Thanksgiving in the Back Seat

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

So, yeah, I'm at my (er, our) grandma's house for Thanksgiving. The computer I'm on is in the same room where Dad is sleeping, and it's lucky he's a sound sleeper, because he has no idea I exist.

I've been becoming more and more "present" in the world. Last Sunday I actually came out and participated in a conversation face-to-face, for the first time ever. One of the people there didn't know we were multiple, the other did. (Well, his two headmates do, too, to the extent they were there.) Talking is surprisingly easy, when it's something you care about. I'm trying to work my way up to things like introducing myself to Rob's friends - the physicists as well as the more accepting geeks and psychics.

And now I find myself with my family - and I do consider them to be my family; I take my brotherhood with Rob seriously, and I love our relatives, too. But the moment I saw them I found myself all the way back and hiding, like I'm thirteen again. I'm not ready to tell any of them yet, I don't even have any idea whether I'll ever be able to. Just fronting in my grandmother's house has my heart pounding, and while it's novel to actually feel it, I really hate the fear. And I hate taking time off my personal growth for a holiday, it feels like backsliding.

Has anyone come out to parents or siblings? Does it ever go well? How does it go wrong? And, for anyone who's had to teach themselves to front and interact with outsiders, how did you handle getting in situations in the middle where you had to be closeted?

Anyway, I'm off to clear my grandmother's internet history...

Johnny

Comments

[jerseytwo.livejournal.com]

I still have trouble talking to people. Kudos to you for the conversation the other day; I know how it feels to come face to face with actually talking to people for the first time when you're out. It's nice to hear success stories.

Good luck with the family!

-jeremy

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

I've not come out to my family about the multiplicity because of the circumstances that created it. My only living relative right now is my mother (well, I have a brother but he could give a shit) and she's from the Depression Era (I was a late in life baby) and grew up in Appalachia and just doesn't get stuff like this. It took FOREVER to explain bi-polar to her! My asshole husband did tell her a couple times, but she blew it off as we all know he's a lying asshole. She figured he was just saying this shit to upset her. She asked me about it and I just said "mom, don't worry about it."

I think in some deep subconcious way, she knows though. After I was assaulted at five I changed dramatically, and it scared the hell out of her...within a few weeks I'd generated Sara, who didn't have the memories or partial memories and could act like a normal child, which comforted her. She also noted BIG differences in the "me" that had to deal with school mon thru fri (more abusive situations, J'Endra was the one who went to school mostly so she could kick the ass of everyone who tried to feel me up...I hit puberty WAAAY early) J'Endra is bitchy and cold and spiteful...but the person I was on the weekends was 180 the other way, and she'd commented on that a lot.

Then when she got sick...I generated Willow, who can be grace under pressure, for a time anyway until the rest of us just explode, and she'd keep the calm face until we could get somewhere it was okay to cry, and then take back over. My mom does NOT handle other people crying or being emotional very well. I remember my mom looking at me really strange one day after surgery, I was staying with them and tending to her bandages and taking care of my dad who was a invalid, and she said "it's funny, I never thought, ever, that YOU would be able to take care of me and your dad when the time came. I was always worried it would be your brother." (because my brother doesn't give 2 shits about anyone but himself, and he half asses anything to do with them)

I think, in small places, she's put it somewhat together, but not in an actual concious thought. I think before my Dad passed, he had some small clue...he was very stoic and not the type to say much and like my mom, emotion was just not something done (if you've ever watched star trek I was the beta zoid adopted into a vulcan family) but he said something one evening in his sort of roundabout way that gave me the feeling he understood that I was different, and...that was okay with him.

I really can't remember the first time anyone but the prime ever fronted to anyone else, it was so long ago. I had a bad abreaction to prednisone in 94 and the whole thing came crashing in on ME and I realized what, who we all were, or at least some of us...and the prime, Michelle, couldn't handle it. There's been no sign of her since, I think she committed psychic suicide or something. I had been singing backup for a few years anyway (I'm Rhiannon) and was the most capable of stepping in. It's not easy.

As for the fronting and being in the middle, I'm not sure I fully understand. I know some of the stronger of us "ghost" during times other's front. Such as when willow cared for my mom, I was there, but it was like snapshots of moments, or sort of like sitting in another room and just catching parts of the conversation. I didn't learn this, it's just an adaption I guess.

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

Has anyone come out to parents or siblings?Does it ever go well? We have told the body's biological mother on several occasions. None of them have gone well, but I think she just doesn't want to admit that her daughter is "different" or that she could have missed what went on.. (she was a psych nurse for most of our life). The body has no living siblings, but we have told a cousin and our biological aunt. Both of which went very well. The aunt treated us as individuals afterward.. and often spoke with some of us about stuff that she and our biological grandmother had discussed.. about how different we would act after returning from visitation with our biological father. The cousin asked intelligent questions and though he doesn't call us by name, I think he's seen the differences, and understands at least on some level.

