[rigaschuckler]

Sometimes you’d feel like is there any purpose in your life? If yes, what is your identity? Is it a chain of memories, some positive, some negative, etc etc? If your identity is all about memories, then I find myself in a very rough spot.
I grew up in a very average family in a developing nation. I shifted from my small town to a village, and here the story starts. Since the beginning, I knew I was different. I loved encyclopedias, and space nations and dabbled in writing about imaginary universes. I had this high level of intellectual curiosity, which is quite implausible for a person of my age, where I wanted to think about warriors and mystics of lore. I yearned to travel all over the world, meet different people, talk in different tongues, and become a global citizen. I had this streak of breaking all barriers and starting something new. Maybe I had found my culture lacked a global essence, and I tried to create an artificial civilization, with its own culture including poetry and literature, and its unique religion.

I think back then, or even now schools in these places are not equipped to understand guys like us. Then, the teachers were ignorant about things like different and maybe superior intellects, and I never got any particular attention. Add to this, I was thrown into a fierce family fight involving my dad and his extended family. Here the story begins.

I was a very fragile boy of 12 then. I studied in the village school, where my aunt was the teacher. Since then, the uncle who still carries a strong grudge against our family started making my life difficult. Initially, it was a mix of verbal taunts and sometimes accusing me of being mannerless in a threatening tone. Then it developed into more aggressive stuff, like calling me unintelligent and saying things like I cannot do anything so I should not have any hopes to do better. It was like slow poison, and it slowly corrupted and damaged my self-esteem. This man somehow was respected by the whole family and he could do this with ease. My parents were never aware of this, and all this made his job easy. He was soon joined by a procession of other characters, and they all made my life very uneasy. They would avoid gazing at me, merely a teenager, and if they talked at all, it would be like ‘Try to be a little bit civilized you villager- as they all lived in relatively better cities. They undermined all of my achievements, ( I used to win quiz competitions and they made fun of that). There was a clear wall between myself and others. My cousins were never treated like this, and they never suffered like me. It was all directed against me.

Soon the bright boy started to founder. He started faring poorly and again the uncle and his team got many reasons to make me cry. It was like they hated my existence, and they could not stand my existence. I had my biggest breakdown, at age 15, and thus began my downfall. I started failing miserably in exams, and I was still targeted by this man. It was like he was enjoying my plight. I lost many many exams, many years, and soon found myself living like a recluse. I could hardly go out, and I stopped going to functions. I tried many things, but every time I did something, I feared I would end up like what my uncle said- like an unintelligent man of no worth. His son again inherited his anger and said to me once, that I have to end up as the failed village genius.
No cousins call me or text me. They all are in touch, and I think I am unable to reach up to them as I have seen many of them and some of them would even not look at me. The people who made my life a mess still act like they are good and normal, and still the extended family respects them. In our culture, deference is a big thing and it puts us sometimes in a very tough place if the elder is not a good, honest guy.

I have reached my mid-30s now, and currently jobless. I still dream about a very good life, but if someone asks me where I come from, I stammer. I do not know my identity. It's like I do not belong anywhere. I belong nowhere. A vacuum.

A man with a baggage of memories. What a life to live!

Do you think my story is a bit rare? I mean the people who treated me like this can be hard to find. Are these situations common or not?

[TheGal]

The first thought that came to my mind is that you need to connect with nature to ground you.

What do you think?