Image credit: Photo by Nena B. on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons A few months ago, Mark and I took the kids to a "sensory friendly" movie showing. Autistic individuals, and others with sensory processing difficulties, can find a typical movie going experience overwhelming. Movies are loud. Theaters are dark and often crowded. The screen [...]
Posts under ‘understanding’
Routines
Image credit: Photo by Bob.Fornal on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons If you had asked me, before Austen was born, if nearly every detail of my life was fixed in routine, I would have said no, and I would have thought that was quite true. After all, I had free will and all that. If [...]
Live Light, Love Strong
Image credit: Photo by crowbert on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons On my wrist is a bright yellow rubber bracelet with LIVESTRONG imprinted on it. I plucked it from a small wicker basket on a table next to a guest book at a memorial service where one of the loved ones spoke about the task [...]
Prayer
Image credit: Photo by the italian Jonathan on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons 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 [...]
A Spoon Is Not a Spoon
Image credit: Photo by skinnylaminx on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons As I write this, I have a cup of tea beside me, and I am trying to get myself to drink it. I'm not hesitating because I don't like tea or because I think it will be unpleasant. I'm hesitating because I'm trying to [...]
Cutting Past the Crap
Image credit: Photo by misterbisson on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I went to a great 12 Step meeting this week. A lovely group of women, some of whom I'd never met, sat together and shared the kind of things we usually share as partners of sex addicts. We share about things like incest, physically [...]
What Autism Is Supposed to Look Like
Image credit: Photo by cproppe on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons We took the kids to a pool party at the home of some friends of mine recently. The hosts, as well as several guests, moved a fair drive away from us several years ago, and several more guests were visiting from out of town. [...]
The Racial Issue
Image credit: Photo by GarySmith70 on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "Mama, I'm half black, half white," Janie calls to me from where she's playing in the living room. I'd been wondering when this day would come, the day when my biracial daughter would finally notice race and start talking about herself in racial terms. [...]
In Which I Wish Addiction (and Recovery) on the World
Image credit: Photo by JustinLowery.com on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons This weekend, for the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to hear a sex addict from my husband's recovery group speaking about his experiences. I know my husband's story, about as intimately as anyone else can; in a way, it's my [...]
Dumped
Image credit: Photo by odedgal on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Austen's babysitter quit. On the one hand, I don't blame her. Austen has the ability to terrorize his babysitters in a way he does no one else except delivery people, to whom he is like a very loud and aggressive dog; he wants none [...]
