I came across an article on a site called Queercents that caught my eye: Buying Visibility, One Quarter at a Time. I always get excited when I see others using the words “visibility” and “invisibility.”

The author writes about being visible with her “queerness,” in spite of what many people might feel is a threatening situation (or at least uncomfortable). Take a look.

Write a Comment and share what you do to embrace your visibility or describe where your visibility is challenged.

I sat on the edge of her bed while she lay there struggling to breathe. Her body had been ravaged by lung cancer, emphysema, and the aftermath of her lung surgery six months earlier. She looked up at me and, without any warning, said in a labored voice, “Paul, I know…I’m dying…it’s okay.”

My family and I had been hiding from her the doctor’s terminal prognosis (we didn’t want to upset her), but she had obviously figured it out (she was NO dummy). With her words of defeat, I burst into an uncontrollable crying jag that cut through my attempt at being a stoic 18–year old boy about to lose his mother. She was suffering, and soon it would be time for her to leave us.

Underneath the unbearable strain of the impending loss of my mother was the presence of another set of emotions – the fear, doubt, and deeply embedded shame associated with my newly discovered certainty of being gay (see Are You a Friend of Dorothy?). I wanted so desperately to share with her that I’m gay; I wanted to be real with her; I wanted to be loved and accepted by her; but I also wanted to respect the fact that she deserved as much peace as possible during the remaining days or weeks of her life.

For better or worse, I chose to hide my personal revelation. A new, parallel sense of mourning emerged – that I would never have the opportunity to come out to her and she would never know (at least in an earthly way) this very important transition that I was making in my life. We were each making our own transitions and we didn’t have the opportunity to share them fully with each other. I was beginning one of my many transitions from invisible to visible (emotionally, psychologically, interpersonally) and she was beginning the transition from visible to invisible (in a physical or bodily sense).

I never did muster up the strength to come out to her that day. My internal story was that she was too sick to deal with such disappointing and controversial news. More so, I deeply feared that she may reject me outright, tell me to get out, or be so heart-broken that she would die on the spot. Whatever the outcome, I imagined it would be something horrible. 

The next morning I headed back to college, hopeful that I would return within a few weeks. I never saw her again. She died five weeks later, the day before Thanksgiving 1983, while I was making the 5–hour drive home from college. The coroner had removed her body from her bed about one hour before I arrived home. Once again, my mom and I were simultaneously in transition – she to her new home and me to my childhood home.

I suspect that if my mom had continued to live long enough for me to come out to her that she would have struggled, at first, but eventually embraced all of me, that she would have made the effort to understand.

What was a time in your life in which you chose to hide a part of yourself? What did you hide? How did it turn out? What opportunity did you abandon as a result of choosing/needing to hide?

– Guest Post by Thomas Freese, PhD

After nearly 25 years of loving and living with someone who struggles with the issue of invisibility, I have experienced the pain and the joy of seeing him struggle with (and increasingly succeed in) truly being present in the world. The rewards of this journey have been great, if at times painful. My own process has been to try to understand and be supportive of the journey of someone who has difficulty expressing the challenges that he faces. I recently gained a new perspective from an unexpected source.

I reread one of my favorite books, Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. This book is a tragic allegory of the human condition told through the experience of a carnival family whose parents set out to purposely “breed their own exhibit of human oddities” (back cover). This novel has long been a favorite and, having just completed my third reading, I have realized why. The human condition being dealt with is invisibility.

The central character of the story is Arturo, also known as Aquaboy. He has flippers in place of arms and legs, and began life performing tricks in a large water tank for carnival patrons. As he enters adulthood, he discovers that he has incredible powers of perception and persuasion. He is able to see the secrets that people hope will never be revealed and to help bring out the shame associated with them. In one of the first incidents, he calls an extremely obese woman out of the audience and asks her if she thought she would be happy if she were beautiful, or “is it people not loving you that makes you unhappy? If they don’t love you it’s because there’s something wrong with you. If they love you then it must mean that you are all right” (p. 178). The woman feels understood for the first time and joins the carnival to be near Arturo.

