Personally, I was a left liberal for all my life, but had kinda looked into the abyss of anti-sjw and gamergate stuff, like watching Sargon and Bearing, but hadn't really subscribed to their beliefs, more putting them on as background chatter.
Things changed when I read manufacturing consent, listened to Chomsky and found Chapo at around the end of 2018, at which point I found myself as more an ancom, but Chomsky's talking points on Leninism and the USSR was never as cogent and didn't make as much sense as his other points, so I held skepticism about my beliefs then.
Reading more on theory and history, and looking more into different left tendencies via channels like Rev Left moved me over to be a Marxist, as it made the most sense to me in explaining the current and historical situation. Currently making my way through Lenin and looking more into historical ML states and I've found that I'm pretty comfortable as just a Marxist with ML tendencies rn.
id considered myself a liberal for most of my life, and more of a moderate or libertarian or whatever during high school. i also fell into the "anti-sjw" mode of thought during that time. i think a lot of yet-to-be-leftists experience this phase when they begin to recognize the empty moral posturing of the democratic party, and unfortunately, we end up believing that progressivism itself is flawed. these ideas changed with trump's election my first year of college. his rhetoric disturbed the hell out of me and i quickly realized its not "whiny" for members of BIPOC and LGBTQ communities to demand equal treatment in the face of a bigoted society (edit: i myself am a person of color and a child of immigrants, its fucking scary how that type of thinking sucks you in by convincing you that youre "weak" for "victimizing" yourself). the soul-sucking nature of the jobs i worked made me question corporatism and the power dynamics between employees and managers, and the art i began to consume at the same time, mostly film and music (punk music especially like Fugazi) opened my eyes to alternatives to liberalism. two years ago, between sophomore and junior year of college, i recognized my values as being staunchly anti-capitalist. i then decided to take a minor in political science, which only answered some of my questions. im still not sure where i fall between different ideologies like marxist-leninism and anarchism as both have arguments i appreciate and am critical of, and i know i have a lot learning i need to do as an individual