Title: How to 'Unhide' Yourself

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. We hope you are doing well this Veterans Day. If you served in uniform, Team All Of It wants to say thank you for your service, and if you have a loved one who has served, we know that there are many challenges that veterans carry with them back to their home front, so thank you for your service as well. In the spirit of Veterans Day, we're sharing some of our recent conversations about drawing on our inner reserves in order to overcome life's obstacles. Later in the show, we'll hear about the strength that a reluctant father needed to parent his young daughter after the death of his wife.

We'll also hear from a woman in academia determined to fight against a university system that was more interested in protecting her abuser from accountability than protecting her from his violent tendencies. The star and director of a new film called His Three Daughters will talk about the difficulties that three estranged sisters face while bunkering down with their sick father in a small New York City apartment. We'll also hear from the groundbreaking TV journalist Connie Chung about her determination to overcome the racism and sexism that she faced in the broadcast business to become one of the most beloved and respected news anchors of our time. That's all on the way, so let's get this started with a conversation about the importance of standing up and being seen.

[music]

After 25 years of hiding a key part of her identity, Ruth Rathblott finally decided to stop. She took her left hand out of her pocket and revealed to the world that she had a limb deficiency and was born with amniotic band syndrome. She had been hiding her hand in her pocket for more than two decades. Then she stopped and she became passionate about encouraging other people to unhide. Ruth's new book is called Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life. Do Your Best Work.

In it, she argues that hiding aspects of your identity, whether it's a disability, your sexual identity, your mental health status, or something else, it's not just bad for the hider, it's bad for everyone. When Ruth Rathblott joined me in the studio to talk about the book, we invited callers to call in and tell us their experiences with unhiding themselves. You'll hear some of that, but keep in mind that because this is an All Of It encore presentation, we won't be able to take your calls today. I began by asking Ruth Rathblott to share the memories that first made her think that she might be different from other people.

Ruth Rathblott: Like many of us growing up, I didn't think I was different. I was born in a hospital, and yes, there was a little bit of concern when I was born, and people thinking, oh, limb difference wasn't something that was normal. My parents encouraged me to do everything. They kept me going. Then, Alison, I got on a yellow school bus to start a new school, a new high school. Someone stared just a little bit too long when they got on the bus at my hand. For the first time, I felt super nervous, and I felt different. My instinct was just tuck it in my pocket, just thinking it would just be for that bus ride. That was the first moment of really thinking, wow, I'm different.

Alison Stewart: When did hiding stop working for you?

Ruth Rathblott: I think hiding is a continuum. It's a journey. I think we're always unhiding and learning and thinking about those parts of ourselves that are different. How do we show them to people? There's always with hiding, Alison, a fear of rejection, a fear of judgment. When hiding stopped for me working about my hand was 25 years later. I literally hid my hand for 25 years from friends, from coworkers, from dating relationships.

Alison Stewart: What were you afraid of?

Ruth Rathblott: I was afraid somebody wouldn't like me if they found out. I was afraid of the comments that people would say, oh, it's disgusting, oh, it's awful, because those were the comments that I was having in my head myself.

Alion Stewart: Yeah.

Ruth Rathblott: I was afraid that people would reject me, and honestly, they wouldn't hire me, they wouldn't date me, they wouldn't love me. I think what it came to was I didn't actually love myself, but that's what I was so afraid of.

Alison Stewart: Well, what did you learn about yourself when you decided to stop hiding?

Ruth Rathblott: The first step in unhiding is the self-awareness. It's that space of acknowledging it to yourself what is it that I'm hiding? How is it holding me back? How is it holding me back from connecting? How is it holding me back from thriving and feeling like I belong? I think the first piece of that journey was actually just acknowledging what it is that I was hiding and how it was holding me back. What comes along with unhiding is this immense freedom, this relief, this joy that, wow, I don't have to keep up a facade anymore because something I've learned about hiding is most of us are hiding something, and yet we walk around thinking we're the only ones. It's Exhausting. It's incredibly exhausting. It takes a toll on our mental health and our physical health. Honestly, it's lonely. It keeps us feeling disconnected from ourselves and others.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask that second part about it being lonely. How did you feel isolated when you were in hiding?

