Terminally Unique

Different:  Not alike; dissimilar; unlike most others; unusual.


When I was drinking my life was dominated by the feeling that I didn't fit in.  I didn't fit in anywhere.    It was profoundly uncomfortable to feel that way.  It was as if I was standing on the outside of a closed circle, peering over the heads of everyone else, trying to see what was going on in the center.  I felt excluded, different than anyone else.


Part of these feelings I can attribute to my disease of alcoholism; part I can attribute to normal teenage angst that I never bothered to outgrow.  It was very convenient to imagine that I was one of The Others.  I thought that no one else understood me.  I was terminally unique, and I decided that I was going to stand in the dark and resent the hell out of everyone who didn't  love me.  I was going to will them to see what an amazing, special specimen that I was.  Or I was going to die and let them suffer horribly at my funeral, full of regret that they didn't treat me better when I was around.


Brother.  No wonder I irritated everyone.  I was irritating.


One of the greatest blessings of my recovery is that I have finally grown into my own skin.  I know who I am, more or less, and I'm comfortable with that.  I still people-please too much but it's not my sole vocation anymore.  I don't try to pretend that I'm not who I am or that I like what I don't like.  It's OK.  


People ask SuperK what I'm like at home.  "Like this," she says.  "This is what he's like at home."  I feel good about that, even though she's probably lying.  I'm consistent.  I feel a little different still but I like that.


Does any one know what I'm talking about?