I’ve never really known what to do with my emotions.

I certainly don’t express them. Not most of them. I can see now that for most of my life, i have treated my emotions like they are the weird mutant kid a rich family keeps locked in the basement out of shame and when he starts banging on the pipes and raising a fuss, everyone just freezes in place and waits for him to tired himself out.

Then again, that’s kind of how life has treated me.

So it fits.

Well, Cousin Wally, the door is open and you are welcome to come and sit with us at the dinner table and be a part of the family again. We don’t care if you are ugly or gross or have bad table manners. We love you and accept you for what you are, and want you to know you have nothing to be ashamed of. It is us who are shamed for how we have treated you. Know, then, that this is your house just as much as it is ours, and from now on, you are just as much a part of our family as anyone else.

Come eat with us. It’ll be fun. We have dip.

Wow, I am tearing up at what I just wrote. I think I have needed to tell that to myself for a very long time. And I am glad I finally did.

I have felt like the ugly shameful misfit for a long ass time. The Thing Most Horrible, the involuntary nightmere, the shame that lives beneath the stairs.

But I have nothing to be ashamed of. Any ugliness I might have accumulated is the result of mental illness and/or how I have been treated. None of it says anything about who I am as a person and I don’t have to “own” any of it.

It’s not me. It’s just something that happened to me. Like ending up in the hospital with pneumonia. It was just bad luck.

Same with getting raped at the age of four. That’s just something that happened to me. It’s a very BAD thing to happen to someone but it doesn’t mean I am something gross or shameful or diseased.

It just means I have problems, like everyone else.

And the horrible shambling Lovecraftian horror I imagine myself to be is not the person the world sees. They just see a fairly average looking beardy fat dude. There are a lot of guys who look more or less like me out there.

We’re a popular model of dude.

Sure, my appearance is a tad slovenly. But not extraordinarily so. Some people are messy and some people are tidy and I am a messy guy.

It comes from being so intellectual and cerebral. All of my mental resources are tied up in thinking the big deep thoughts. There’s little left over for personal grooming.

And I am not saying that’s not an issue. But it’s nowhere near as big a problem as I imagine it to be.

One of the main drivers of my social anxiety, I now see, is this feeling that I am just plain not fit to be around people. Like I am some kind of horrible beast that should never be looked upon by decent folk.

So in the bad old days when my problem was far, far worse, I could not go out in public without an intense feeling of danger creeping up on me pretty fast. it really felt like at any second, someone was going to point at me and scream that I was not of the body and then everyone would be shouting at me about what a horrible person I was and how dare I make people sick by subjecting them to the sight of me and how I should be ashamed to ever be seen in the light of day.

Oh trust me, I was. I still am, to be honest.

But I am working on it. And I have come a long long way. On good days, I can remember that I am a hugely talented creative genius.

Sometimes I can even do it without wincing!

The wincing comes from the depressed part of my mind turning even that kind of good news into something negative by treating it as just another loud annoying voice in my head screaming at me to do things and making me feel bad for not doing them.

So let me get out ahead of this thing I hereby state that it is perfectly fine if I never end up using my considerable gifts to make any kind of splash in the world. They are an opportunity, not and obligation, and I am free to use or ignore them as I see fit without guilt, shame, or feeling like a failure.

They are my abilities, god damn it, and I will use them as I see fit.

Treating them as a source for things I should be doing just makes them part of the enormous mass of things I ignore and actively avoid thinking about by deep diving into my distractions to escape them.

Somehow, I am going to learn how to switch from depressive mode to happy mode at will. In happy mode, I can embrace the world and enjoy it, and look forward to the hours of the day instead of dreading having to fill all that empty time.

And happy mode is a real thing. I have experienced it. Not for very long, sadly, but for long enough to recognize it as a real possibility for me.

It’s the real me shining through all of depression’s oppressive smog. This self-loathing bullshit isn’t the real me, it’s just a symptom of a mental illness I had forced on me .

The real me is happy, funny, cocky, daring, and full of laughter and love. He is relaxed and confident and determined to get the most out of life. He is charming and sweet and leaves a trail of big smiles behind him wherever he goes.

And he isn’t ashamed to just be himself.

Because that’s a perfectly wonderful thing to be.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.