Ruth Rathblott: The interesting thing about hiding is that you never get to let down your guard because you're always worrying about someone finding out. You're naturally never really present with anyone. You're just constantly thinking about how is someone going to find out? When's the time that someone's going to discover it? You're always worried about that. It keeps you at a distance from people. It keeps you building walls around yourself in relationships with people and relationships with yourself because you're not actually present.

Alison Stewart: Let me read this text. It says, "My husband has a visual disability but doesn't tell anyone. People think he's very rude when he bumps into them or doesn't shake their hands. The people who do know are so supportive and loving, but he isn't ready to share with certain people, coworkers, that he has a disability. He also won't use a cane because he isn't ready to tell the world that he is blind."

Ruth Rathblott: That's a universal from what I hear from people who know the journey of hiding. It's interesting, Alison. It affects us in three different ways when we hide. One is absolutely her husband. That feeling of, I can't tell anyone. There's this pressure internal that is constant with him, I'm imagining. I can't share it with anyone. Somebody won't like me. If they do it, they'll reject me. Those pieces. Then the second part that you're sharing about that text is we make assumptions then about people's behavior because we don't know what's going on.

We do think, oh, they're rude or they're not a team player. They're not a culture fit here. They never have any good ideas because the person that's hiding is so concerned with being found out that they're not present in their life. They're constantly worrying about those things. There's that assumption piece that happens with others. Then the third is we're not actually able to live our best life and do our best work because we're always thinking about we're gonna be found out. It is exhausting and I can imagine his journey. It's exhausting.

Alison Stewart: Here's a question for you. This came through via text, "I assist people with disabilities interested in employment and wonder how you would approach this conversation with people who feel hiding is safer, better, and necessary at work."

Ruth Rathblott: It's interesting. In writing the second book, I definitely talk about this concept of what I call strategic hiding. There are still times and places right now where it is unsafe to hide. We are not at a place in some workplaces where it feels safe, where we've created that safe place for people to unhide their differences or disabilities. I say start small and especially with people with disabilities who feel like it's not a safe environment, start with a manager who may have safety.

Start with an HR director who may be safe. Start with a coworker who you trust. Start small because that allows for-- I've had, Allison, people share stories about not wanting to tell their managers about caretaking a family member or even having kids. Talk about disabilities. I mean, and yet when they talk to a manager about it or an HR person, they're able to start to understand that person can support them differently. They can actually show up for them differently and make work accessible.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. We're going to go with I think it's Lair. Lara.

Lara: Hi. Lara.

Alison Stewart: Hi, from Bridgeport. Nice to meet you.

Lara: Nice to meet you. I love everything that I just heard. I've been in recovery for 20 years and being able to lead more with self-acceptance and starting small is something I've had to do for these past 20 years. The fear of people not knowing how they're going to react to being a sober individual in all areas of my life was really scary. I love everything this author is saying.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Sarah from the Upper west side. Hi, Sarah. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Sarah: Yes, hi. This is a wonderful program. It's very emotional to hear, I guess, other people that are unhiding themselves. I literally would hide from post-traumatic stress disorder with someone knocking on a door or just different trigger things. I would literally go under or into a closet. Being able to embrace that I have a disability and not be embarrassed about it is very freeing. I hid in between some paneling in Verizon the other day and I had to tell them I'm coming out. Don't worry. I have PTSD. I think it's helpful for the world because the world is for the most part loving and kind and they can help you. It does spread awareness, and it gives people the opportunity to show the best side of themselves.

Alison Stewart: Sarah, thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk about the types of hiders. You had the Guardian, the Wanderer, the Open Book, and the Fortress. Tell us a little bit about each character.

Ruth Rathblott: Yes. When I talk about hiding, Allison, I get four different reactions to the concept of hiding. The first is, Ruth, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like the two callers that you just had, I know exactly that idea of what it's like to hide. The Guardian is someone who knows what hiding is like but is curious about, well, how would I unhide if I wanted to? What would that actually look like? Why am I hiding? It's that person who knows exactly what hiding is and sometimes is looking for that outlet of how could it be different? The second type of person is what I call the Wanderer. It's the person who sits there and is probably listening, one of your audience who's sitting here listening, saying, "What am I hiding? Am I hiding anything?" It's a natural reaction. It's to be curious. Sometimes with the Wanderer, there's almost a wall.

