I'm Ignacio, I'm currently 24, I'm from Chile and I have belived in god all my life. At some points in my life I've been part of religions, but mostly I've just tried to follow god's word and apply his teachings in my life.
My life has been a bit of a struggle, I was given into adoption when I was born and was raised by a single mother and my adoptive sister here in Chile. Me and my family moved over to the US when I was 10, my mother had a car accident when I was 13 and she was left with serious brain damage, she managed to survive but I lost the mother I had, instead we were left with an agressive person due to post traumatic stress that every once in a while has some sparks of the person she used to be, after the accident my sister took the role my mother had and since then has looked after my mother, she put all her efforts into my mother's recovery and I could never stop thanking her for doing so, but when this happened I was left without guidance and became a troubled teenager.
I was constantly suspended from school and finally ended up getting expelled from the school district I was in, I did things to get attention such as writting "penis" on a bathroom wall and having the police called on me.
We moved back to chile when I was 16, my mother won a workers compensation lawsuit that was related to her accident and we managed to afford a better life style. I had to home school my self since I was not able to convalidate any of the education I had gotten in the US and when I was 18 I managed to get my highschool diploma through a free-exam process.
At that point in life I never gave up, I never doubted god or questioned any of the things that I had been through.
Social acceptance became an issue for me, I did not know how to relate myself to others and constantly felt neglected or unnoticed. I Realized that I became a lonely person since I felt different. I started asking myself why others had and easier life, why others did not have such a hard time being "likeable" and accepted.
Hate became a part of my daily routine, hate towards happy people, hate towards the life I had, hate towards myself and hate towards anyone that made me feel different.
At 20 I decided to study visual arts, I managed to stand out in everything, the first year I had some of the best grades and proyects in the university I was in, but my attitude and the negative way I saw life weighted upon me and upon my peers, my reputation only became worse to the point where nobody wanted to be around me or work with me, I became a competitive person and had no compasion for others. Two years into my studies I crumbled under my own weight, fell into depression and dropped out.
At 22 alcohol and drugs became my way of handling the things I didn't want to confront. Even thought I had dropped out I developed a passion towards photography and dedicated most of my sober time to developing this skill and learning more about it. I had lost the support of my family due to my life choises and ended up renting a room in a shady part of Santiago.
Photography became my way of expression, it became my life, all of the sudden people started liking what I did and how I told my story through the colors and shapes of my images, I started to feel better about my life and no longer had to uses subtances to evade the real me, because I liked the real me.
Last year during this process I met a girl, she had a story like mine or that's what it seemed like at the time, we became acquainted due to photography, she was starting in it and I shared alot of my experience with her, soon we started to enjoy our company and later became a couple in our own way.
Three months into our relationship she told me she was pregnant, we talked about the posibility of having a family and it just seemed right at the time. That night she left my house and erased me from her life, 2 months later I found out she was never really pregnant, she was never really in love and that I had just been manipulated by someone who was just along for the ride.
I left town and spent the next 5 months in the northen side of Chile, the Atacama desert. I left everything behind, my career, my proyects, my family, my friends... I left behind everything I had wanted in life, everything I had worked for, everything I had cryed for.
I felt that my will and spirit had finally been broken, I starting working in Antofagasta as an event photographer, everything I made went towards rent and drugs, the first few months I was never sober, I got myself a motorcycle and I would get high and ride for hours in the desert waiting for something to happen, amazingly something did happen... The time I spent by myself in this great and huge desert made me realize how small I am compared to everything in the universe, and how little everthing I do matters.
I realized that I could not spend so much time feeling the negative things I was feeling at the time, I realized I had to see the good things in life and live by that, take what I have and make the best out of it.
And since then I've lived that way, everything feels fine even when I don't get the things I want, everything feels ok until I think about God... See, I was taught that God was good and that if I lived by his word and his teachings nothing could ever harm me (Psalm 91:7-10).
I know what I'm about to write is not right, but I feel like God dosen't like me. And deep in my heart I know this can't be true, why would God hate me? Why would he neglect me? What did a newborn do to deserve such a destiny from day one? And so on I could keep on questioning God, I could ask him why he gave me a talent such as the one I have in photography when I've not able to even land a single job in months...
See as of now I only see two choises in my head and maybe that's why I'm out here to seek help, because I'm left to belive that god does not care for me or that god does not exist.
