If you had a secret that you knew would devastate those you told, but was so heavy for you to bear, would it really be right to tell them? Something I've thought about in regards to my coming out is what I should say when I do. On the one hand, I feel like I should be completely and painfully honest - bearing my heart out to my parents and letting them know everything. On the other, I feel that I should not do this and instead give them a carefully constructed lie which was inspired by truth. A facade that communicates some things but ultimately is fashioned to tailor to their expectations and comfort. Such deceit. I sicken myself... Thing is, people always say they want the honest truth but that's simply not true. Ignorance is bliss. Many times, being spared from suffering by being fed a lie is better than reality if that reality is too harsh to handle. So really it comes down to telling them I'm trans but cushioning that with a bunch of stuff they want to hear, or being brutally honest which is the truth that they need to hear. I don't know anything anymore.
It is possible that you are over-dramatizing this in your mind; many people seem to do that. If you can, seek out some professional counseling about your situation, to make sure that you are viewing the situation only as difficult as it needs to be, before deciding what you need to do. The truth has a way of eventually revealing itself in many cases, after enough time passes. This is why conservative elderly grandparents, who don't have much time left on Earth, are sometimes left out of a disclosure to finish their life in peace. In the case of parents, they are usually going to be around much of a young person's life, and interacting with them for most of that time, so it usually works out better if they know what is going on, unless they are so hostile and dangerous, that their hearing the truth would be an imminent danger to the child who is coming out.
Well... As long as you're telling them you're trans, I don't think it matters how you're doing it. If they get the point, but you try to make them feel as comfortable as possible about it, I don't see anything wrong with it.
It's a false dilemma. You can tell the truth without being "brutal" about it. You deliver in a matter-of-fact kind of way, in which you distinguish the fact that you are relating to them from your ideal of what you would have preferred it to be. For me, on being gay. "It may be that you have suspected me of being gay for a long time. Being gay and hiding the fact that that I am gay is not going to work. It's been a comedy of errors trying to hide being gay, and now it's gone from being ridiculous to making me a complete mess, inside and out. I have gone from being neurotic once in a while to being cruel, and I don't like seeing myself turn ino that. I am better than that. By starting to be transparent with you starting now, I want to make life simpler for everyone involved. I promise you, this will make me easier, not harder, to get along with, having this out in the open. No more of me acting wayward and neurotic. No more weird calls where I run out the door. No more taking out my bitterness on you, which is not fair to you. I need love, and I need peace." Was that brutally honest, or was it merely honest? Did I dress up the truth, or did that come across as a relatively untarnished set of truths? If you say the plain truth with compassion and heartfelt empathy, it doesn't have to be cruel. It's not the truth that hurts people. It's people that hurt people. ---------- Post added 20th Jun 2015 at 12:49 PM ---------- Of course, that's not saying that there aren't truths that are bitter, but if you tell the whole truth, not just a partial truth, you are telling why you you think it is best to come out, for them and for you.
