living in TERROR

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25 year old man, living in a very small town.

I spent a year in a psychiatric hospital in the town 10 years ago.

EVERYONE knows stuff about me: store assistants, taxi drivers, local drug dealers I went to school with.

They ALL know I am "weird" and can sense that I am afraid.

What do I do???

What is it that you're afraid of? I mean, do you think that somebody is likely to hurt you? Or are you afraid to be seen, talk to people, and be forced to interact with people you knew in the past? What do they know about you? I mean, depending on how weird you are, it wouldn't take any kind of special insight to notice that.. but there are a lot of people who like weird people anyways. Do they dislike you, or just think you're weird? Have you only recently moved back to this town? Why did you go there?

I feel ya. I live in a very small town and have for almost ten years. I hate it. I've had some problems that EVERYBODY knows about and I hate being talked about, looked at funny etc. I HATE it. I have NO privacy here at all. It's like living in a fish bowl. I can't even go to the park and walk around because everybody knows who I am and all about me etc. No anonymity at all here.

The way I've handled it is I've made them think I'm wierder than I really am. This way, I take back the control over what they think about me. I basically can't stand most of the people who live here. They are backwards, ignorant, uneducated, afraid of any ideas that don't fit right in with their far right, politically and religiously conservative doctrines and they can't stand anyone who is the least bit different. An example is this one Baptist church about three blocks from my house. A few years back, five or six maybe, their preacher had been on a tangent about Harry Potter. He had his congregation buy or somehow or other get their hands on all the HP books they could, and they held a BOOK BURNING. Of children's lit. I've basically decided that I don't give a rats hind end what people who have such a small amount of intelligence think of me.

Forget them, they aren't worth it.

PaganMom

If moving isn't an option, you can find good in this as well. I have found that people who know my quirks and oddities are more accepting of me than people I have just met and yet to "break in". Picture yourself in a different town, one full of people you don't know and who don't know you. Unfamiliar sights and smells surround you. Are you more comfortable now, being away? Or does this image make you feel more afraid or isolated? Let this feeling guide you in what you should do.

Maybe move if you can. And if you like and can stand cities, there's a lot more anonymity there. Also, if you have a problem with a particular store worker or something, another store where you can get what you need should be availible, unlike in small towns.

I guess another option is to try to not care what anyone thinks -- "screw what they think," and try not to be scared of them. Easier said than done, of course.

Welcome to WP!

I would move. Small towns suck.


I lived in one for eight years and it seemed like all the kids knew about me but I didn't know them. But luckily I didn't care what kids thought of me. But when something would happen, everyone knew about it because there was always someone who saw it and bam he or she spreads the word and fore you know, the whole school knows and the kids in elementary school too simply because they were told by their older brothers or sisters.
When I got falsely arrested because some dumb ass thought I took a video tape, everyone in my school knew about the arrest by Monday and it gave me publicity for a week and few kids were still making comments about it two weeks later. Then it died off.
But luckily it wasn't negative attention I got, I got was "Funny" "awesome" and support and kids were asking me what happened. They said the officers were dumb and the street does look like a parking lot. (I was parking on the wrong side of the road thinking it was a parking lot because there are no cubs between the store and gas station). I thought my life be over and kids wouldn't want to be near me thinking I'm a thief. But luckily things stayed the same in my school and my life wasn't over and I didn't have to transfer schools. My mom said it's because I'm a very honest person so they believed me.

But the good thing about small towns are, I wasn't made fun of or picked on. And the teachers noticed me more and were able to help me because they didn't have over 500 students. My school was small. Plus bullies are easier to deal with and they stick out more. Kids just leave you alone if you're different. I think me being in special ed was what made them leave me alone because my pesky neighbor was sure picked on and his mom refused to have an IEP for him. Her excuse was she didn't want him in special ed. So his life was hell because of it.

Moving is not an option for me. We own the house outright. The kids are happy here, and there really is no crime except the occasional traffic violation, domestic call, VPL (bringing booze into a dry county) or a meth lab waaaaay out in the sticks. We don't have to lock our doors, I don't even know where my housekey is. The kids are safe walking around, nothing happens and we are sure not a target for terrorist attacks, if that ever happens again.

PaganMom

I'm always amused by the ignorance of dung-flinging apes who actually believe that by destroying the representation of an idea (books, records, artworks), that you can magically make the idea disappear from the collective mind of all mankind. Isn't that exactly the kind of 'occultism' they're afraid Harry Potter represents?

"The spirit of Christ compels thee! The spirit of Christ compels thee!" ::flick!:: ::flick!:: ::flick!::

Morons.

Are they now using bullwhips to flog the evil spirits of lust from the teen girls reading Twilight?:twisted:

My mom also doesn't like where she lives. She moved there because it was to get us kids through school and we be closer to our grandparents and they were getting older and needed help around the house. She thought she could change her interests but realizes she is a city person. Even my mom is talking about moving back to Portland. They sold their house they were renting out. Even the city she lives close to isn't good enough because they don't have the stuff there you find in Portland.
But right now they are stuck. My mom wants to be a travel nurse but won't till my brother is ready to not have them nearby anymore. He lives on his own but my parents are still there for support in case he needs them.

I dunno, but I bet you I would read Twilight again just FOR the flogging! Depending on who was weilding the whip though.

Yet another reason I don't fit in here.

PaganMom

You two have amused me, greatly

I dunno PaganMom, some of those supposedly straight and narrow Southern Baptist girls . . .

Won't tell you how I know that.
Although, the very fact that it is known . . .

Stop it - you're turning me on. I'm having flashbacks to reading 'The Story of O' in High School. Not required reading , of course...but a classic bit of literature nonetheless.

People in small towns will easily know about anyone. That's why I like living in a city. Sure, it's noisy and quite stressful at times but people could really care less about you in a big city. They have their own problems and if you act "weird" then, sure, they may internally judge you but they're just going to forget about it. A lot of people complain about the hostility of a city, but I couldn't imagine sitting on a bus and everyone on it (including the driver) recognising you or even wanting to talk to you. That being said, I have had conversations with strangers (awkward conversations) but it was much easier to do that than knowing that I'd scew up in some way and have them give me hell for it the next day. At least I'd probably never see the stranger again.

If you can find a way to deal with that kind of change/stress, then perhaps that's an option.

Not sure if this is good advice but if they all know who you are... are you creative? Why not start a tv show and post it to youtube? Try to make money off your infamous identity?