Both of those possibilities create an unbearable desolation in my heart and mind.
I could really use some help, thanks beforehand.
My life has been a bit of a struggle, I was given into adoption when I was born and was raised by a single mother and my adoptive sister here in Chile. Me and my family moved over to the US when I was 10, my mother had a car accident when I was 13 and she was left with serious brain damage, she managed to survive but I lost the mother I had, instead we were left with an agressive person due to post traumatic stress that every once in a while has some sparks of the person she used to be, after the accident my sister took the role my mother had and since then has looked after my mother, she put all her efforts into my mother's recovery and I could never stop thanking her for doing so, but when this happened I was left without guidance and became a troubled teenager.
I was constantly suspended from school and finally ended up getting expelled from the school district I was in, I did things to get attention such as writting "penis" on a bathroom wall and having the police called on me.
We moved back to chile when I was 16, my mother won a workers compensation lawsuit that was related to her accident and we managed to afford a better life style. I had to home school my self since I was not able to convalidate any of the education I had gotten in the US and when I was 18 I managed to get my highschool diploma through a free-exam process.
At that point in life I never gave up, I never doubted god or questioned any of the things that I had been through.
Social acceptance became an issue for me, I did not know how to relate myself to others and constantly felt neglected or unnoticed. I Realized that I became a lonely person since I felt different. I started asking myself why others had and easier life, why others did not have such a hard time being "likeable" and accepted.
Hate became a part of my daily routine, hate towards happy people, hate towards the life I had, hate towards myself and hate towards anyone that made me feel different.
At 20 I decided to study visual arts, I managed to stand out in everything, the first year I had some of the best grades and proyects in the university I was in, but my attitude and the negative way I saw life weighted upon me and upon my peers, my reputation only became worse to the point where nobody wanted to be around me or work with me, I became a competitive person and had no compasion for others. Two years into my studies I crumbled under my own weight, fell into depression and dropped out.
At 22 alcohol and drugs became my way of handling the things I didn't want to confront. Even thought I had dropped out I developed a passion towards photography and dedicated most of my sober time to developing this skill and learning more about it. I had lost the support of my family due to my life choises and ended up renting a room in a shady part of Santiago.
Photography became my way of expression, it became my life, all of the sudden people started liking what I did and how I told my story through the colors and shapes of my images, I started to feel better about my life and no longer had to uses subtances to evade the real me, because I liked the real me.
Last year during this process I met a girl, she had a story like mine or that's what it seemed like at the time, we became acquainted due to photography, she was starting in it and I shared alot of my experience with her, soon we started to enjoy our company and later became a couple in our own way.
Three months into our relationship she told me she was pregnant, we talked about the posibility of having a family and it just seemed right at the time. That night she left my house and erased me from her life, 2 months later I found out she was never really pregnant, she was never really in love and that I had just been manipulated by someone who was just along for the ride.
I left town and spent the next 5 months in the northen side of Chile, the Atacama desert. I left everything behind, my career, my proyects, my family, my friends... I left behind everything I had wanted in life, everything I had worked for, everything I had cryed for.
I felt that my will and spirit had finally been broken, I starting working in Antofagasta as an event photographer, everything I made went towards rent and drugs, the first few months I was never sober, I got myself a motorcycle and I would get high and ride for hours in the desert waiting for something to happen, amazingly something did happen... The time I spent by myself in this great and huge desert made me realize how small I am compared to everything in the universe, and how little everthing I do matters.
I realized that I could not spend so much time feeling the negative things I was feeling at the time, I realized I had to see the good things in life and live by that, take what I have and make the best out of it.
And since then I've lived that way, everything feels fine even when I don't get the things I want, everything feels ok until I think about God... See, I was taught that God was good and that if I lived by his word and his teachings nothing could ever harm me (Psalm 91:7-10).
I know what I'm about to write is not right, but I feel like God dosen't like me. And deep in my heart I know this can't be true, why would God hate me? Why would he neglect me? What did a newborn do to deserve such a destiny from day one? And so on I could keep on questioning God, I could ask him why he gave me a talent such as the one I have in photography when I've not able to even land a single job in months...
See as of now I only see two choises in my head and maybe that's why I'm out here to seek help, because I'm left to belive that god does not care for me or that god does not exist.
Both of those possibilities create an unbearable desolation in my heart and mind.
I could really use some help, thanks beforehand.
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