To come ore not come out in a semi-professional environment

Hi

We realized recently, that a bunch of is quit tired from pretending to be one person to the outside. We are good at it. But it costs us a lot of energy all the time, and if also does not feel good to be able to be totally ourselves most of the time, when we are out.

The problem became more prominent in the last days, because some of us recently managed to successfully finish a small creative side project, while being fully aware of each other and working together. It felt so good and empowering, that we kind of want to do more of this stuff.

But we don't just want it to do for ourselves. It's an important part of the fun to share it with other creative people. And maybe, at some point, we even could make some money of it. So we kind of would like to build up a presence on the platform where we published our project and maybe also on other social media.

But there is the big problem. On one hand it probably looks not professional, if we present ourselves as a team of headmates in one body to other people. It even could hurt us in the current job (it is both game-related, so chances are high that we get connected at some point)
But on the other hand it feels so wrong to pretend to be someone else and we are craving for our own creative identity. For example, in this recent project, I was in contact with some other designers and I got a lot of compliments for the art of our project, which was not my own work, but the work of a headmate. And i felt kind of bad, to pretend to be the one who did it and let our artist stay in the closet behind me.
I want to talk of "us", not "I", and I'm also a bit in the mood of "###$ you world, we are who we are". But I'm also aware it could cost us a lot of credibility and a good network is super important.

We also thought about pretending, that each one of us is an outside person with it's own body, but that certainly would backfire a lot, if at some point someone figures that out, so that's out of question.
An other option would be to could keep up a rather neutral "company we", but that also has backfire potential (because people still feel betrayed, if the learn that there is only one person behind) and it neither helps us with being ourselves, nor does it help with networking in social media, because there you have way more impact with a personal approach.

I'm writing this here, because writing down alone usually helps somewhat in processing a problem. But I'm also interested, if anyone here was in a similar situation or has their own thoughts about how one could maintain a professional impression but still give everyone inside (who want's that) their own voice.

- Autumn

Hey Autumn,

We totally hear you. We're not 'out' with work stuff but we are out pretty much everywhere else. We say 'we' all the time, talk about ourselves in plural etc etc and yeah it does get questioned sometimes.

So take everything I say with a grain of salt cos I'm not that good with like, social interpersonal relation stuff?

If you're in the USA there might be protection for you. I know Una+ has talked about stuff like that, in a professional setting, there's protection for people. ADA or something? I dunno much about it, we're in Canada. If that doesn't apply for you then no worries.

Biggest thing IMHO is physical safety - so if you aren't sure you'll stay safe being 'out' then don't do it. Then professional stuff is 2nd biggest worry - like you gotta be sure you're not gonna burn yourself in your career. Not just like wherever you're working now, but if it goes really badly you might find nobody else wants to hire you either. I dunno what your industry is like, maybe its not that big a concern, but that's what I'd be worried about.

You might wanna read this if you haven't already seen it. IIRC it was written as an internal doc for Google - for multiples working there. https://freyasspirit.com/plurality-playbook/

So what I'd do maybe is talk to your direct manager first, or your boss or whatever, and introduce them to that linked document. Let them know the situation, make sure they understand its not like a threat or danger or anything, that you (collectively) are the same employee as you've always been, you're just opening up to them about something you've been hiding.

If things go ok with the manager/boss then you can figure out how to handle it going forward from there? Like, I sure wouldn't want some big anouncement or anything. Just like, start being you and if anyone questions the 'us' and 'we' stuff, then just be like 'yeah its like this' or whatever?

Anyways now that I typed all this stuff up, i'll repeat, take it all with a grain of salt. I'm sure folks who know better will give you better answers lol.

We're lucky in that we're self employed & work from home, so we only gotta 'act singleton' in emails and on the phone, and even that sucks sometimes. And we've had a few slipups but noones noticed or questioned. But we're still not ready to be fully 'out' about it cos if it goes south on us, we'll be ####ed up and probably not find work that's as good as what we've got now.