How does it go wrong? The first time we told the biological mother, was while we were in the hospital.. after telling a doc what was going on, and being believed... Two days later we were transferred to the hospital she worked at.. and the doctor we had there, talked to her first, and well walked into our first meeting and said that "plurals/multiplicity doesn't exist, and even if it did nothing like that could have happened to sara's daughter" Then spent the next two weeks doping the body up until we were barely functional.. and demanding we give up our faith(which doc and biological mother both blamed for us being so "disobedient"), any comments about being plural, and any mention of the abuse. That messed up several people for quite a long time, and it still affects brighid, the primary of the household at the time. She hasn't been anything close to stable since.

And, for anyone who's had to teach themselves to front and interact with outsiders, how did you handle getting in situations in the middle where you had to be closeted?I'm not sure how it is for others, but for us.. we have an interface.. big fancy way of saying a layer between us and the outside.. it edited a lot of stuff we said and did.. specially while we were learning, and even more so when we weren't sometime. So it kept/keeps us from being discovered.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Earth-mom lives in a happy little denial world about a lot of things. Since she's insisted on staying in it about, um, much more mundane things, we're not putting a lot of faith in her about it. (Especially since, as I expect, her only exposure to multiplicity would be through the 'they blame the parents' paradigm. Whatever she did right or wrong as a parent, she didn't make us plural, but I'm not sure if we could explain to her that we weren't using it as an accusation.)

...siblings might be easier, as I think, there, that might be a case of "having all the evidence but just not putting it together." Or maybe earth-sibling suspects already. *shrug* The only way to find out for sure would be to come out to him, but, well, nerve-wracking and stuff.

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

Our mother probably knows we are multiple, she has made comments about it all our life. She would say she never knew who "I" was until we spoke. She meant our mood, mostly, we think, but she has noticed things. She puts up with certain "strange things" and makes indication of being aware of extreme differences. However I think if I told her she would rush to her denial. She knows what most people out there know about multiplicity, and that is its connection to abuse, so in her mind to accept we are multiple she would have to accept we were abused and that isn't going to happen. In many ways we probably get more acknowledgement by it being that thing we don't talk about.

A couple of years ago now we told our brother. It wasn't the best way to come out of the closet, it certainly wasn't planned, but we got really pissed off at him and told him in a fit of anger. He seemed fine with it, actually no that's probably not right, it was like how everything seems to be in our family.. oh that's nice, now lets never mention it again. With our family the way it is we are never going to get out of the closet with them, attempting to do it only makes them slam the door shut themselves.

As for coming out inthe middle of things, we have been doing that for years and have picked up a number of covers. We are very good at faking a conversation until we get a clue about what is being talked about, very good at glancing around to see where we are. We have procedures in place about the transfering of executive control so this doesn't happen very often. But there are always exceptions

[cirape.livejournal.com]

Dizzy has come out to her mother and father. And then spent the next year or so attemtping to explain that it wasn't a problem and we were prefectly happy like this. It never seemed to work.
And now they seem to have forgotten that we've said anything, because the last few times its been mentioned no one got it.

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

The mother knows about me. We didn't 'come out' so much as she one day asked us about it. Which, uh, took us by suprise given at that point we hadn't been 'we' dropping very much, but oh well. Turns out she'd suspected for quite some time, like a year or more. She seems fine with it.

The father is so pathetic that he goes upstairs to watch a different show everytime there's even something on (fiction/drama) about a woman who can talk to spirits, so... Yeah, guess we won't be telling *him* this life time.

Though, the next time I hear a snarky comment about 'poofs' I'm going to jump front and point out to him that I'm a lesbian and bloody proud of it. With any luck he'll have a heart attack and die, but fate would never be that kind to me.


When I'm 'closeted', I generally front only when not specifically 'around' them (ie I'm on the computer). I really can't be arsed sitting around feeling uncomfortable or trying to remember to use the body's voice normally. It doesn't inhibit me much, we avoid interacting with the parents as much as possible.

[vox-vocis-vita.livejournal.com]

Not a multiple, but I came out to my mom about SBing. Took some time to explain it to her cause she didn't really get it. But I think she does now. She was perfectly fine with it. Never seemed to question it, other than normal questions about what it is and how it works, etc. Never thought it was silly, never thought I was looking for attention.

She was just totally alright with the entire thing. I speak to her about my guys now. Not like, huge conversations or anything, cause it still makes me edgy talking to people offline about it, but I bring them up now and then.

I also told my mom that my husband was a multiple. Her reaction to that was a very casual "Well, yeah." as if it were totally normal and expected to her. And shes never spent much time around Derek to figure it out on her own. I explained what that meant, just in case she might have thought it was something else, and she was still ok with it.

My mom is pretty cool when it comes to the open mindedness. She doesn't care what we do or believe in, so long as its not hurting anyone.

