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Alison Stewart: This is All of It, I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm grateful you're here, but first, James Earl Jones, Othello, Fences, Darth Vader, he was an icon. He'll be sorely missed. I'm just glad he got to see a Broadway theater named after him in 2022. On today's show, we'll speak with actor Natasha Rothwell about her new series, How to Die Alone. We'll also learn about the life, art and legacy of the groundbreaking artist Raml Z, and we'll talk to artist Futura about his new retrospective at the Bronx museum. That is a plan, so let's get this started with a conversation about how to unhide yourself. [music]

Alison Stewart: 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. She was born with amniotic band syndrome. She's become 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 yourself, whether it's a disability, your sexual identity, your mental health status, or something else, isn't just bad for the hider, it's bad for everyone. Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life, Do Your Best Work is out now and Ruth Rathblott joins me in studio. Nice to meet you.

Ruth Rathblott: Nice to meet you, too, Alison. I'm excited to be here.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's an aspect of yourself that you've always felt that you had to hide from friends or coworkers? Maybe it's a disability or struggle with addiction or family troubles. What have you hidden throughout your life? How did you finally decide to unhide yourself? What happened when you did? Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call to us or text to us at that number, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Let's talk a little bit about your personal story. When was the first time you realized you were different?

Ruth Rathblott: Sure. 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," but my parents encouraged me to do everything. They kept me going. Then Alison. I got on a yellow school bus to start a new high school, and 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, and so 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?" because there's always with hiding, Alison, a fear of rejection, a fear of judgment. For me, when hiding stopped working about my hand was when I 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. 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 self awareness, right? 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. I think 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, and honestly, it's lonely. It keeps us feeling disconnected from ourselves and others.

Alison Stewart: Yes, 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, and so you're actually never really present with anyone. You're just constantly thinking about "When's the next time? How is someone going to find out? When's the time that someone's going to discover it?" You're always worried about that, so 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, so 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: Yes, that's a universal from what I hear from people who know the journey of hiding. It's that idea of-- and 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," so there's this pressure internal like that is constant with him I'm imagining. "Yes, 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, right, 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, so 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 going to be found out of. 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: Yes, it's interesting. In writing the second book, I definitely talk about this concept of what I call strategic hiding because 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, and so I say start small. Especially with people with disabilities who feel like it's not a safe environment. Start with a manager who maybe may have safety. Start with an HR director who may be safe.

Start with a co worker who you trust, but start small because I've had, Alison, people share stories about their managers not wanting to tell their managers about caretaking a family member or even having kids. Talk about disabilities. 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 Laier, Lara?

Ruth Rathblott: Hi, Lara.

Alison Stewart: From Bridgeport. Nice to meet you.

Lara: Nice to meet you. I love everything that I just heard. I think having I've been in recovery for 20 years. Being able to lead more with self-acceptance and starting small is something I've had to do for these past 20 years. Just 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, but 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. I get 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 say that, not be embarrassed about it, it's 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," but 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. My guest is Ruth Rathblott. The name of the book is Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life, Do Your Best Work. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's an aspect of yourself or your life that you felt you had to hide from friends or coworkers? How did you decide to stop hiding it? When? Tell us what it was like when you decided to do that. Give us a call. You can call in with, share with us on the air, or you can text to us at that number and tell people the name of your other book.

Ruth Rathblott: Sure, Single Handedly: Learning to Unhide and Embrace Connection.

Alison Stewart: All right, 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, so these came out of when I talk about hiding, Alison, 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, right? It's to be curious. Sometimes, with the wanderer, there's almost a wall. Like, it's great to ask questions, but are you willing to go deeper? Are you willing to be introspective or what I call to do the self-centered work 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.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Ruth Rathblott: "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." Yet what I found with that, sometimes they even say, "I probably overshare and I shouldn't share that much." There's an awareness of the oversharing, and yet, oftentimes what I found is it's curated. It's a curated narrative.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting. Yes.

