Family Matters…
Tonight was an interesting night, completely unplanned, and the result was a phone call and confession to Michael my brother. In some ways it was quite funny, I said, “do you want to know the hard way or the easy way?” He said, “the hard way”, so I gave him the the location of my favorite photo and he was surprised and said, “temporary or permanent thing?” I responded with, “permanent”, he said nothing and continued to talk.
A little further into the conversion and it became obvious he thought it was me joking around, and I stopped him and said, “you realise I’m not joking, the doctor has diagnosed me as gender dysphoric and I’ve been on HRT for the last three months”. He was stunned for a short moment and continued as if his brother tells him life changing facts every day…!
The conversation was long and covered a lot of the same ground multiple times, but it was good to talk. We also agreed that I should tell Mum before she gets here, rather than when she’s here. I’m still in two minds about it, because I want to be with her when I tell her because she’ll probably worry otherwise, but the other thought that people have is that if I wait until she gets here, she might feel trapped where she doesn’t want to be.
It is worrying me how quick and accepting he is of the whole thing, but comments like, “what ever happens, you’re still blood and we love you”, are comforting.
I think telling Mum sooner rather than later is going to be for the best in the long run. I’ve just got to work out how, and what to say… not an easy task.
Accepting you for who you are is the easy part. When I look at the photos of you, I simply see family. Trying to understand is the more difficult step for me and may never even happen. My empathy is important, my understanding isn’t.
I think that the most difficult step for informing mum will be breaking past her need to understand you. Personally, I don’t think that she ever will. That won’t stop her loving you just like it won’t stop me. She will need to talk and she will try to talk herself through to some sort of understanding. Phone calls are cheap these days, I can talk to her, our sister can talk to her. If needs be, I can be with her in four hours. Sis can be there in 35 minutes. The news will mean that she has some trepidation when she visits in November, but I don’t think that it will stop her.
Sooner rather than later would be favourite and tell sis first.
Love to you and Ally x