I came to this realization at a relatively young age. I don't know if I'm lucky or unlucky.

Around sixteen I considered myself to be a liberal. I embraced social justice as a concept. I considered myself pro-feminism.

Then once I graduated, I fell flat on my face. All the lies I'd been taught did nothing to help me in life. After I got fired from my first job at 17 I spent the next 4 years unemployed. During that time I was extremely isolated. The only person I had any meaningful interactions with in that period was my own mom. I spent most of my days locked in my room, alone.

For a while I still had internet buddies, but they became more distant as I started to question egalitarianism as a concept. After about a year I was totally isolated even online. Every time I tried to reach out on Reddit I was shadowbanned. It felt like the world was shutting me away.

I fell in line with MRAs, who turned what I understood about gender issues on its head, but I still wasn't satisfied. Then I found communities of people dedicated to understanding the biological roots of human behavior. That was the first I learned about Evolutionary Psychology from guys like Robert M. Sapolsky. Around the same time the whole GamerGate fiasco happened. That set me down a path of learning about Marxism, post-modernism, and gave me a healthy distrust of media in general. Upon closer examining the roots of the ideology I built an identity on, I came to the conclusion that most of it was in fact utter rubbish.

So by 21, I've started to build a new identity founded on the knowledge I've gained over the last 4 years. The hardest part is accepting that most people are deluded. To them you're challenging concepts that are axiomatic. The more you try to get them to see reason, the more crazy they think you are.