We know that we can't undo our whole lives.

You can't listen to the whole world tell you you're crazy, without wondering, 'Am I crazy?'

Whatever state you find yourself in, you're supposed to be content there.

What's important to me is how the Lord looks at me, more than anything else.

The idea that people feel that they have to be sympathetic to me? It's a funny concept.

I was born and raised in the Westboro Baptist Church, an infamous congregation started by my grandfather, and consisting almost entirely of my extended family.

Westboro's fire and brimstone message was the air I breathed all my life. But after joining Twitter at the age of 23, I encountered people who challenged my beliefs and unearthed contradictions my blind faith had missed.

Twitter helped others to see me as a human being. And showed me their humanity, too.

I know I want to do good for people. And I want to treat people well.

I don't feel confident at all in my beliefs about God. That's definitely scary. But I don't believe anymore that God hates almost all of mankind. I don't think that, if you do everything else in your life right and you happen to be gay, you're automatically going to hell. I don't believe anymore that WBC has a monopoly on truth.

I definitely regret hurting people.

I liked 'The Sun Also Rises.'

We played video games and read books, and we went to public school. And yeah, we went to amusement parks. We did all of those things, but we also - that was all sort of organized around this nationwide picketing campaign.

How could we claim to love our neighbour while at the same time praying for God to destroy them?

Whenever people would speculate about the death of my grandfather it was always this very retributive thing. That they were going to picket his funeral after all the things that he had done to so many other people. That vindictiveness is obviously completely understandable. It would make perfect sense.

I always joke about how I get excited to go to the grocery store without permission.

Showing your own righteousness by pointing out someone's unrighteousness, the race to the bottom, the transgressions getting smaller and smaller and smaller but still treated with the same level of intolerance and condemnation, all of that stuff, even as I say it I am talking about Twitter but I am thinking about Westboro.

Even though I was 27 when I left, I still was largely treated like a child, because I wasn't married. My parents, my mother specifically, knew where I was and what I was doing at all times.

The things I believe in now are grace and the power of human connection to change hearts and minds and the importance of civil dialogue.

We read the whole Bible, cover to cover, over and over again... It wasn't that we read selective parts of the Bible. It was that we interpreted it in this very selective way.

We were supposed to be able to use the Bible's words to explain what we were doing, and if we couldn't do that, then we shouldn't be doing it.

We held signs that said 'Thank God For Dead Soldiers,' 'Thank God For IEDs.'

I'm constantly meeting people that I hurt, you know? This is not - when I go and talk about these things, this is not a theoretical - it's not a theoretical apology. It's something that I live every day.

I will say, this is something, this praying for people to die thing, that's something that I came to believe was unscriptural. And for years, I made these arguments to my family, in writing, privately in letters that didn't get responses and in interviews. And for a while, they just doubled down. Eventually, they came to stop doing it.

I got on Twitter in 2009.

My family, they cannot have anything to do with us. They believe that, you know, their duty is to deliver me to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Generally, people don't change their minds about fundamentally deeply held beliefs; it doesn't happen in an instant - it's a process.

When I got on Twitter, that was the first time I was able to have lasting relationships with outsiders. And even though they were limited to those 140 characters, it was the duration of the friendships and the rapport we were able to develop.

The pickets were just a fact of life. And the fact that people hated us from the time I was tiny, the fact that we were hated, I was taught, was a cause for great rejoicing.

As happy as we were in our backyard jumping on trampolines, it was the same general feeling, often euphoria, on the picket line, because we felt like the way our lives were falling on to us contorted with the people of God and the scriptures. It all felt very normal.

We thought it was our duty to go and warn people of the consequences of their sins, and I understood that to be the definition of loving our neighbour.

I don't believe in God anymore.

I don't like to say I'm not a believer because I still feel like a believer in a lot of things, primarily hope and grace and the power of human connection.

In my home, life was framed as an epic spiritual battle between good and evil.

As a member of Westboro Baptist Church, I became a fixture on picket lines across the country.

My church's antics were such that we were constantly at odds with the world. That reinforced our 'otherness' on a daily basis.

Since leaving the church, I've been working with law enforcement involved in counterterrorism and deradicalization. I hoped that illuminating Westboro's ideology - and especially the unraveling of that ideology - would be useful to the people doing that work.

Take heart, and be patient; change takes time but it is possible, and it's way more likely if we can reach out and disagree without demonizing.

When we lose hope that there is a possibility of reaching the other side - I don't even like to say the 'other side' because there are so many sides, and breaking it down into us/them is oversimplifying - it allows us to treat people in a way that's incredibly destructive.

We were raised to believe that our way of seeing the world was the only way.

I try to focus on using my energy to change things, but there are times when I feel so bad.

I believe in so much - I believe in people. I believe in hope.

It really bugs me that Twitter gets such a bad rep.

I don't think that, if you do everything else in your life right and you happen to be gay, you're automatically going to hell.

I don't believe any more that WBC has a monopoly on truth.

I don't believe any more that God hates almost all of mankind.

There's a learned helplessness for a lot of people who are leaving Westboro because you're not allowed to have any kind of independence when you are there so a lot of people don't have practical life skills.

I feel like I was transformed by the kindness of people who had every reason to show me cruelty and the transformative power of their decision to treat me like a human being, that was so huge, that anytime somebody wants me to talk about that I feel like I absolutely want to do that.

My life was forever changed by people who took the time and had the patience to learn my story and to share theirs with me. They forsook judgment and came to me with kindness and empathy and the impact of that decision was huge.