It's great to ask questions, but are you willing to go deeper? Are you willing to be introspective or what I call do the self-centered work to get to see what it is that you're hiding and what's holding you back? The third type is the idea of, and maybe you've met them too, Allison, because I know I have, the Open Book who says, "I'm not hiding anything. I'm an open book. I probably overshare, if anything. There's so much in my life that I tell people." Sometimes they even say, "I probably overshare, and I shouldn't share that much." There's an awareness of oversharing, and yet oftentimes what I found is it's curated. It's a curated narrative-

Alison Stewart: Interesting, yes.

Ruth Rathblott: -of this is what I want you to know about me, but I'm not willing to share some other things. That's really the Open Book. Then the Fortress. I actually just met one of them on an elevator recently going to an event. She had her arms crossed in the elevator. We were heading up to an event. We did the usual exchange of, "What do you do? What do you do?" I told her I talk about this idea of hiding and that most of us are hiding, and there's this space around unhiding. She said, "Is that even true? Is that even necessary? Aren't we supposed to just show up at work and just get the job done? Why do we need to know people's business?"

I'm like, "Well, it's actually not that. It's a little bit more complicated." The Fortress is someone who sits there with their arms crossed, being, "Why is this important? I want to keep everything guarded. I don't want to do the work of going further or deeper because maybe it's too painful, or maybe there is a realization for them that they feel like a fear that if somebody knows something about it, they'll use it against me. Not wanting to go there. The fortress is very guarded and not wanting to see maybe the connection of how this might connect them with their teams or other people in their life.

Alison Stewart: I want to ask about the Open Book because it can hide deeper vulnerabilities. When you think about the line between unhiding and oversharing, what is it? What's appropriate for work?

Ruth Rathblott: Yes. There are boundaries, and I think that's important. I think there's a couple of things that come up with the Open Book versus unhiding. I think it's about thinking about why is it that you're sharing what you're sharing? Why is it important? How does it make you feel connected to someone else? How is it allowing you to let someone really know you and at the same time, not having them carry that thing about you that weight of what it is that you're hiding or what you're dealing with? There's a fine boundary. The other piece is that unhiding is a privilege because there are certain groups still in this world that we're in right now and this year that it's unsafe to unhide.

When I think about the Open Book, it's about allowing for space to not have to share everything. I think about different communities, Alison, like the trans community or the Jewish community. There are places where it feels unsafe. When I think about the boundaries around unhiding, it's knowing your audience, it's knowing yourself first. It's inviting someone in. It's building that community so that you have that shared experience, and then sharing your story so that someone else can see themselves in you. When I think about even the callers that you just had, it's about allowing for just one other person to know what's going on and then start to build that community.

Alison Stewart: Got a text here that said, "I didn't realize until this segment that I am hiding a few things. One is the stutter I have dealt with my entire life. I speak as little as possible. I met my wife at 17 and we didn't address this issue until I was 30. Also, I hide my career in colleges I have attended because of the community I live in where so many are people from top level colleges and often have exceptional careers. Like your guest said, it is exhausting."

Ruth Rathblott: It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Oftentimes we think we're the only ones with that. I've had different people share their stories. Whether it be a stutter, whether it be an accent, whether it be the education level, finances, family backgrounds, people are hiding things all the time. It limits us. It limits us in terms of our potential, and it limits us in terms of our performance.

Alison Stewart: A lot of kids are heading back to school and it's a place where people are self-conscious. Like you said in your book you were on, you ended up on this school bus and a kid stared. What would you tell a kid, a little kid, about how to grapple with the pressures to conform or the pressures to hide?

Ruth Rathblott: As someone who worked with young people for my entire career for 25 years, I think that there's a lot of pressure and I think there's pressure with social media. There's pressure with conforming even in the classroom and with friends. It's also a natural and healthy development stage. The idea of fitting in with your peers, that is a natural Erickson stage of development. I think it's about, again, finding that one person that you can feel connected to or finding that one club or after school activity or in school activity where you feel like you found your people, you found a shared experience with people, and it's starting to build that and find safe places. I also think that it's okay to also explore counseling and different ways to deal with something that you may feel is different about yourself.

