Hey ! I ' m from Minnesota and I was in Sweden recently . I loved how quiet and respectful everyone was . On the train everyone kept to themselves , so nice ! About your experience , Minnesota is the Scandinavia of the US . Especially if you go out of the twin cities most of the people have relatives from Norway or Sweden . People are going to use that a way to relate . <| sep |> This is really scary for you I ' m sure , and you are allowed to feel a range of emotions about your moms transition . You don ' t have to take everything well at first . You aren ' t a bigot for needing time to adjust or realizing that you have emotional attachments to certain parts of your relationship that are ending like what you call her . The most important thing for you is to take care of yourself and do everything you can to know your mom is basically the same person . Some changes are dramatic , but won ' t change the way your relationship actually functions as much . In reality what you call her doesn ' t fundamentally change who she is to you , for example . This is still the same person who has loved and supported you . She will keep being that for you even though this is hard . The only other thing I can encourage you to do is be explicit about your needs . If you ' re doing everything you can to adjust , but you still are feeling grief or fear , be explicit about those things and give your mom a chance to reassure you . Something like I ' m afraid you ' re going to become a completely different person and I need to hear that you ' re still going to be here and care about me . Is totally fine and helps her address things directly .