Thinking about 'coming out'

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Someone over in asperger recently commented that no-one should have to hide what they are, whatever that happens to be. We thought, "if only it were that easy".

This morning, while lying in bed, we realised that it really doesn't have to be any harder than that. We could just, y'know, tell people.

And we realised that we truly want to. We're tired of keeping up the mask to all but one or two of our closest friends.

We'll be telling our boyfriend first. We do, as they say, "fear rejection" - more from him than the rest of our friends, because we have more to lose. Our friends are an accepting bunch, though. Soon we'll see how accepting.

Perhaps we'll lose our nerve. Perhaps this thought will vanish into the abyss of memory. But then, perhaps not.

We're set to visit our boyfriend in the beginning of June. We'll see how it goes.

Comments

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, telling family is pretty much out of the question for us, too. There's no particular bad blood involved, but the family already doesn't understand us, and we don't particularly understand them, either.

And thank you, we could use all the luck we can get. ;)

[pthalo]

and even afterwards, if they're paying for your university...

our mom would never let us go back to uni

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everyone in my life knows that there are many inside and some
people even recognize different people and call them by name.

I pretty much gave up being closeted about anything a long time ago.

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Good to know that it's possible. :)

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Well to qualify that - only one person at work knows, but i refuse to go to
lengths to hide it. All familly i see regularly know as do friends.

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Ah, got it. Wasn't planning on telling anyone at work or college; I/we don't extend that degree of trust to people we know only in quasi-formal settings.

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

In College since we hung with the more radical elements, if i had known
i probably would have been open about it. I am open about it with a school
i had to drop out of recently (bad ear problems forced me to drop).

[shadowechoes.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of being involved with gay rights and other tolerance groups. They always say that all hate should be ended and there should be tolerance and understanding. But at the meetings, we always wondered what would happen if we stood up and came out as multiple. Somehow, I don't think they would have accepted that.

But anyway. Good luck with coming out. We're out to our boyfriend, we were actually out to him before we started dating (and it was kind of neccessary, since originally he was only dating one of us and the rest were involved with a different system. So he needed to know that we weren't just some cheating singleton or even a poly singleton). He took it wonderfully, much to our initial surprise. He treats us all as individuals and has taken the time to try to figure out our individual likes, dislikes, limits, preferences, etc. He can recognize some of us too. So there is hope. :)

A small handful of our friends know. A lot of our online friends know. As far as coming out to friends on and offline, the majority took it really well. There were only a few bad apples.

Good luck!

~several of us

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

We were at an anti-war action last weekend and April who is silent
was there. Our friend who drove us explained us to them - and there
was nary a raised eye.

coming out

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

Coming out to my parents was especially hard for me, because I had to tell them three things: 1. I was pagan, 2. I was engaged to a woman (when I am also female,) and 3. I was not the only person living in my head. They didn't take it very well. In fact, not taking it very well is an understatement, but reguardless of how bad they took it, they *did* recover, albeit a few years later, and now they are beginning to respect me for the choices I've made. It's been a long, hard battle, and heinsight being 20-20, I'd have never told dad I was gay. He took everything else relatively well, but blames all my medical problems on God's wrath over my homosexuality.

Most people can't understand multiplicity, but when I explain to them what it is like to be multiple, they like it, at least in concept. Usually I try to explain by comparing multiplicity to things people do understand, like watching a movie with the commentary on, or having a no-budget college film running in the back of your head all the time. The more you can relate multiplicity to normal events, or things that singletons will experience in day-to-day life, the easier it is for them to understand, and understanding is the first step on the road to accepting.

Also, I have found, that if the person you tell can relate and get along with the first "other" that he meets, this helps the person you tell to accept it sooner. Nomatter how well-meaning, or excited someone in headspace is to meet the person I'm telling, some people just cannot accept or deal with certain members of my system. It's hard to introduce people to Himmler without it coming out something like this, "Himmler's a really nice guy who did a lot of horrible things and killed about 6 million Jews, but he's better now." Not the best first impression. Some of my less coherant members, along with "broken" ones are not allowed to talk to those I just outed myself to either. It makes it easier to take it slow and save the oddballs for last.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

Yay a powerful decision. You probably don't need advice but here's some from our hard won experience so maybe you can avoid our mistakes. :)

1) Try to come out like there's something important but positive to say. 'Cause quite often the other person will take their cue from you and if you treat it like a Terrible Awful Horrible Secret, they will too.

2) Okay this is actually #1. Make LOTS of time to reconnect after - without going err "apeshit multiple" on them. Like the next day or soon thereafter go to a movie, play tennis, whatever it is you would normally do that's fun and you and NOT "hey now you can fingerpaint with our system kids!" or "now Lynn would like to tell you how much she is sick of your fucking pop music" or whatever. Because (and this is the biggest thing we learned) - the other person on some level is probably wondering "does this mean my girlfriend/friend/coworker/partner is GONE? That I have to be careful all the time?"

Some people do want to know names &c. right away and that's cool. But a lot of people first want to know "is my relationship to you okay????" And it helps a LOT if you plan in fun time to solidify the idea that yes! you like them! and yes! you will still be the person they go funky second hand shopping with!

3) Be prepared for a bad reaction. One of my friends SNARKED "so were you abducted by aliens too???" and I didn't talk to her for TWO YEARS because I was not in a headspace to handle it. Two wasted years, because when we did get back in touch she was fantastic and still is. It just shocked her and she said a stupid thing. (Like gee, I've never done that.) That doesn't mean you have to take being shit on. But you may, unlike me, want to be able to calmly say "I know it sounds crazy and I'm sorry it's uncomfortable - let's talk about it in a few weeks" and then, reconnect (see #2 above).