Arturo’s ability to see into the invisible parts of people soon attracts crowds of hundreds to all of his shows and hundreds of cult followers who begin to travel with the show. Arturo’s ability to see and draw out the secret, invisible pieces of people is phenomenal; however, he does not use this gift for good. Instead, he convinces his cult followers that if they were more like him (i.e., less normal), they would be happier. His followers therefore voluntarily submit to removing their limbs, slowly, through repetitive surgeries, piece by piece. In doing this-removing their normalcy-they are gradually amputating their inner sources of shame.

I won’t give away the end of the book. While it is truly tragic, it is brilliantly crafted and should be read in the author’s own words. The message that leapt from the page came long before the end: living invisibly causes people to amputate important and beautiful pieces of themselves. They learn to live without these pieces and continually try to appear normal and well functioning without them. However, as with Arturo’s cult followers, they have more and more difficulty as they are drawn to remove more and more important pieces.

In what ways have you cut off pieces of yourself? What has this removal cost? What would it be like if those cut off pieces no longer had the power to shame?

The painful process of identifying these secret sources of inner shame, claiming them, and then re-attaching them in a way that they lose their shaming force and become sources of power is a long one-but the rewards are beyond measure.

He looked straight into my eyes with a penetrating, all-knowing look and asserted convincingly, “I can tell if someone is gay.”

It was October 1983. I was 18–years old and in my second week of college. My new friends, Dave and Vince, invited me to have pizza with them just thirty minutes earlier. I jumped at the chance to get to know these two guys – both of whom I had met a week before when I was asked to perform in another friend’s senior music recital of opera scenes. Dave was the conductor, Vince was the lead tenor, and I played the baritone role in a scene from Mozart’s opera Cosi fan tutte (which, ironically, is a romantic comedy that explores deception and betrayal).

We had just finished our second rehearsal when the three of us headed for pizza around 7 pm. During the 20–minute drive to the best pizza place in the area, Vince and Dave started talking about the Wizard of Oz. I love the Wizard of Oz, but I had trouble comprehending their conversation. For example, I remember Dave asking Vince, “Are you a friend of Dorothy?” and Vince replying, “Of course.”

What’s a friend of Dorothy? I silently pondered. Not wanting to appear stupid or not “with it,” I set aside my curiosity and discomfort, and joined in their laughter.

When we arrived at the pizza place and got settled into a booth, Dave asked, “Paul, do you know what we were talking about in the car?”

With that question, it was clear that my attempt to be “one of the boys” didn’t work. Yep. I had been caught, so I admitted, “Well, to be honest, I knew you were talking about the Wizard of Oz and stuff, but I didn’t really understand what you guys were really talking about.”

The waitress interrupted our conversation to take our order. I welcomed the distraction because I was unsure where this conversation was heading.

As soon as the waitress walked away, Dave continued with a brief, but shocking explanation, “Vince and I are gay.” I was mystified. How did we go from The Wizard of Oz to gay?

“The conversation we had in the car,” Dave continued, “was our way of coming out to each other. Saying ‘I’m a friend of Dorothy’ is a way of saying ‘I’m gay.’”

Vince chimed in, “We didn’t mean to leave you out of anything, but on the drive over here Dave and I realized that each of us is gay. We got caught up in coming out to each other.”

There I sat, for the first time in my life, in front of two gay men, gaining a new perspective on the Wizard of Oz. My emotions were like the twister that transported Dorothy from Kansas to Munchkinland. There was a surprising calmness in the center of my emotional storm that was punctuated by the emotional debris swirling around me, cluttered with years of repression, secrecy, and hiding.

I was honored that they trusted me with this information and, more importantly, I had this sudden sense of belonging, which literally scared the hell out of me. This was actually a big moment in my life. The truth was that I was terrified to sit there, but I stayed anyways. God, I thought, what if they think I’m gay?

Vince thanked me for not getting up and scurrying to another table. I acknowledged his appreciation by saying, “I wouldn’t run away like that. I’m pretty open-minded.”

Then came the turning point in the conversation. Dave leaned into the table, looked me squarely in the eyes, and said definitively, “I can tell if someone is gay.”

“Aahhhhh!” I screamed silently. Now I really wanted to run away. But instead, without any hesitation, I muscled my way into the land of courage and blurted out a resounding, “Oh.” That’s it. That’s all I said. Just “Oh.” I did not care to know what he thought of me and I ensured that we did not go down that path.

