tell our stories, as we answer questions, we're still processing our own experiences, and still becoming the humans, we are meant to be. And there were a lot of things that when I first started speaking publicly, I would notice that my feelings about things or thoughts would change over time and that I was always seeing myself in a different light, like some days it was really bad and I was like, you don't deserve forgiveness. You don't deserve to even think about, having a better life But then there were the days that were like, look how far you've come. Look what you've survived, look where you're at, look where you're headed. And it really took that kind of introspection to start before I was really able to say, I feel confident about making amends. I'm not doing it because I feel like I'm being forced to or that it's like on somebody's checklist of what I must do. I'm doing it because I feel good about it. And that took a long time. You don't just hop out and be like, I know all the answers. I've done all the healing. And I wish more people realize that, that it's such an important journey, that space between exiting. and the present. We don't spend enough time exploring it, talking about it. I feel like we've talked out the stories of oh yeah, I got in a hate grip, I got into 87 fights, and I've been arrested 100 times, and Go Google that shit, if that's what you're looking for. There's plenty that's been written, about those type of things. But, let's do the hard work together. Let's talk about what that experience was between that time and the people, the humans that we are now. But it took A very long time to get comfortable with that because there's no rule book, we've had to wing it for a while and thankfully we're at a place now that enough of us have been able to come together to say, hey, my experience wasn't exactly the same, but we do have these similarities. Like, how can we support each other? in that. What can we learn from each other? I would definitely say that this whole thing has impacted relationships for what seems like it actually is the majority of my life. I got involved in this shit when I was 15. I'm gonna be 50 in May. And to know that I've spent so much more time working against hate than I did entertaining it or being a part of it is such a good feeling. Like it's it's, I know it sounds so weird, but it's almost like a nourishing holy shit, look how far this journey has brought me. Look at what I've been able to contribute and what I have had the opportunity to learn and grow from. It's changed a lot of perspectives for me and quite honestly in the process of making amends I still am at a point where I think I'm never going to be done apologizing. There will be something to apologize for probably for the rest of my life related to my time in the violent far right

Lauren 49:42

Yeah, I'm actually just trying to think who I've had to do the most apologizing for, or who I've had to apologize to the most, I should say, probably myself, because we're a bunch of times in the therapist's office years ago. And even while I was doing EMDR last year, just because, as you said self healing is technically never done. So I just do it as I need it. But for the most part, actually, it's me having to apologize to myself. It's like, why would I put myself through this at the time? Oh, because my mindset was a lot different. I didn't believe that I could do any better at any given moment. As far as family members, let me just gloss over this one and say that on both sides of our family, there's those few toxic people where I'm like, okay I thought that I deserve to be shunned by them. But at the same time, they're also doing me a favor by not talking to me because there's 3 sides to every story, right? Side A, side B, and then there's the truth. So there's definitely some people where I'm like, okay it is best that we make it up to each other by staying out of one another's lives.

Angela 50:47

that's a good way to look at it. thank you for that new perspective on it, Lauren.

Lauren 50:51

You can't force anything to happen. And yeah, like I also said, there's three sides to every story.

Angela 50:58

it's true. And sometimes no matter how certain we are that like our version is the closest to the truth, there's another person sitting there feeling the exact same way. And. Not every person will be receptive to an apology I know that for me, though, it feels so much better and lighter to be able to process things and let them run their course and let them go than it does to Clutch them like life preservers that are actually like helping sink us.

Lauren 51:36

And I think in terms of relationships too, from like a different angle I remember being like, almost scared to date when I first got out of the movement. Like, how the hell am I going to explain my past to anybody? But that was actually the least of my concerns. It was what's going to be done. With the information, just because opening up and disclosing this kind of thing is vulnerability, right? But at the same time, I've also heard several therapists and experts and stuff say before, just to be careful about who you tell this stuff to. And with that being said, it did allow me to catch some red flags with a couple people early on, where say, if we would have a disagreement on something, regardless of how small it is, I'd be told maybe if you weren't such a piece of shit in your past your judgment wouldn't be clouded by now, so it was basically gaslighting at the end of the day, and I'm like, okay, if it's going to be held over my head like this, then I'm bailing out of this this situation right now. What it also attracts to, I found, is A lot of codependency issues this is something I hear out of our service participants and stuff as well, where they don't necessarily know how to navigate what looks like a healthy and stable one. And of course I'm 34 now. I am seeing somebody. It hasn't really been that long, but I'm like, that's actually seems like the healthiest dynamic that I've had so far. So we'll keep our fingers crossed for that.

