What are you concealing in your hidden quadrant?

The family of Jessi Hempel, podcaster extraordinaire for LinkedIn had quite a bit that they weren’t talking about. Jessi herself came out of the closet, her sister joined her, her other sister announced she was Trans-male, and her father came out as gay (and, in once scene, hilariously quite gay). And her mother revealed a disquieting encounter with the Ypsilanti killer that had happened when she was a young teen.

We’ve all got things in our Johari hidden quadrant that we’re not discussing.

Sometimes it is just that we are not “unhiding” as another author, Ruth Rathblott, author of Unhiding, calls it. I met Ruth when in 2017, before she embarked on her new career. When she told us that she wanted to speak about her “little fin” (as she called it then) and how good she had gotten at hiding it, we suddenly realized that we hadn’t even seen it. She had gotten so good at hiding that most people – and even some boyfriends – didn’t notice. Ruth had developed such a strong executive presence that people only saw what she wanted them to see.

Sometimes the thing we’re not discussing is not our “hidden” quadrant but in our “mystery” quadrant, buried so deep that we don’t recognize it ourselves.

A friend once told me she had was suffering from repeated, persistent laryngitis that her doctor just couldn’t find a cause for. In the next breath, she told me how she felt she didn’t have a voice at work, that she wasn’t allowed to speak up. She hadn’t put it together until then. So she started looking for a new job and was soon snapped up. Voice problem solved.

It feels like there are many families like Hempel’s now: in my family, two of my nephews are now nieces. And, as soon as I finished reading the book, I bought a second copy and sent it to a friend: she grew up in a closet, hiding her mother’s drinking problem, and with undiagnosed ADHD in a family of brilliant people. Her brother emerged as trans, and – in her chosen family – her husband and son have both come out. On our last visit, she told a story about her other sister – the one she always thought was a genius – infringing on her personal space. “Who does that?” She asked. “What’s wrong with her?” “…Aspergers?” I wondered aloud, reflecting how often brilliant people were on the neurodiversity scale. My friend looked at me in surprise – her brilliant sister, the one who always made fun of her ADHD symptoms? The one she always compared herself to, to her detriment? No… Well… Maybe… That would explain some things, the way her own ADHD diagnosis explained some things…

I read a study recently that said we should think about depression not as a disease to be treated but as a symptom that something in your life is out-of-balance. Perhaps it’s a symptom that you can’t stand hiding anymore. Perhaps it’s a symptom that there’s something lurking in your mystery quadrant that you need to discover and explore, bring to the surface and deal with… That something isn’t working…

The thing you are hiding doesn’t even have to be something intimate, about your body or your gender or your neurodiversity. Many people are carrying a caregiver’s weight at home, caring for someone who is unable to care for themselves: a child, a parent or elderly relative, an injured spouse. And yet we continue to go to work, to soldier through, to work late, to pick up groceries on the way home. At work, a casual question revealed that a colleague was caring for a small child with a brain injury, nonverbal and ill, requiring repeated MRIs. Other colleagues care for adult children who cannot care for themselves. There’s a trend now to “bring your whole self to work” but, at the same time, leaders still expect you to keep things professional and not make your problems their problems.

I used to say that a company I worked with had an INFP Myers-Briggs profile. They never looked outside their organization for answers, to bring in new ideas. They refused to listen to data, certain that their intuition was enough. Feelings were primary and woe betide you if you made someone feel bad by calling them on their bullsh*t; and they let decisions drag on forrrrrrrevvvvvverrrrrrr, never able to take action, and once even placing their holiday orders in September. September! The suppliers needed them in June! Want to guess what was in their hidden box?

I was re-reading, this morning, Matt Parker’s Humble Pi, which ends with a reflection on industries that don’t tolerate mistakes. Instead of encouraging people to come forward with mistakes, so they can take them apart, figure out the root causes, and put processes into place to prevent repeat issues, build a culture of continuous improvement – instead of doing that, people who make mistakes are quickly dismissed or allowed to “resign” (and go on elsewhere to preach or practice medicine, or lead another company into disaster); they disappear, leaving behind an impression that, to work around here, you have to be perfect, reinforcing a culture of hiding mistakes, hiding imperfection, hiding vulnerabilities.

While I write this, I am watching a DVR’d women’s World’s long program and reflecting on something else Parker said about mathematicians: “Mathematicians aren’t people who find math easy; they’re people who enjoy how hard it is.” You could say the same thing about skaters, or anyone else who is willing to suffer through the learning curve and stupid mistakes in pursuit of greatness.

My own mother expected perfection from me, while forgiving imperfection in my sisters. But I was the eldest and shouldered responsibilities that they didn’t have and she didn’t want. When I failed to live up to her impossible standards in dress, “lovely, dear” or when I failed to act the way she imagined I should, a heavy sigh.

I also think of the popular girls at my school who shopped together, coordinating their outfits perfectly. They would slither into school early, in pajamas, without make-up, hair undone, carrying hangers and hangers of clothing. They took over the girl’s room closest to the entrance, filling it with smoke and chatter. If you didn’t belong there, you peed elsewhere. Finally they emerged, dressed in their shared wardrobe – Mickey’s pink blouse with Debbie’s pink Esprit pants and Angela’s pink sneakers – hair perfectly feathered, faces hidden by war paint. The precursors to today’s social influencers, afraid to show imperfection. Even on LinkedIn – my one social media vice – everyone is an expert, everyone has the perfect job that they were recruited for out of their previous job with no effort of their own…

The thing that sold me on this book was a story that Jesse Hempel told on her podcast, Hello Monday. She had been interviewed, she said, by another friend with a podcast who mentioned that she herself had been hiding her religion, something she didn’t talk about with everyone. The book is compelling – I finished it in a single reading then quickly downloaded a true crime book about the Ypsilanti murders – and resonates with the charm, wit, compassion, humor, and vulnerability that Hempel brings to her podcast.

Anna Quindlen called it, Living Out Loud.

So I ask you again, what have you been hiding?

And is it time to surface it?