Ruth Rathblott: "This is what I want you to know about me, but I'm not willing to share some other things," and so 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, and we did the usual exchange of, "Oh, what do you do? What do you do?" I talked, 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? Like, 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," but the fortress is someone who sits there with their arms crossed, being like, "Why is this important? Like, 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." 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, so 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, so 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. 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, and so 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.

I think 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. 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 at the education level, finances, family backgrounds, people are hiding things all the time, and so it limits us, right? 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 ended up on this school bus, and a kid stared. What would you tell 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, right? There's pressure with conforming with 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 Ericsson stage of development. I think it's about just, 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. 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're speaking with the author of Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life, Do Your Best Work. It's Ruth Rathblott. We're going to take more of your calls and your texts after a quick break. This is All of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Allison Stewart. My guest is Ruth Rathblott. She wrote the book Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life, Do Your Best Work. Part of what you talk about a little bit is DEI. You say that people with disabilities have been left out of that equation a little bit. Why do you think it's important to include disability within DEI?

Ruth Rathblott: Sure. There's a couple of things, I think, yes, 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, so it's intersectional. Also, 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, so it's important that it gets included in that DEI conversation.

Alison Stewart: We have somebody who has a text that says, "The HR manager is never a safe person to go to." Have you heard that before? "HR managers take care of companies. They don't take care of people."

Ruth Rathblott: I think it depends on the company. I've heard it, and it's the part of the work that I do, which is how do we connect with the HR teams to start to build a culture of unhiding, a culture of trust, a culture where people can feel seen and belong and feel heard. Yes, I've heard it, and yet, at the same time, I don't want to disrespect really great HR managers who are out there, who are fighting on behalf of people and championing people.

Alison Stewart: Have you ever been in a situation where you really thought to yourself, "Did that really happen to me that I didn't get that job because?" or "I didn't get that placement of a job because?"

Ruth Rathblott: No, because I was hiding so much. The HR manager did not know about my hand. Nobody knew about my hand. It was, Alison, I got so good at hiding where it was not part of my interview.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting. 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. 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 9/11 came, and I went back into that corner again. Now October 7, 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 ask me, "Are you from Hungaria?" I said, "Yes." I play a game, and if I can get away without saying it, I will not say it, but our community now in this country is living in fear. I thank her so much for this because it does affect us tremendously, and 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 online one calling from Brooklyn. Hi, Dominique, thanks for calling.

Dominique: Hi. I am actually heading 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 society looks at older women, so women not just lose maybe their youthful looks, they lose this huge part of their personality that they cannot talk about. I still date, and 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. I lost my nerve, but 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.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Dominique: Really, it's huge and 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, "Oh, I have felt like that, too." 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 because 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. I know personally, Dominique, other women who are managing through what you're managing through. 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 meaning to all meetings."

Ruth Rathblott: Beautiful.

Alison Stewart: To your point, it depends on the place.

Ruth Rathblott: It depends on the place, and 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, 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, almost like the guards-- What do you call it?- those guards, those blinders that I had on about that I was the only one started to fade. I remember being at a Duane Reed, a pharmacy, and seeing someone with a limb difference like mine almost for the first time, really putting it together.

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 Finn project." At that time, Alison, I think there were 30,000 people on this Facebook group. Now it's over 90,000. For the first time, I saw myself represented online with different hands that looked like mine. I rushed home and looked at that. Then I went to their picnic that they have outside of Detroit. I realized I wasn't alone because 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. 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're going 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 and 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 in our population as human beings, to be more compassionate and to be more accepting. That all of these disabilities are not necessarily other than, but they are part of the norm. You talk about intersectionality, that exists. Literally, if you look at anybody, they can literally identify somebody in their family, in their friend 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, yes, this is a challenge. That's why I say disability is the largest minority group because we are out there.

Alison Stewart: Ruth Rathblott, the name of the book is Unhide and Seek: Live Your Best Life, Do Your Best Work. Thanks for coming in.

Ruth Rathblott: Thanks for having me.

[00:29:57] [END OF AUDIO]

 

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