I didn't handle it well - 15yo DS came out on FB

[sanityseeker75]

I woke up to a strange text message from my best friend, made me look at facebook and I saw that he had told everyone that he was bisexual.

I went into his room and he just said "ah facebook". I did not handle it well. I just burst into tears and told him I so so hurt that he told the world before he told me. That he was leaving for school and I had to get ready for work so he wasn't even giving me the chance to talk to him about it properly. He said he was scared to tell me, I told him it wasn't his sexual references that bothered me it was the fact that he had done it through facebook and then his answer was "well I thought you would be ok" so to scared to tell me but thought I would be ok with a public announcement?

I now feel that I have turned it into being more about me and my feelings when I am just scared that he has outted himself on sodding fb and is setting himself up for hurt from people at school.

This is his final year at school and he has enough to deal with studying for GCSE without extra pressure for himself. He said people at school knew anyway.

Just feel so out of my depth with him and so hurt that he felt he couldn't talk to me but does this make me selfish?

I think your reaction was completely understandable. Anyone would be upset to find their DC had made a big public announcement, about anything this important, without telling them first. He knows now that you are not upset about his sexuality, so hopefully, when he gets home, and you have had some time to process this, you can sit down and have a proper chat about things.

You reacted normally and not selfishly - your upset was not, as you say, about his sexuality but his choice to air it on social media and the shock of discovering something important about him in that way.

Talk to him when he gets home. However, I am guessing he is 15? It would be a total nightmare talking to your parents about anything sexual at that age so I imagine that he just did not know how to go about it and might still not want to address it with you in any detail.

Apologise for anything you think you said that went too far and reassure him that you're fine with his choices.

I think many teens would not know how to say this to their parents regardless of how close their relationship with them was otherwise.