I looked back into Dave’s eyes, doing my best not to reveal any secrets. Dave continued to stare at me, knowingly, for what felt like an eternity. Neither of us said anything while Vince sat on the sideline observing the whole thing.

Thankfully, the pizza arrived. Dave sat back in his chair, relaxing his intense focus on me. In between pizza bites, I asked my two new “friends of Dorothy” about their lives and what it’s like to be gay. We talked for a while longer and then drove back to campus where we parted company until our next rehearsal.

Reflecting on that night, I stood at the threshold of something huge, scary, and inevitable. For the first time, I realized that I would need to face my own betrayal and deception. That night marked the beginning of a new life for me. It was time for me to come out. [To be continued…]

You don’t have to be gay to relate to “coming out” or feeling threatened by others who might suspect your secret. Consider posting in the Comments here or in your private journal, your answers to the following questions:

· When was a time that you betrayed your own integrity by engaging in deception? What happened? What would you do differently now?

· How do you betray your integrity now? What does it get you? What does it cost you?

It was a mid-summer Saturday morning and I was just beginning a new episode of my favorite cartoon, Scooby Doo, when the phone rang. I was the only one inside the house at the moment, so I pulled myself away from Scooby’s latest ghost-hunting adventure to answer it. Even at eight years old, answering the phone still made me nervous, but it was masked by the excitement of discovering who’s on the other end.

“Hello?” I asked in my politest voice.

“Uh…may I speak to Father Bob?” the middle-aged female voice tentatively asked.

Father Bob? Maybe she said may I speak to your father, Bob and I simply misunderstood her emphasis. Yeah, that’s it – I misunderstood her; she meant my father, Bob…not Father Bob.

Returning my focus to the caller and being mindful of my mother’s rules about politeness, I said, “Hold on, please.”

I placed the handset on the kitchen table and walked about six steps to the front door. As I opened it, I cupped my right hand around my mouth and yelled, “Daaa-aaad! Phooo-ooone!”

About thirty seconds later I could hear my father carefully wiping his wet shoes on the mat outside the front door. He came through the door and reached for the phone. In the meantime, I had repositioned myself in front of the television in the adjacent room.

“Hello?” he politely queried. After pausing long enough to hear the caller identify herself, he continued, “Oh, uh…that’s just a kid from the neighborhood.” His reply was matter-of-fact, yet he sounded nervous.

That’s odd¸ I thought. What neighbor kid is he talking about?

Again, after pausing briefly, he added, “Oh. He just likes to call me ‘dad.’”

I tuned out whatever he said after that. I was too shocked to hear anything but my internal voice screaming, WHAT?!? I’m just a neighbor kid? I like to call him dad? What is he talking about? Why is he lying to this woman?

I jumped up and ran down the hallway to my bedroom – my sanctuary for escaping difficult moments like these. I needed the comfort of my bed to appease the confusion and rage that bubbled up. I slammed my door closed and flew onto my bed landing face down on my pillow. I lay there and cried.

A few minutes later, having finished his phone call, the thin walls of our small Las Vegas home shook as my father opened and closed the front door. I lay there for another fifteen minutes, fighting the tears, but with an increasing determination to take action. I began to plot a strategy to confront my father about his lies to the stranger on the phone – to uncover the truth about calling me the neighbor kid. My father was not keen on being questioned, though, so my evolving courage was tempered with uncertainty about proceeding.

Finally, I wiped my eyes dry, and gathered enough courage to make the agonizing journey down the hallway, through the front door, and across the length of the front yard, stopping where my father was casually watering the lawn with the garden hose. I did not look into his eyes at any time, carefully hiding my pain from him and not wanting to notice whatever pain he might be experiencing. He did not look into my eyes either. I simply stood there, next to him, standing no taller than his belly button and saying nothing, just watching him spray the lawn with water.

Following the brief, but interminable silence, accompanied only by the sounds of spraying water and my beating heart, I spit out my question, “Who was that woman?”

“That was my sister,” he said, offering no less and no more. I was aware that he had many siblings, maybe a dozen, most of them living in his home state, Michigan, and having only minimal contact with him, except through an occasional letter.