Good luck!

Viola

Hi Viola,

Great answer! Even links and stuff. Host read the link about coming out at work and felt like he was going to throw up. He gets kind of tense about stuff like that. Still a good link.

Iain

Hey Iain,

$#%^ sorry about that! I didn't think, maybe I shoulda put a warning or something on it.

Sorry! I hope your Host is ok.

Viola

Hi Viola,

Thanks a lot for your input. I usually take advice and thought of others with not only a grain, but rather a spoon of salt, so no worries, about that

Physical safety is fortunately not a problem (greater risk is being visible queer I guess), but the professional stuff is a part I'm worried about, and other headmates are even more worried than I am.
There is some legal protection, in theory. The industry we are working it, has such a high fire and hire rate, though, that they most probably would get away with it (we have seen more than one co-worker being fired, because the CEO just didn't like them). So I wouldn't count on this . And since like everyone knows everyone in this field it could becoming difficult to find a new regular job, if it is a known thing that "Muninn is not suitable for this business".

But on the other hand, the industry is rather tolerant for being not super normal, and if our work output stays as good as it was in the past or even gets better, and we have less sickdays because we don't need that much energy to play singleton, maybe it wouldn't be a problem after all and we worry way too much about it.

It is actually quite difficult for us to assess this situation properly and from a neutral viewpoint. It is apparently part of our plural-experience, that some of us see every situation as "suuuper dangerous and everyone will hate us" if we ever dare to change anything. And others are more chilled and think we should be relaxed and be more ourselves.

I personally like this part:

Just like, start being you and if anyone questions the 'us' and 'we' stuff, then just be like 'yeah its like this' or whatever?

Maybe we just sneak in a bit more of ourselves and "us" and see what happens. And keep the linked document at hand if there are bigger questions coming up at work. Or are prepared to lie and say that we were just tired lately or have seen this as social experiment and that we are actually super singleton-normal.. in case that there is some reaction which threatens our job and future.

It is also one of our longterm goals that we are able to work self employed at some point in the future. It would already help us a lot, to not have to keep that &/ç*! mask on all the time. But it still would be eve nicer, if we could be totally honest with potential customers and audience and be like, yeah, this is us, we are doing great work, just deal with it...

@Iain, sorry that your host feels bad. I didn't want to trigger anyone with the topic

-Autumn

I'd suggest you give this a lot of thought and adequate time before you take any action. Write down all the possible advantages and disadvantages. Make sure you include both best-case and worst-case scenarios. You say you're not sure you can be objective. Writing things down and looking them over, pondering, is a way to make it more objective. Not just a list you come up with in one sitting, keep adding to it over some period of time. Ask all of you to be thinking about it and contribute.

It can seem like a freeing experience and in the right circumstances, it can be. But I recall the concerns you expressed about your job situation and how important it's been to your well-being. So one of the potential disadvantages would be "loses job" -- just that. What impact would that have on everyone?

Unless circumstances are really ideal, you're confident of your safety, or you're financially and emotionally prepared to deal with negative outcomes, I'd recommend prudence. There's no rush. And keep in mind that once you "come out," there's not really a take back, you know? This is your work place and you say that employment is iffy in your industry. I don't think you're looking to lose your job, right?

I've found of those people I've told -- at least a dozen -- some have been kind and supportive, several were neutral and didn't show an interest in knowing more, and at least one was quite unnerved, every single time I interacted with her after that. I didn't expect that and I didn't like it at all. The reality is you can't predict other people's reactions.

Have you tested the waters in environments or with people who won't affect your employment? This will not only let you experience and reflect on a range of reactions, it should help you hone your delivery of this important info about you.

There's another sad reality that should be on your list or in your mind. A lot of educated people have limited or wildly inaccurate understandings of DID based on stupid mental-illness-movies-of-the-week. There may be an energy cost in dealing with that.

