Ready to Tell Mom [Me]

I've decided to come out to my mom about being multiple. She already knows I'm poly, and I'm sure she'd guess the kinky if she wanted to. But it's time to tell her I'm multiple.

My mom and I are really close. Until about 8 years ago, we lived no more than 30 minutes apart, and saw each other a minimum of two or three times a week. My daughter and I lived with her for several years. The three of us have been the best of friends. But it's been in the last few years, when she's living 5 hours away, that I've discovered and been dealing with being multiple.

At first, there was the idea that maybe I'm not multiple, maybe it's just something I'm going through, it'll go away. In which case, there was no point involving my parents, because they couldn't do anything about it anyway. I mean, she's not involved with picking the guys I date, either. We're just not wrapped up in each other's day-to-day lives. Not anymore.

After a while, when I realized this wasn't going away, and I'm a multiple, like it or not, I still didn't tell her. I was dealing with coming out to people I did see every day, people who were going to see an alter come out and needed to be ready to interact with them. It was scary for me, really intense and stressful, to tell people. Of course, most everyone I told pretty much shrugged and accepted it. Even - especially - the people closest to me. But Mom - and my daughter - they are so much more than just close to me. Rejection from them would be the most horrible thing ever. If friends can't handle me being multiple, then fine, I'll get other friends. But my mother and my daughter? I can't risk losing them. It would be like cutting off a limb. Or an alter.

I did finally come out to my daughter, first about the kink, and when that went well, about being multiple. And she took both so wonderfully that I almost went and told my mom then, while I was still riding the success. But then my reason was that I was protecting my mom. I mean, this is going to make her worry about me. It's what we parents do. And she can't do anything really to affect things, so it's useless worry from 5 hours away. How is that a nice thing for me to do to her? Sure, it would make me feel better to have her moral support, but do I have the right to lay my burden on her? Is it fair to hand her something more to be worried about?

Okay, as a parent, I can say that the argument is invalid. We worry about our kids, whether there's anything to worry about or not. If my daughter found out that she had some sort of mental or health condition, whether I could do anything to help her or not, I'd want to know. And I would be upset if she didn't tell me.

So now I worry that my mom will feel betrayed when she realizes that I've known this for a few years now and haven't told her. But I can't change that. Better a couple of years than a decade or more, right? I know she'd rather know than not. And I want it to come from me. How horrible would it be if I was hospitalized, or died, or something else bad happened, and Boss or the kid had to tell her this big secret in my life, instead of me? What if I died, and at the funeral, people start talking about missing Kiara, or something like that? She would definitely feel betrayed then. That would be a nasty thing on top of everything else.

So I'm going to tell her. I'm going to be spending four days up there at Thanksgiving. So I'm going to try to find time to talk to her about it then. I'm not guaranteeing that I'll tell her this weekend, but I'm preparing to do so. I'm going to take with me the little book I made about my alters. And I warned the daughter about the conversation, in case an alter comes out and needs someone they know there to hold their hand a bit. Kiara and Paul both really like her, and she'll be comforting to have around.

I'll let you know how it goes. If it goes. When it goes.