Yes, I remember the day this picture was taken.
It is probably one of my very first memories, and it is ingrained wherever memories are made and stored. I remember standing in the line at the Mohawk Mall, a small part of me wanting to see the Easter Bunny, and the much larger rest of me freaking entirely out, shuffling ever closer with increasing terror and fright. That likely didn’t start my social anxiety, but it was the very first remembered brush with it, so traumatizing was the event.
And even though nothing bad happened, even though I made it through and survived without major incident, it left a mark, and my social anxiety didn’t abate or lessen. If anything, it was emboldened to terrorize me for the next forty years, because it wreaked that much havoc with my head.
It didn’t help that the bunny was such a fright in and of itself. I mean, how cruel was it to introduce that glorious purple tulle ruff to a gay boy, and pair it with a face as diabolical as that? No wonder my taste eventually ran to what it became.
Since that fateful Easter encounter, I’ve had to work through all the rabbit trauma, which ended up being easier than working through the social anxiety, and in a strange way, I’m grateful for that memory. Without the challenges it presented then, now, and probably for a few tomorrows, I wouldn’t challenge myself as much.
Happy Easter everybody!
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