If you had asked me these questions about 20 year ago I would have said "tell my family and friends are you nuts?" My family will kill me and I only have a handful of friends and we don't talk about that stuff"

But now My friends know just about everything there is to know about me. Some more than what they expected because When I made the choice like I did to go public and attend community agencies, jr high and high school classes, College classes and prison inmate offenders programs, church groups as a guest speaker on child sexual abuse and sexual assault in general There isn't that many secrets left to hide from your friends. Especially when some of those friends were a part of the public lifestyle too. Some of my friends got harrassed and threatened by my abusers when I went public. My abusers used every tactic they could think of to get me to go back to keeping my mouth shut.

So all my friends know I was abused and some of the effects from it that I have. As for specific diagnosis my friends don't ask for that see they accept me no matter what. They know what I have but they don't care if I have a foot long label, what they care about is the time we spend together be it on line, by phone, email or regular mail.

How did I tell them? Straight out for example when I told my friend here in town I had DID it was at a time when I wanted to include her in one of my therapy activities. So I picked up the phone and said "hi there how are you?" She said "fine just doing laundry how about you?" I said "well Im about to tell you something that may shock you or not. " She said "yea right you shock me? What can be more shocking then having you show me last time I saw you all the public stuff you did in (another state). Now THAT shocked me. What can top that?" So I said " Ok I have DID which is Multiple personality Disorder and I need your help on one of the things "S" and I are working on are you game? She said "well that answers lots of questions Ive had on and off. Sure what are we doing?" and then I read the charting memory pieces activity I was working on. Im the same way with my family whether or not they like it. I tell them the way it is and they can accept it or not, mostly its "or not" and thats their problem not mine.

As for excuses when I don't want to do something - I don't make excuses. for example a friend invited me to dinner one night. I told her flat out "sorry cant, I have been out all day and I just want some alone at home time tonight how about tomorrow night?"

I find the best excuse is not to make one, just tell it the way it is. when people spend time making excuses up, they usually forget who they told what to and the truth comes out after the fact anyway, which can get the person making excuses into trouble. Especially if the person has DID. The person isn't going to know what to say other than the truth when they are physically running on the autopilot of past memories while mentally they are off floating in their mental safe places.

So I have found its better to tell the truth - no I don't feel like it I am going to do this tonight. I don't have to worry about who I told what to or anyone getting upset if they found out after the fact that the excuse was just that an excuse because I did not want to tell them the truth.