My son Austen* looks like most nine-year-olds, except perhaps a bit taller, with long legs that carry him swiftly across the ground as he races you to the car or the door of the house or the mailbox. He has curly brown hair, golden brown skin and painfully long, lush eyelashes ringing his deep brown eyes. When he flashes you a big grin -- as he does when he's thinking about something funny that happened at school or his latest high score on a favorite video game -- you see those new adult teeth that still look a bit too big for his mouth, like a young colt's. His fingernails have a tendency to be dirty, for the same reason the palms of his hands are calloused: from swinging on monkey bars and climbing trees.

What you won't notice immediately is his disability...

Read the rest at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/thinplaces/2010/09/perfectly-human-invisible-by-mary-p-jones.html

A few days ago, a columnist I generally like wrote a satirical piece on sex addiction rehab (one I won't link to here, due to its triggering nature). He's a liberal columnist, so the comments were populated with lots of LOLs and virtual eye rolling at the concept of sex addiction as a creation of the religious right: people who are uptight about and don't know how to enjoy sex. There was lots of mocking of the "higher power" concept, lots of atheists sneering at the superstitious nonsense that is God.

Of course, the conservative flip side of the "sex addiction is a joke" coin is to sneer at therapists: people who are forever trying to write off weakness and lack of willpower as "diseases" in order to bilk people out of money.  Either way, treatment for sex addiction is seen as misguided and useless: so called "sex addicts" either "just" need to loosen up and learn to accept and enjoy their sexuality or "just" need to have more willpower and moral fortitude.

And either way, as someone married to a sex addict, it can be both hurtful and maddening to feel the world is ringed around us in a circle, pointing and laughing, saying that we've been duped when, for the first time, we feel we're seeing clearly. It's one of those things that is likely to draw me back into that crazy place I used to occupy: where, like a six-year-old, I yell "NO!" at someone else's "Yes!" only to have them yell "Yes!" back at me in an endless cycle; where I feel panicked and crazy, as if someone's telling me the sky is red when I see it's blue; where I spend my time and energy fruitlessly trying to convince someone else that they're wrong so that I can feel right again.

I wanted (desperately) to pull out my credentials and yell into the comments section, "Mark and I weren't some crazy, uptight religious fanatics who just couldn't embrace our sexuality!  And I'm not some uptight, frigid wife who can't please her man!  I was a really good atheist who really loves sex!"  As if the columnist, or any of the commenters, would read that and suddenly say, "Oh, some random stranger on the Internet says that wasn't her experience. Now I've totally changed my view on sex addiction!" rather than, "I bet she actually sucks in bed and her husband is an asshole."

Deep breath.  Step 1.  I am powerless over other people.  I am powerless to change their perceptions of me.  And trying to do so anyway makes my life unmanageable.  Followed by Step 2.  Help from that much maligned higher power.

I didn't leave the comment.  I stopped reading, made the column disappear in a flash of electrons with the click of my mouse and I did something I never used to do before.  I prayed.  "God, let me see the world through your eyes.  Let me not be threatened by people whose experiences are different.  When I mock others, I am usually scared and hurting.  In every place that this columnist and his readers are scared and hurting too, open their hearts to love and peace.  Help me on my journey, and help all of them follow the path they need to, so that we can find love and understanding for each other."

In the past, I wouldn't have prayed because my God is not a separate being who controls the world, but I've found that prayer isn't (as I used to think) some useless, crazy, superstitious ritual predicated on achieving results with the help of a supernatural power.  Prayer is a tool I use to ground myself, open my own heart and let go of my own pain, fear and anger.  Prayer is a way of connecting to my higher power, my better nature, my Buddha nature, the God part inside me.  Prayer is a way of feeling love and compassion and connection to others, rather than distance and anger and fear and resentment.  When I pray for someone who requests my prayers, it connects us, and lifts us both up.  When I pray (quietly, secretly) for someone who doesn't request it, it helps me love and forgive.  I've learned that even if prayer never produces any tangible results in the world, it's not useless -- not to me -- because the purpose isn't to change the world to get what I want, it's to help me be in line with and at peace with what is.

I was one of only five people on the planet who didn't own a copy of Thriller, largely because I like to be contrary; it allows me to feel superior and rebel against alcoholic absolutism by being absolute in a different direction. But because I grew up in the 80's, I couldn't escape knowing every song on the album whether I owned it or not. (And then secretly singing them to myself when there was no one around to see me being anything less than contemptuous of their choices.)