Angela 52:56

I have mine crossed for you, but unfortunately that is a reality. Like I, I had a pretty scary experience that it was still early after my release from prison, like I started dating this woman. A little tad younger than me and over the course of our four year relationship, I noticed a ton of red flags and I was still like on a hardcore path and process of healing, like just straight out healing and the red flags I was noticing in her. We're addiction control issues, jealousy, and I am not that type of person. when I tried to split up with her, she threatened me and said, all I have to do is make one call, make a mark on myself and say that you hit me and you go back to prison for life because the state I was living in was a three strike state and I was on my second strike and things like that have made me hesitant to trust people. And I'm already hesitant to trust people because Unfortunately, I'm one of those cases where the very people that we feel like we can count on the most. that are supposed to love us and nurture us are some of the biggest abusers of my life. But one thing that I've learned from that is that early on, I still couldn't trust my own decisions. I still wasn't making decisions from a healthy, confident place. I was still making decisions from a fearful, what if I never receive any other kind of love, so I better just accept what I get. And over the decades that has changed drastically. So I know that I can at least mostly trust my own decisions now. I don't make the kind of risky decisions and I'm no longer attracted to red flags. Now I run from them. So that's a good thing.

Lauren 55:15

I wanted to say, actually, I dated someone for 7 years. So pretty much like a year out of the movement. I had met him, but I only recognize these red flags, of course, in hindsight, because that's just how shit goes. For me personally, I don't have codependency issues, but he does, slash did, I did open up to him, but he saw me as like a project that he needed to fix, which I don't think is a healthy dynamic in the long run at all and it's quite funny as far as trusting ourselves, because throughout our whole lives, we've been told, oh, yeah what love feels like, it's like this crazy friggin anxiety feeling, and I'm like, no, actually, I just see that as anxiety, what someone had told me recently what it's supposed to feel like is warm, groundedness stillness kind of thing you're just supposed to feel comfortable.

Angela 56:00

Like you can be who you are no matter who that is.

Lauren 56:03

exactly. For anyone listening who's looking for advice on red flags, just go with how you feel around the person. Do you feel like yourself? If the answer's no, feel free to get the fuck out of there.

Angela 56:13

So are you happy now?

Lauren 56:14

Yeah, I would say mostly. Any complaints that I have are just like stupid first world ones, so I'm gonna say yes. How about you?

Angela 56:23

Yes. I am the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I have found that that has come through living my life as authentically as possible as. Learning to trust myself, learning to trust my decisions, and the people that I invite into my life, and I just, it feels so great not to carry around such heavy feelings of anger and aggression and hatred because they're exhausting, And would encourage anybody that, keep going on this path. It's not the easiest path you will ever walk. It comes with its own unique set of learning and experiencing things. But it's so worth it at the other end. To wake up every day and not Wonder am I gonna have to fight any of my friends today? Am I gonna go to jail today? Like any number of crazy scenarios that really used to be life.

Lauren 57:35

Yeah, I think for me overall it's just nice not living in chaos anymore. It took a while to get used to not living in it, but I'm like, you know what, I sleep a full eight hours a night now, which I never used to. I feel like that's also a big indicator here. It's alright stuff's just nice and steady and comfortable now.

Angela 57:52

Yeah, and who can complain about that?

Lauren 57:56

I sure as hell won't.

Angela 57:58

Could, but we won't do it. Is there anything that you want to talk about in addition to what we've talked about? Plug? Share?

Lauren 58:08

Yeah, I guess just to add on as scary as the disengagement process can seem, it can also be fun. I often encourage people to write a bucket list or life to do list of everything they felt they missed out on. That being said, I did do, I did follow my own advice. I wrote mine a bunch of years ago. I think I crossed about half the things off of it now. Favorite one, of course, has been skydiving. And of course, like all my co workers, I've seen the videos and stuff and been traumatized by it. I'm sorry, but at the same time, it also puts a smile on my face.

Angela 58:38

It has and does put a smile on your face. I've witnessed this for years and it is still the one thing that will never be on my bucket list. we've had some pretty interesting lives, Lauren. And I'm grateful that we're on this side of it and able to share with each other and others about some of our experiences and also Some of our coping mechanisms and the things that have helped us get through. Thank you so much for being a part of this conversation. I hope our listeners learn something positive from our thoughts and experiences. And that they also feel free to let us know how they feel about it. And. about our discussion if you're listening, you can do that by commenting on our Instagram or Twitter or joining the Discord and getting in on the conversation yourself. Lauren, You are appreciated

Lauren 59:39

thank you for putting up with me once again.