Jason Cook

“As the saying goes, “No prisons are more confining than those we know not we are in.” I followed all the social rules, and damn, I was good at doing that! Yet I never felt good about myself. Other mothers would say to my mother, “I wish my boy would be more like Loren.” That never felt good. And note: they said more like Loren, not just like Loren. I wanted to be more like those other boys who were a little bit naughty. I wanted to flaunt the rules and have adults look amused and say, “Boys will be boys.” No one demanded I be a good boy. I never really believed that my family would stop loving me if I misbehaved. Still, I felt I couldn’t risk the disapproval of people I loved. The driving force behind my good behavior was shame. Guilt is a feeling you’ve done something bad; shame is a feeling you are bad. A lot of gay men and women say they felt different, but the feeling is heavier than being a misshapen tomato. I felt different in all the wrong ways. I felt if I could get everyone to ratify my goodness, it would take the shame away.”
― Loren A. Olson MD, No More Neckties