When Michael Jackson's skin whitened and his nose became skeletal, when he was accused of child molestation and and sued for debt, when there were reports that he bought the Elephant Man's bones, when he nicknamed his son Blanket and built an amusement park in his back yard, when the tabloids dubbed him Wacko Jacko, I liked to tell people "I told you so. I always thought there was something wrong with him." As if that were really the reason I pretended to disdain him when he was at the height of his popularity and continued to mock him as his untreated mental illness* played out on a global stage.

But my relationship with Michael Jackson (as with so many people in and out of my life) has changed as my relationship to myself in recovery has changed. Instead of seeing him as someone to mock in order to feel clever and healthy, I started to see a someone who was aching enough inside to have visibly mutilated (or paid his plastic surgeons to mutilate) his body. I saw a talented man who lived imprisoned in his own deep pain, a man who self medicated through fantasy in many of the same ways I had myself. As I came to better understand my own love of Peter Pan and the fantasy of Disney and my own desire to escape into some fantasy childhood, I suspected I better understood his too. And I used to, in my own way, pray for him. I thought about how hard it must be for someone so insulated from the world by money and fame to finally reach a point low enough to break through denial and bring desperation for change, and I would hope that he would finally lose enough to get help.

When I learned of Michael Jackson's death, I felt the same sadness I felt at the death of my father-in-law: the grief that he died without ever finding relief, redemption or recovery (in its broadest sense) in this life. But I am grateful, as I see my own progress mirrored in my changing perceptions of him, that I can finally crank up "Thriller" and spin a bit in his honor.

It was raining the night I first kissed my husband. The wind was hissing and howling through the bare branches of the trees, rattling the last of the dead leaves still clinging to their posts. Before we kissed, we twined our hands together and watched our arms weave against each other like snakes, mahogany and golden. And when at last, softly, lip met lip, I wanted to rush out into the wind and rain and throw my arms out and laugh wildly or scream at the sky, like Ophelia drowning or Lear going mad in the storm. I couldn't resist him, nor he me, and the intensity of the pleasure in that kiss rode the edge of being blinding pain. It was the kind of high that addicts seek to return to and sustain forever, that I, in my own issues around love and romance and sex, have always wanted to return to again and again with Mark.

Last night, the kids were asleep and after a long busy week, Mark and I finally had a moment alone together. We were lying in bed and he twined his hand into mine, a sweet prelude, just like that night we first kissed. Only this time the contrast -- between what magic I thought we had back then and all the craziness of addiction and fantasy and delusion and denial that overlaid it and everything else since -- was too much for me. I burst into tears and Mark said, "Whoa, you're sad. What's the matter?"

I fumbled to explain where that gesture, so reminiscent of an earlier time, had taken me and said, "You know, people who are just starting recovery sometimes ask me if it ever stops hurting. And I tell them it does, mostly. But I say that sometimes it comes back, just not as strong. This is one of those times. It's better, but the pain's still there. Sometimes I just miss that fantasy, that irresistible passion. I miss the person I used to be, when sex didn't seem so complicated."

I put my head on Mark's chest and he stroked my hair and shoulder while I lay there feeling angry and disgusted at myself for being so caught up in the past and in the unknown that I couldn't enjoy an intimate moment right here in the present. I worried that Mark would be angry at me and level the charges at me that I'd heard others had leveled at them (and that I'd even leveled at others myself): that I was "freaking out," being "neurotic" and "overly emotional," being a stereotypical woman "too uptight" to have sex. I mean, geez, why didn't I just say I had a headache while I was at it? I imagined he wanted me to "get over it" so that he could get his needs met without having to deal with my troublesome and annoying emotions. And I thought about a conversation I had with a friend who said healing from the violation and trauma of being in a relationship with a sex addict has similarities to healing from the violation and trauma of rape, and I tried (without much success) to be forgiving of myself for still struggling sometimes, even six years after disclosure.

Then Mark interrupted my thoughts as he ran his hand over my shoulder, sighed happily and said, "I love you, and I'm so glad to be here with you!" I looked up at his face, and he was beaming. "God is good!" he said, almost laughing with happiness. What? No sex and he, the sex addict, was still happy? To be here with me? Wow. I snuggled in close and kissed him, and then I started laughing. "You know," I said, "just a minute ago, I was missing that irresistible passion and addictive inability to say no. I was thinking it was the sexiest thing in the world and I was never going to be able to get moments like that back. Now, a minute later, I'm seeing the ability to say no as such a gift, and I don't have to get back there, because recovery is looking pretty darn sexy on you..."

