Struggling to Disclose My DID to Loved Ones

I find myself in a really odd place where my partner and roommate both have DID, my partner system has known for almost a decade and our roommate found he related to them after we all moved in together, enough he self diagnosed after my discovery and my partner agreed. I had a severe dissociative episode a couple years into our relationship that kind of forced me to face the fact that I have it, several of us had been crossing it off the list of possibilities for years because of the way my ex behaved and talked about his experiences. I've learned more and more about our system and started to want to tell my mom and dad but in considering what I should say I realized mom experiences multiple symptoms without knowing and may not believe me on the basis that she finds those things "normal" even if she doesnt actually have it like the way my dad handled my (and his) ADHD. On top of that my relationship with my father is now strained in part bc of how weird hes been about my physical disabilities and mental illnesses so I really dont know how to navigate it. My partners grandparent took it fairly well and began researching it so that gives me some hope.

Something we had to accept with our own mom is that she wouldn't fully get it. And I guess the thing is that we didn't NEED her to fully get it; we just wanted to get it off of our chest and out of the way. And for us, we didn't NEED our mom to understand every detail. She still loves us even if she doesn't understand, and didn't just tell us we're crazy or making things up; that's all we really care about personally. If you feel safe with your partner's mom, and she's been understanding so far, you could simplify DID down to its simplest explanation and gauge how receptive she is before potentially getting into details! Depending on what you want from her, the way you explain it and how in depth you could go is variable. But she doesn't necessarily need to know the nitty gritty, especially if you're not entirely comfortable getting into it. There are jerky people and DID is still horribly stigmatized in a lot of aspects But alternatively, realistically, the majority is becoming a lot more acquainted with topics of mental health, and people have become more receptive when it's put in a way they can understand. People will see the cover of a book and not know what it is, and if they open it, they'll get overwhelmed with a long story they don't know anything about. That's why the summary on the back helps!

I opened the dialog with my mom by bringing up those 'odd' experiences that shows the DID tendencies. From there, I explained what DID was and how it relates to those experiences and affects me now. Afterwards I opened it up for her to ask any question, saying "there are no dumb questions, I will not get offended by anything you ask." If you get compared to something like the movie Split, explain how that's a major misrepresentation and the vast majority of people with DID are non-violent.