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NOTE: This article contains spoilers for RuPaul鈥檚 Drag Race All Stars season two, and for RuPaul鈥檚 Drag Race season seven.

For a long time my love of came with caveats. I have always felt the need to qualify it: I love her, but I understand why other people might not.

, the Boston native and self-described 鈥淩ussian bisexual transvestite hooker鈥� placed fifth as a contestant on the last year. She returned this year to compete in and has, seemingly defying the odds, climbed to the top of a pack of the best queens from across the seasons to make it to the finale. We will find out the season鈥檚 winner when it airs .

Katya鈥檚 appeal is鈥� difficult to describe. While Katya the drag queen doesn鈥檛 always perform as her Russian alter ego, the character does capture her love of the kitsch, the absurd and the grotesque. When she鈥檚 not giving full Soviet realness on the runway, Katya tends towards a kind of 鈥渦gly glamour鈥�.

To see Katya at, well, not her 鈥渂est鈥� per se but certainly her most Katya, you should stop reading this right now and go watch her with fellow Drag Race alum . The series about whatever the two queens want to talk about in a given week is weird, gross, and so funny I鈥檝e had to stop watching it on public transport. Katya and Trixie have an amazing comedic rapport鈥攖hey鈥檝e become close friends since their season ended. More apropos, UNHhhh is a magical mystery tour through Katya鈥檚 psyche, from her to , starring Jodie Foster.

Katya is hilarious, she is messy, she is smart and above all else, she is real.

During Drag Race season seven, Katya鈥檚 storyline focused on her history of both substance abuse and crippling anxiety. Her precarious mental health threatened to derail her at various times throughout the season, and she was refreshingly open about how paralysed she felt by her inability to live up to her own expectations. Being on the series was also a challenge to her sobriety鈥攕he has described going from not smoking when filming began to getting through a pack or two of cigarettes daily after just a couple of days on the show.

While we saw flashes of her brilliance I thought at the time that she never seemed able to reach her full potential. I loved her, but I understood why she was eliminated.

, that frustration is something I live with every day. I imagine that everything would be okay if only I could be better, if only my mental illness didn鈥檛 make every obstacle feel like the end of the world. It is very easy, through both external stigma and internalised shame, for anxiety to feel like the personal failing it is not.

Going into this season of All Stars, I never expected Katya to do this well. She may be my favourite Drag Race queen of all time, but as I said, my expectations came with caveats: I love her, but her appeal is too niche; I love her, but she鈥檚 too inconsistent; I love her, but other queens will do better. I thought a safer pick would be Adore Delano (an irony as it turns out鈥� voluntarily in the second episode) or Alaska, the drag powerhouse whose victory has felt from the beginning like a .

But Katya has survived, and in a narrative climax I never saw coming, the finale looks set to be a face-off between the season鈥檚 two real remaining competitors: Katya and Alaska. (Of the other queens in the top four, Detox is a superstar but too close to Alaska to be a threat, while it鈥檚 a miracle Roxxxy Andrews wasn鈥檛 eliminated weeks ago.)

With the real (though perhaps slim) possibility of Katya鈥檚 All Stars victory now staring me in the face I wonder whether my qualified love is in fact an expression of my own self-loathing. The things I love about Katya鈥攈er bizarre humour, her messiness, her vulnerability鈥擨鈥檝e written off as somehow illegitimate grounds for success. I see them perhaps as idiosyncrasies that appeal to me, but in a way that I鈥檝e believed says more about my own broken, vulnerable absurdity than what does or doesn鈥檛 make a 鈥済ood鈥� drag performer.

In other, cheesier words: the things I love about Katya are the things I often struggle to love about myself.

Katya鈥檚 vulnerability is her strength. And not at all in a pithy, hallmark way. She is open and generous and funny鈥擪atya鈥檚 vulnerability is never a call for sympathy or even forgiveness, it is a point of connection, of humour and of intimacy. She is relatable and funny and even likeable not in spite of her anxiety, but because of it.

Much of this season of All Stars has been a showcase for Katya鈥檚 talents, but it鈥檚 hard to think of a more representative example of what I鈥檓 talking about than the episode in which the queens had to design a product then record an advertisement to promote it. In ,
Katya drew on her experience of anxiety to sell a placebo-filled spray bottle designed to calm the 鈥渃acophony of demonic voices in my head telling me 鈥榶ou鈥檙e not good enough鈥欌��. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

She may not have the polish of Alaska, a queen who seems destined to inherit a legacy of greatness regardless of the outcome next week. But reflecting on my own anxiety and self-doubt I have come to believe passionately in Katya鈥檚 status as one of the very best queens Drag Race has given us.

I鈥檓 not alone鈥攊t is difficult to find another Drag Race queen who will say a bad word about her, and her passionate fan base has made her one of the most beloved queens in the herstory of the competition.聽Her elimination two episodes before the season seven finale is now looked back on as , and there are many who believe she should have won her season.

Her crowning next week in the RuPaul鈥檚 Drag Race All Stars season finale may be an outside chance, but it would be deserved.

I don鈥檛 want to make this just about anxiety, though that is part of it. The simpler truth is that Katya has given me permission not just to accept the fact that sometimes I鈥檓 a complete mess, but to celebrate it.

The season finale of RuPaul鈥檚 Drag Race All Stars will air on Foxtel鈥檚 Arena this Friday night at 8.30pm.