Alison Stewart: We'll have more in a minute with Ruth Rathblott, author of the book Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life. Do Your Best Work. Stick around. This is All Of It.

[music]

This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. All day today in honor of Veterans Day, we're sharing stories about resilience. Before the break, I was talking with Ruth Rathblott about her personal story with amniotic band syndrome, which resulted in a limb deficiency that she tried to hide for most of her life. Her new book is called Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life. Do Your Best Work. Let's dive back into it. I asked Ruth to explain the importance of including disabilities when we think about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Ruth Rathblott: Sure. There's a couple of things. When you look at some of the statistics and the research, diversity has definitely been left out. I think there was a statistic, Alison, that I talked about in my TEDx, which is this idea that 90% of companies at the time of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd's death, when that ignited, the idea was let's jump into DEI. 90% of companies immediately rushed in, and only 4% of those companies actually included disability as part of their agenda with DEI. What's interesting about disability is it's actually the largest minority group.

It cuts across all lenses of diversity. You can be any race, any gender, any age, any sexual orientation, and have a disability. Disability is truly, in terms of the world population, the largest population. It's intersectional. It can happen to us at any time. We can be born with a disability, we can acquire a disability, or we can be taking care of somebody and a caretaker to somebody with a disability. It's really a conversation for all of us. It's important that it gets included in that DEI conversation.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Hannah from Short Hills, New Jersey. Hi, Hannah. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Hannah: Hi. Thank you so much for taking this subject because it really affects a lot of people, specifically my community these last few days. I came to this country 40 years ago, and you cannot by any means tell where I'm from. In the beginning, I didn't hide it until I had few issues. For a while I was hiding it until I met a wonderful friend who made me sure of it. Then 911 came and I went back into that corner again.

Now October 7th again came, and this is scaring a lot of us. I am a Muslim from Syria. I am extremely white. I have very light hair, and no one will tell where I'm from except for my accent. They asked me, are you from Hungaria? I said, yes. I play a game. If I can get away without saying it, I will not say it. Our community now in this country is living in fear. I thank her so much for this because it does affect us tremendously. I appreciate what you're doing.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for sharing your call. Let's talk to Nicole from Westchester. Hi, Nicole, thanks for calling.

Nicole: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Alison Stewart: You're on the air.

Nicole: Hello. Thank you very much for taking my call today. I was hiding some intimate partner violence that I experienced as a 15-year-old high school student. I did not talk about this openly, publicly, until after I was at least 46 years old. I learned that the person who had abused me had died, which then freed me to speak about it, to write about it, and to become an advocate for young people for healthy relationships. It was really life changing for me to do that.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling. Do we have Dominique still? Dominique's on line 1 calling from Brooklyn. Hi, Dominique, thanks for calling.

Dominique: Hi. I am actually hiding right now. It's not my name. I am one of the millions of women who after menopause lost estrogen and cannot do sexual intercourse anymore. It's extremely painful and I cannot tell anyone. It's extraordinarily shameful. It's because of the way the society looks at older women. Women not just lose maybe their youthful looks, they lose this huge part of their personality that they cannot talk about.

I still date. What do I say? We can only go so far. Are you okay with this? I even went as far as to change my post for a brief time on one of the dating sites to say, "I love sex. I love all of it, except I can't do this. What do you think?" I actually got three responses, and they were positive, but that was it, and I lost my nerve. I can't even tell friends. How do I tell a date? If you really like someone, you get to a certain point and then it ends. It's huge. Nobody talks about it. You can't really unhide this. People can talk about being gay, but 50 years ago they wouldn't.

Alison Stewart: Yes. I'm going to have Ruth weigh in. Well, first of all, do you have your response?

