"He just said,'It's not real. The Holocaust isn't real,'" Amsden recalled.
She thought her son was joking. Now she says it's clear he wasn't.
Amsden is a lot: the grandmother of two boys. A longtime social worker, now in her late 40s, she is also working in a theater in a small town in Utah. And she says she's also a radical mother.
Not always, Amsden says he wants to get back his grown-up son, the one who seems to have disappeared.
"I felt that the trials didn't work, so I myself I'm looking for a solution or advice, "she said.
Mom talks about how a young peaceful man accepted hatred
Amsden and her now 27-year-old son Jared It was different from Voice.
"We were really close," she said of her only child. Growing up in Utah, she said she was kind and considerate and had friends of various backgrounds and races.
He had a hard time, especially after his father left his family to live openly as a gay, Amsden said. She remembered that the relationship between her son and her father was tense, but it was almost nonexistent after her father left.
The clearer focus was on Voice's clear desire to find his place in the world.
"I don't blame his dad for Jared's decision to do it, but he had a hard time finding acceptance," Amsden said.
"At one point he was obsessed with Buddha, and he is peaceful. He even has a Buddha tattoo on his arm," she said, having another tattoo reading. I added that it was. anger.
But hatred, anger and anger seem to be where he finally found his place.
When looking at the Internet, where her marriage is collapsing in recent years, Amsden needs to act to save people from evil as her son is sucked into a radicalized group. She said she made me feel that there was.
When CNN asked Voice about his views, he was a drug queen dancing in public in front of a large audience before his costume broke and exposed his genitals. I sent a text message to the video.
There was no message in the text. She interpreted that Boyce's mother symbolized her son's belief that he had to work with the Patriot Front to prevent his children from being groomed by gays.
Amsden, Voice joined the group online in 2018 and since then his online "brotherhood" Is trying to convince her that she is right. And it's good.
She said he was trying to convert her in the group manifest, but she's not interested in people who hate gays, immigrants, blacks, etc. She keeps telling him.
But she is at a loss what to do.
A turning point for his mother, if not her son
CNN has contacted a lawyer who is stated to represent one of the men, but has not responded.
Boyce spent the night arrested in prison, and his mother wanted it to be his awakening call. The group he was involved in was not good and could keep him away from his little son. --3 and 5 years old.
Amsden was watching over his grandson that weekend as Boyce said he wanted to go on a camp trip. But when he came back and she blamed him for his arrest, she realized that his position had solidified.
Instead of noticing his feelings, he decided more than ever that he and his companions were doing the right thing. And it pushed Amsden to the end of her rope.
She says she tried to love Voice. She tried to put up with him. She tried to help him. She gave her adult son a place to stay when his marriage collapsed. She gave him gas money when he didn't have enough. She tried to infer with him. She yelled at him. She says she argued and listened.
And now she can't take it anymore, so she told him to leave her basement where he lived.
"I'm not trying to get him out of the house because I want him to suffer, be miserable and homeless, but just understand where love and support really come from. I want you to do it, "she said.
"It doesn't come from them. He feels that way. But they're not going to take him and help him find a job," she said. Added about the men in the group.
"I tried everything. He chose Patriot Front over his family," Amsden said in tears. "It's a slap on the face."
Maintaining connections but setting boundaries
Amsden is desperate to keep his family together He says he is at a loss about how to close the gap with his son.
Psychologist Joseph Ma Pierre states that desires can be valuable.
"When talking about family and loved ones, I think the most important principle is to stay connected," says decades of studying why people join groups. Pierre, who has been doing it, said. Clinical professor of health sciences in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine.
"Therefore, if the person comes back from the rabbit hole or decides to make a change, there is something to come back."
But he, Those who reach out to those who are caught up in hatred or lies warn that they need to set boundaries for their mental health so that they are not inhaled.
"I think I can do it from time to time." See, let's go for a coffee, but I won't talk about anything (stressful). Yeah, let's talk about other things, "Pierre says. rice field.
If a relative or friend becomes a "true believer" for a cause and is unwilling or unable to challenge it, then May be the best or the only option, he said.
"For true believers, it's not just beliefs. It means" I define myself based on those beliefs, "which makes it very difficult to undo. It's time to do it, "Pierre told CNN. "At that stage, people consider the threat to ideology, belief to be a threat to themselves, which makes (discussing) very dangerous."
In the early days of radicalization, Pierre Other approaches may work if you call them "non-believers" who aren't really connected, or "fencesitters" when someone is tinkering with new ideas.
There is no comprehensive response because each situation involves different situations that lead people to that point in time, the psychiatrist said. Do they feel lonely, angry, worried, or scared? Do you need professional help regarding mental health?
And while challenging beliefs can push people into their corners, it's worth providing alternative views and evidence if someone is in the early stages.
Pierre suggests that those dealing with troubled loved ones find a support group for themselves that others understand them. He changed their minds.
"If you expect them to come out of a proven rabbit hole, you have to understand what brought them in the first place," Pierre said.
When traveling in the United States, I find my family nervous
For most families, joining a family is extreme. Not a political polarization that went into the equation and began to tear their relationship.
While traveling all over the United States for CNN reports, I've heard many versions of this scenario deployed at home.
People whisper to me how they stopped talking to her aunt because she is a "crazy socialist liberal" who rejects all ideas related to conservativeism. Others turned into "angry right-wing nut work from Trump's cult" where her grandfather was spitting out "nonsense of heterogeneous hatred", so they are no longer around their children He says he will not invite his grandfather.
Americans have also cut off their longtime friends.Removed acquaintances and friends from Facebook and other social media feeds. They didn't invite their colleagues to the party. It's too stressful to take them when the story turns into politics, religion, or something substantive.
You may have felt nervous at the social gathering yourself. Many people are at a loss about what to do and just leave. Trying to fix this part of the world that you already feel overwhelmed is too tired and too toxic.
One of the things that makes it more difficult to deal with radicalism and polarization is the large amount of false information and information errors that are currently open to the public.
"We are not dealing with the same set of facts," says Pierre. "So when you try to reason to each other, you come from two different worlds."
Again, agree or elicit disagreements about issues that cause friction. There are ways to close the gap, such as moving to another subject that can regain the joy of unity.
Communicating hatred
But in difficult relationships, leaving may be the only way to maintain your mental health. May come to the point. Pierre has been added.
It's not yet an option for Karen Amsden. She says she always loves her son, but she's not the only one worried.
She is afraid of his children, her precious grandchildren, and how they are taught to hate.
"They are both wonderful kids," Amsden said of the boy.
But when they turned the belief of her father's radicals into a parrot, she felt sad.
"We drive a car and (he) looks at the rainbow flag." My father hates the rainbow flag. The rainbow flag is bad. "