Part of that is being confident and grounded yourself. We all look for validation from others and that's fine... but you can't expect someone who's just now learning this to validate you right away. So you need to be in a headspace where you feel pretty okay with who you are. Ideally. In the real world it doesn't always happen that way.

4) Some people will not get over it. In my experience this was ultimately a very small percentage of people, but there were a couple. It sucks. But there are other people out there, in the end.

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any suggestions on how to let someone know that they've been speaking with more than one person for pretty much the entirety of the relationship?

(If memory serves, it's been a good while since any of us has handled a conversation solo. It helps, too, that our primary contacts with our friends are via IM, and we plan to explain to most people in text. We're far more articulate that way.)

[vox-vocis-vita.livejournal.com]

It helps, too, that our primary contacts with our friends are via IM, and we plan to explain to most people in text. We're far more articulate that way.

I'm the same way. I hate trying to talk/explain anything to someone face to face. I get flustered and stutter and say things like "ummm" and "uhh" a lot. God giving speeches in high school was a pain. I'm much better at explaining things with text.

Plus when it comes to things like multiplicity, when you explain it to someone over IM, its easier to direct them to sites that might help them understand it better.

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

If you are fluid (we are very fluid and can sometime switch
voluntarilly - or at least if the other person is shadowing)

Talking to your friend:

You:

hmmmm... well you know - there are quite a few different people in
here (points to head) Lets see what thinks and ask
them to come forward.

Friend:

Maybe will not think it is a big thing.

If they say - what ? You have multiple personality - i say well
we don't like to be called personalities - we are people ;-)

[shandra.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Ummm... I'm thinking. I think I've just told them, when they've calmed down, things like "remember when you went to the food fair? That was Lyria!" But I usually also have tried to make the point from the start - sort of like "hey your friend is several people" rather than "I'm your friend and I'm multiple."

In AIM I'm not sure how it would work. I tend to want the body language for reassuring people just 'cause of who I am. I did tell a couple of friends via email but I don't think they felt ok with it 'til they actually saw me. But a lot of this was in the dark ages when the 'net was still less common than it is now.

I hope that makes sense. Not enough sleep or coffee yet. :-) I hope it goes really well.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

We have our reasons for being in the closet to our family and at school. However, if you think you can work it out, by all means, go for it.

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

As we've mentioned in some of the other comments, the family, people at work/school, and random people on the street can all go on thinking whatever they want to think.

Most of what will be happening is that our being several minds sharing one body & public identity will move from being a very guarded secret, to a moderately open secret among our closer friends (who, being scattered across the globe, have very little interaction with our family, schooling, or workplace). - They're the people that we'll go out of our way to communicate with, which is saying quite a bit. By now, we figure that we can trust that particular group of people, and that which allows us to be less guarded as we communicate with them is a Good Thing. ;)

[tempusfrangit.livejournal.com]

I told my folks. Big mistake. They acted okay with it, but then talk about how to get me "good, strong help.." for "thinking these sorts of things"..

[linacrow.livejournal.com]

My dad's known for a while, he doesn't really agree with it in terms of how "safe" it is but if I think it works he's not going to contradict me unless he sees something happen that he feels like he needs to warn me about(bad thing is a lot of the time he'll attribute some problems I have to being multiple when it had nothing to do with the situation).
A few friends know but not in a big "comming out" way. It was just offhandedly talked about(same way they found out about me being a pagan, go figure) and they haven't really questioned it at all and took it in a "that's how it is way" instead of a "what's wrong, we need to fix it way". And my boyfriend knows....but he's kinda multiple too so that works out well. I don't think I have a good picture of how it is to be seen as "different" or something. I basically live in a very un-biblebelt niche of the biblebelt.
I wouldn't dare tell my mom....she was threatening to send me to a psychward for being "uncooperative" meaning saying I wasn't depressed when she told me I was depressed.

I think the key is to make sure you have a pretty good relationship with the person in question, which may mean telling one parent and not the other or just not telling them at all.

[angel-one.livejournal.com]

One lesson I seemed to have learned, and painfully, is a different lesson than most have experienced.. but maybe it would hold true if they had followed my same path. For a long time I was really open with everyone. Otherwise it was so obvious people would think I was batshit crazy or a flake or something. But I hate the way people act like its all made up for attention, so I started wondering if I should keep it to myself. Just this once, I dated a guy and kept it secret. Then I fell in love. Way into the relationship, during some bumpy times, I told him. He pretty much treated me like I had told him something horrible and scary, and reacted worse than any one I had previously know (a lot of my friends just shrugged and went "Oh, cool, that makes sense." Our relationship went downhill from there. I have no idea how much of a role that played but it seemed to me that I lost his respect, and when he started dating someone else they used it against me in all sorts of gossip and mocking. I realized that, even though many people wouldn't believe me, or would just blow me off, I'm better off being up front right away. Then if it's something they can't deal with, they're gone before we get too close. But something this obvious could never really be a secret, and I tend to think that any multiple who thinks they're successfully "in the closet:" is in denial about what other people see.

As for my parents, they can't and won't believe me, because they prefer to live in denial and it implies too much about them that I turned out this way. However, my mom did say to me that after I age 7 I became a totally different person overnight, and that I was a totally different person in my first (very abusive) marriage.

Good luck to you.