You never thought you could change people’s lives for the better, but with support you did it and I am proud of the you, that I have now become. And you get them, you know the struggle they are going through. Now you are supporting other people who want to escape extremism. It took time, but you did it and look how far you’ve come. So hard to no longer belong to a group of people you felt had welcomed you in, online and off. So hard to have your views challenged, to hear some of the facts you had been told by your new ‘friends’ weren’t even true. I’m proud of you for taking up the offer of support and the chance to turn your life around. It was scary I know, to turn your back on those preaching hate, those who are just looking to others to blame for things that go wrong in life. You got so far in, you didn’t know how to get back out. They don’t speak for anyone who wants a better world. I wish you had realised then, that they didn’t speak for you. Who wanted you to lead your best life, not your worst.īack then, you didn’t know that you could choose your own path, that you didn’t need to follow people you thought had your best interests at heart, but who really were using you for their own agenda.

I wish you had seen how you were beginning not to belong, with those who really did care about you. Too scared to choose another path, despite some of the opinions and content not sitting well with you.

Now it’s clear how angry you were, and scared. I wish you had pressed pause and looked around to see the hurt and upset you were causing then. Your old friends and family didn’t understand, they didn’t ‘get’ you. It made you feel powerful and gave you a sense of purpose, when before you had nothing and felt you were going nowhere. It felt good to be with them, to take part in extremist rallies, to share a voice. You felt part of something for the first time in a long time and it felt good. The dangers of extremism wasn’t something you understood, you only began to realise a while later. You didn’t realise they were just using you. You met more new friends online who shared the same views as you. Instead, you started to speak just like him and I wish you hadn’t. He talked about immigrants, injustice and race. He talked about the reasons things were going wrong, for you, for him, other friends, family. A friend who felt just the same as you, who really ‘got’ you. It seems no one really believed in you or saw your potential. You felt like life was going nowhere, no one wanted to know a kid with bad grades and a record of bad behaviour.

I know how tough it was to feel like an outsider, not to feel like you fitted in anywhere.

I get that you just wanted to belong, I really do. It’s hard for me to write this letter, as there are many things I want to say, to the me that I was back then.

The act the true story