Last week, in my guest post for Lisa Belkin's New York Times blog Motherlode, I wrote about some of the challenges a trip to the grocery store can present for my son Austen. Since then a number of people have very kindly commented or e-mailed asking, "If I see a parent and child in a situation like this, what can I do to help?"

It reminds me of an interview question I had when I was applying for a college scholarship: "You've written a passionate and moving essay about the environmental impact of suburban development.  It really opened my eyes to some of the issues facing our area.  Now, when you have a college education, what do you plan to do to address this issue?" "Um," I stammered, "Exactly what I have done: write about it."  The interviewer frowned, "But what are you going to do?"  "I wrote about it," I responded, "and you're thinking about it in a different way now. That is doing something.  There are other people better equipped than I am to handle the specific details of this complex problem, but they can't work on it if they aren't aware of it." (I didn't get the scholarship. Ironically, it was from a newspaper.)

I shared my story to elicit compassion and understanding, to let a world that feels annoyed at my child and me know that we're doing the very best we can at any given moment, to let parents like me know they're not alone in feeling judged or anxious or overwhelmed, to remind myself to open my own heart and stop feeling the useless, hurtful anger that goes with my judgmentalness. (I just want world peace. Is that so much to ask? Really?) So, to me, the fact that people are asking the question -- that there's an impulse to be generous, that hearts and eyes and minds are open -- tells me that we're already doing what's important.

And I know. This is where (as in my interview) I supposed to swoop in with my helpful list of practical tips to ensure a happy outcome.  But situations are complex, people are complex and we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses.  When I'm on the other end, watching another parent struggle, I trust my heart and wing it (just like parenting), and I handle different situations (and different people) differently. I don't have any answers that you all don't already have. And I can't tell any of you how to handle a situation you're going to encounter better than you yourself will know how to handle it when you get there.  What I know is that if you're asking, "What can you do to help?" you really are already doing all you need to.  It may not feel like enough to you, but to me, it feels like everything.

Mark and I were at a beach one day, years ago. It was autumn and the wind was blowing the chill salt air around us. I felt invigorated and happy, the way I always do when I can hear and smell the ocean, and as we walked inside, I was smiling. The warmth of the lobby we were standing in crept through us, and Mark sighed and said, "Whew! I don't think I could ever live this close to the water."

"Why not?" I asked, with a touch of disappointment. Living at the very edge of the world, where land and ocean meet, has always been my dream, and that doesn't work well if your life partner dreads the idea.

"It gets so windy. And the wind is exhausting. I don't realize how hard my body has been working until I'm not in it anymore. Now that we're out of the wind, it's such a relief."

And I knew exactly that feeling -- the struggle just to maintain myself in an environment that was hostile to my particular makeup: the noisy party that I could feel my body relax upon leaving, the bustling city that slipped away on the train ride out, the feeling of guardedness I dropped when I got home from work. It can be such a relief not to have to fight anymore.

Twice this week, I was reminded of Mark struggling against the wind and how he felt stepping inside the warm shelter of that lobby.

An old friend from high school found me -- the real life me -- in a different corner of the Internet. He was always a good and kind person, and he was reaching out to say hi and see what was going on in my life. And as he did, I saw myself through his eyes, the way he knew me and has seen me: a good and kind person in my own right. It was such a relief. I'm building a serenity around myself and a love for myself, regardless of how others perceive me, but it is still, most days, a struggle. It's still work. I'm still fighting the wind of school administrators who think I'm difficult or neighbors who want me to sweep the walk more often or employers who need me to meet a deadline. And in this simple hello from someone who has known me and liked me, I found a moment of quiet and calm and acceptance.

Also this week, while I've been sick in bed, I've been reading a book on Buddhism and the Twelve Steps by Kevin Griffin. As I read his thoughts -- on compassion, on God, on this journey -- I found that same relief. I wasn't fighting the wind of my Christian upbringing, of an external vision of God, of a society that feels compassion is equivalent to weakness or pity or is only for the deserving or the "good." I found my struggles reflected and my spiritual path understood, as I so often do in Buddhism. And I felt like I had stepped into shelter from the storm.

I appreciate that I'm learning to live in the wind, but how I also relish those moments when I'm standing in a warm lobby, free from the struggle for a time.