Setting aside my fear that he would become angry at me for asking him the obvious question, I swallowed hard and asked, “Why did you tell her I am just a neighbor kid?”

“Paul, you’re not old enough to understand. When you’re older, I’ll explain it to you,” he said abruptly.

“When will that be?” I asked with my I-want-to-know-now impatience.

“I told you; when you’re old enough,” he replied, growing increasingly impatient with my curiosity. “For now” he continued, “all you need to know is that my family is not supposed to call me. But, if someone does call again and you don’t know who’s on the phone, just come get me or take a message. Oh, and never call me Dad if you don’t know who the caller is.”

I was stunned. I felt like Scooby Doo or his human pal Freddie, just having seen a ghost. I stood there stiffly for a moment, unsure of what to do next. As I felt my heart sink, I decided to give up my quest. I silently walked back to the house, defeated, but wondering about my father’s secret. Why wouldn’t he tell his sister that his son answered the phone? Is he embarrassed? Is he ashamed of me? What’s going on here?

As I entered the house, I had an eerie sense of skeletons in the closet and ghosts in the attic. My uneasiness deepened as I began to realize that I might somehow be the skeleton in the closet. Is that possible? Why else would he not tell his sister, my aunt, that his son answered the phone?

Having no recourse but to stifle my curiosity for now, I mindlessly returned to watch the final moments of Scooby Doo as he and his friends brought their latest ghost-chasing mystery to a successful conclusion. Maybe, someday, I will bring today’s mystery to a successful conclusion.

In reflecting on this story, what family dynamics squashed your childhood curiosity? What skeletons in the closet related to your feeling invisible? How did you handle those times when you were shut down or your interests were dismissed?

I’m curious to know about YOU, so I invite you to post your reactions as a Comment or, if you prefer privacy, take a few notes in a private journal.

My parents and I were tooling around Las Vegas, my home town, in my dad’s new 1970 AMC Hornet on a cool autumn day. My mother was in the passenger’s seat and I had my usual place in the back seat.

We were traveling east on Charleston Boulevard and we were just passing my favorite auto repair shop. Being five years old and a fan of Hot Wheels, the shop’s defining feature is what captured my attention: a full-size, 1960ish German-styled car teetering atop a twenty foot pole that seemed to extend to the clouds. I often wondered how they got that car up there.

As we passed the auto repair shop, my father made a comment about it. I don’t recall exactly what he said – perhaps it was about the car on a pole – but I do recall disagreeing with him.

Not anticipating the consequences, I leaned forward from my seat and blurted my reaction to his comment. I’ll never know if my blurting was improper or if my father was simply enforcing his children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard rule, but he snapped right back, “Don’t contradict me, Paul.”

Ouch! An adrenaline-filled shock wave streamed through my little body. I felt overwhelmed and stunned. I didn’t understand what my father meant by “don’t contradict me,” but it was clear that he was displeased with me. I immediately defended myself with a defensive, but genuine question, “What did I do?”

“Paul,” he repeated sternly, “You know what you did. Do not contradict me.”

Hoping for clarity and reason, I turned to my mom and asked, “Mom, what did I do?”

“Paul, don’t contradict your father,” she said dismissively.

I had reached a roadblock with my parents. I felt like that car on a pole – skewered, hoisted, and isolated from the rest of the world. I was suddenly all alone. I sank back into my seat, feeling confused and angry.

Then, in an instant, my creative mind locked onto a powerful solution. “I know,” I thought to myself. “I’ll never talk again. If they won’t listen to me, then I won’t give them anything to listen to. I’ll show them.” I silently reiterated my determination, “I’ll never talk again.”

Of course, I did talk again. But that experience in the back seat of the Hornet became a defining moment. I began to suppress my thoughts and feelings. I learned not to speak up, not to create controversy, and certainly not to contradict my father. I began the process of moving from childhood vibrancy to emotional numbness. I found comfort in isolation. I had discovered the power of invisibility. I had redefined myself and reshaped the future of my life.

Consider the following questions about your life. Post your response as a Comment or keep your answers in a private journal:

• What childhood experience might have initiated your invisibility?
• What happened and how did you handle it?
• How has that experience reshaped your life?
• How did being invisible protect you from a threatening environment?