Hello Blossom, it's nice to meet you, welcome to psych central.
This is a great place to meet new friends and find support, have a look around and jump in whenever you feel comfortable.
There are a lot of resources here that may help with explaining it to your family and friends, though unless they have had some experiences with issues similar to yours it still may be hard for them to understand everything so try to be patient with them. The home page here has a lot of articles that may help you some explain certain conditions or disorders, it may be helpful to print some out and share them with those close to you.
If you have any questions please feel free to private message any community liaison or moderator, here is a link to a list of forum leaders.
http://forums.psychcentral.com/showgroups.php