The only member of my family that worries me is my aunt. Shes nice and stuff, but I don't think she'll understand, especially about Derek being multiple. She seems to have unwarranted issues with him anyway, so no doubt she'd think he was "OMG MPD" and going to snap and hurt us all someday. -_-

[rhymer-713.livejournal.com]

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving. Secondly we told our mom and it went okay. It just took her some time to wrap her head around, LOL. But she's okay now. And when we're in situations where being closetted is a good idea, I.E Thanksgiving with family we sorta kinda squish together around Front, trying to put on a face. Please don't do that if you can help it. It's very very tiring. We call it the "mental meatgrinder" But we're trying to change that. Good luck,
Us

[terendel.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your first conversation!

No siblings, so no experience there. Juli did come out to her mom about me, and she was cool with it. Related it to her talking to her dad (who is dead). Not sure I was totally cool with being compared to talking with a dead dude, but hey, it was better than the alternatives. I never interacted with her, 'cause I didn't ever front at the time, but it was no big deal. Now I don't interact with her because she's estranged from Juli. So I'm glad she came out when she did.

Coming out to friends has been okay, recently. It's sooooo painfully obvious from their comments that they don't get it, but that's okay. They accept me anyway.

As to dealing with being closeted, it's not a problem for me. *shrug* We co-front most of the time, so I just use Juli as a buffer for my interactions. Since my gender and the body are different, I don't solo front at all with people who don't know me. If I need to add something to the discussion, I just run it through Juli, who passes it on like it was her own idea. No big deal for me.

Does that help?

[asterism.livejournal.com]

Coming out to my husband and my closest friend was hard enough. My mother still has a hard time understanding my other mental issues--depression, anxiety, and all that--and I really don't think something like this would be something she could handle. Probably best for everyone concerned that I not speak about it.

My father wouldn't understand it if I tried.


~Lux

[fadingtogrey.livejournal.com]

As far as we know, our family still sees our multiplicity as nothing more than creative roleplaying bordering on demon possession. Our older sister told us once, "Mom's worried about how you become your characters sometimes," and after that, we got more careful. Someday, we'll have to have a talk with them about it, and tell them it's not roleplaying, and we're not characters. I don't know when that "someday" will be; things are a little awkward between us and the family.

[juju-master.livejournal.com]

never came out never prob will cause my mom knows about me but i dont think shed like me anyhow hah! fuckin no one likes me hah. so yeah. i think i like you though.

[ridetothesea.livejournal.com]

I've told the birth mother, and while she believes it's how I/we experience things, she'd rather not talk about it. She's okay with it, she's just not ready to believe us completely. I think. I've tried easing into telling my sister, but that didn't work at all. Our dad would probably be the most understanding, but I can't tell him because of certain health issues of his. I'm not certain he would understand what I was trying to tell him.

[pilgrimchild.livejournal.com]

I told my younger sister. I can't even remember how it came about, but it was about 5 years ago. Her reaction was, "This makes EVERYTHING make SO MUCH MORE SENSE." To her, it explained all my weirdness (you know, the sudden "mood swings", difference voices, different attitudes, forgetfulness, etc. She said she had always somehow suspected DID, she just didn't know what to call it. It went well. We don't talk about it a LOT (we also live thousands of miles away), but if it comes up, its ok. She reads my journal, she knows how things go, she asks if she can buy the internal kids things for Christmas. Its been helpful to have one less person to hide things from.

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I only wish this could happen for us. I've never fronted even a little in front of them.

We stutter around Dad sometimes.

That's because you stutter, dork. I keep telling you, that has nothing to do with me.

Aaaanyway. Telling people I'm around is probably not going to cause a "that explains everything" reaction, more's the pity.

Johnny, Rob

[hazelwindows.livejournal.com]

and I do consider them to be my family; I take my brotherhood with Rob seriously, and I love our relatives, too.

That's a really neat bond of allegiance. It's nice to hear about.

Just fronting in my grandmother's house has my heart pounding, and while it's novel to actually feel it, I really hate the fear. And I hate taking time off my personal growth for a holiday, it feels like backsliding.

Congrats on being able to actually feel it and for the new conversation. It seems that you didnt take time off from personal growth for this holiday at least. ;)

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, I guess not. Our aunt gave Rob the grace prayer to read aloud, which in retrospect might have been a comment or a test or something, since he's an atheist and they know it, but at the time it was cool because I wanted to read it. Though admittedly, my interest was only half religious, and the other half was because there was a grammar error (Thou will instead of Thou wilt) and if I read it I could correct it.

[hazelwindows.livejournal.com]

lol- It sounds like you had a good time.

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* Yeah, give him an obscure point of grammar to show off about and he's in nerd heaven. And he'd fit right in, too - a few hours ago, our sister said, "Oh, oh, you've gotta hear this story about partial derivatives."

Rob

[hazelwindows.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I'm afraid we've been known around here to go running for the dictionary in order to clarify disputes over secondary meanings and back up alleged spelling variations. Johnny would raise no eyebrows at our family table either.