I was 14 years old and angry with a world that could not tell me why I felt the way I did. My mind was fertile ground for an extremist ideology to plant its twisted roots.
After years of relentless bullying in primary school, I had developed a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This was a condition that would hugely affect my behaviour for years to come.
Thankfully the bully and I had parted ways, but with my PTSD in full flight, staying engaged in any sort of traditional schooling had become impossible. Also the heavy drug and alcohol use that had become the order of most days wasn't helping.
The standard benchmarks that someone my age would normally use to reach a sense of accomplishment and belonging with their peers – academic results or sporting prowess – slipped away from my grasp as the days progressed. I was completely oblivious to how the PTSD was driving so much of my behaviour at the time. But I was fully cognisant of the ever-present sense of self that revolved around not being able to do anything worthwhile for anyone, myself included.
That was until the day I met Mal. At almost 30 years of age, he'd had to find company amongst a group of boys who'd barely reached their teens. This signified that he'd been largely shunned by his peers, no doubt for being the unstable, violent alcoholic that he was. But to me as a confused young boy now on the outer edge of society, his wild stories of involvement with a far right white neo-Nazi group were deeply appealing.
Just like any extremist ideology, Mal's chosen brand of whackery presented a simplistic and easy-to-understand view of the world – something that appealed greatly to my confused and poorly coping mind. It was a something that could not fit into the real world, with all of its vast complexities and diversities.
The beauty behind this ultra-narrow belief system was that it did not suggest for one moment that there was anything at all wrong with me.
There was no call for introspection and self-improvement, two things that I was desperately in need of. Not only were the ills of the world the fault of others, but – according to this new narrative – I could now be one of the noble ones being called upon to save the world. For a boy whose only dealings with