I am out at work. I told people I have DID. Those who were not freaked out simply didn't care and didn't want to know anything about it. We are colleagues, not friends or family, and however many identity states may be inside my body, all the parts of me share just one body, just like everyone else. We get counted as one person. As far as anyone else is concerned we are one person.

Also, I found that an important part of owning my / our DID was accepting credit or blame for what any part did. So you feel uncomfortable "taking credit" for another part's work? Deal.

So, bottom line is don't bother. Unless you are somewhere that has special laws protecting persons with disabilities and you need that protection. If you need that protection then disclose to the human resources department, not to your colleagues, subordinates, or supervisor.

Hi Una+ and Johnny-Jack

Thanks a lot for your time and thoughts. It helped me to realize (one more time - it seems that I have to be reminded from time to time) that I'm myself probably as much an idealistic dreamer, as some other system members are hyper-pessimistic and cautious.
In the current situation coming out probably would not work out as nice and freeing as I imaging it. I remember how much of a struggle some transgender friends went through with just one new identity. It probably would just as stressful or even more stressful than the current situation, just in an other way.
I will not completely give up on the idea, but it certainly needs more time to think about it. Because nope, currently we don't want lose our job. The situation might look different in some year, but we shouldn't rush anything.

But this also does not mean we won't change anything at all. One thing we can change is the way we handle the "pretending to be a singleton" and how we see it ourselves.
This morning we did think a lot about it and we had this vision, that our body is something like a state. If a state is interacting with an other state or is in an other territory, it sends out an ambassador. While an ambassador is on duty, they will represent the state as a whole. They speak as "I" but in the name of their country. They are still a person on their own, they might have so quirks or a way how they talk and they of course have their private life, but it shouldn't interfere with how they represent the country.
So the person who is out in the body is the ambassador of all of us in a certain situation. At work the one out is the ambassador of work-muninn for example.
While that doesn't sound as much different as just pretending to be someone else there is this one difference: instead of pretending to be that one headmate who is out in this situation the most, we can start to talk about we actually want to present our "country" so that whoever is in the role of the ambassador, can feel at least slightly more comfortable. And the thought alone, that I'm an ambassador for us, instead of "Darn, I have to pretend again to be like x" is encouraging, I guess.

Also, I found that an important part of owning my / our DID was accepting credit or blame for what any part did. So you feel uncomfortable "taking credit" for another part's work? Deal.

We master the accepting blame for others part quite well. But I think we have to work on accpeting the credits and not seeing it as taking something away from an other part, but to be an ambassador again, whose job it is to accept praise as much as complains and forward it to the right person.

Thanks again. It actually helped us to get more clear about this topic

-Autumn

Muninn wrote:This morning we did think a lot about it and we had this vision, that our body is something like a state. If a state is interacting with an other state or is in an other territory, it sends out an ambassador. While an ambassador is on duty, they will represent the state as a whole. They speak as "I" but in the name of their country. They are still a person on their own, they might have so quirks or a way how they talk and they of course have their private life, but it shouldn't interfere with how they represent the country.

-Autumn

This is really interesting. I think we do this, even though I've never conceptualized it like that. Whoever is out knows that to some extent they're representing our "image" to the outside world--with this outside body and bodyname, and with somewhat of a "reputation" to uphold. And not everyone is allowed to be, or wants to be, an ambassador, so they would only front when no one else is around (not counting the T or the husband).

And by the way, we work part-time in a professional environment, and would never come out as DID there. Probably not anywhere socially either. The downside is larger than the upside for us. We haven't even told our mostly-grown children.

We like the ambassador metaphor, Autumn. It's something we hadn't thought of before, and we've been at this multi thing a long time.

For us coming out at work is an absolute no. We work in a very well-known nonprofit and have business contacts throughout the US. And we are very careful to keep our two online identities (bodyname and system name) completely separate.

MDs