Ruth Rathblott: Sure. I think that what's interesting, Dominique, is the idea that you're sharing in terms of thinking that you're the only one and that there are so many of us who have felt like that. I think why I share my story is because it allows for others to then start to say, I have felt like that too. I imagine, and I'm just throwing this out there and inviting you to think about, because you've started that journey of acknowledging what it is that you're hiding, is start by inviting one person in to talk to about it like you're doing here, There are so many of us, again, that will understand or have understood or have gone through it.

The third is the idea of building your community because it can be as easy as a Google search or even just finding an online community, because I know personally, Dominique, other women who are managing through what you're managing through. Then the reason I share my story again is so that others can say, "Yes, I'm hiding too." It often feels like we're the only one. It often feels exhausting and lonely and that no one will like us or date us or love us. Actually, when we start to let down some of those guards, we become much more connected to others.

Alison Stewart: We've got a text from an HR manager. "I am an HR director at a cultural institution, and since 2017, we've been working to welcome people with disabilities to our workplace, including active recruitment and retention and training on our staff on inclusivity and welcoming these colleagues. Plus, among other resources, also provide ASL classes to all staff and live in person ASL translation to all meetings." Beautiful. To your point, it depends on this place.

Ruth Rathblott: It depends on the place. I think it's a talent strategy. It's from recruitment, what she's identifying to, then retention. How do we engage employees while they're there? Then what do we do, Alison, with that exit information that we get from employees, too? It's a total talent lifecycle challenge and strategy around disability and inclusion.

Alison Stewart: You list four steps to unhiding: acknowledge, invite, build, and share. We've talked about acknowledge. We've talked about invite. Build and share.

Ruth Rathblott: Yes. Just like the callers before, I think there's this idea, again, that we're alone in this, that nobody else has dealt with anything that we're dealing with. What's amazing is when I was, as part of my journey, after I had invited somebody in to show me how to love my hand, how to touch it, how to actually look at it, I started to notice others. Those blinders that I had on about that I was the only one, started to fade. I remember being at a Duane Reade, a pharmacy and seeing someone with a limb difference like mine almost for the first time really putting it together and went over and started talking to her and she said, well, you know, there's a whole group of us online.

It's called the Lucky Fin Project. At that time, Alison, I think there were 30,000 people on this Facebook group. Now it's over 90,000 people. For the first time, I saw myself represented online with different hands that looked like mine. I rushed home and looked at that and then I went to their picnic that they have outside of Detroit. I realized I wasn't alone. I think the biggest takeaway was I didn't invent hiding. I think I thought I was the only one hiding. Yet there were all these people there who had done similar things, who had had those shared experiences, who dealt with the stares, who dealt with the comments.

It was just affirming and reaffirming to know I wasn't alone. That building of community and that's why I suggested the idea of it's as easy as-- Because of the Internet now just Google that thing that you're holding back and see who else is out there. Because there are meetups, there are groups pretty much for everything right now. If people don't know how to find it, they can contact me, and I can help them with that.

Alison Stewart: There's one more call. We want to talk to Kim. Hi, Kim calling from Manhattan.

Kim: Hi. I'm a parent of a young adult who's now entering college with autism, ADHD, anxiety in the whole nine yards. I will say, as much as it's great to hear you give solutions to people who are in this situation, I think the greater part of it is to address the larger community and our population as human beings to be more compassionate and to be more accepting than all of these disabilities are not necessarily other than, but they are part of the norm.

You talk about intersectionality that exists and literally if you look at anybody, they can literally identify somebody in their family, in their friends circle, in their school, in their workplace that have something like that. It's unnecessary for these people to have to try to always fit in, always have to find a community, always have to try to figure out how to get things done. Why isn't it that our society is more compassionate and to go from more proactive?

Alison Stewart: Kim, I'm going to stop you right there because we're starting to run out of time. Appreciate your point. Do you want to answer her or follow up?

Ruth Rathblott: No, I think, Kim, what you're saying, too, is this is a challenge. That that's why I say disability is the largest minority group, because we are out there.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with Ruth Rathblott, author of the new book Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life. Do Your Best Work.

[music]

Up next, Connie Chung made history as the first Asian anchor at a major news network. Her new memoir looks at how the 10th child of Chinese immigrants rose to walk the halls at CBS, NBC and ABC. Connie Chung coming next.

[music]