AIBU to not discuss my life story at work?

[HangryBerd]

My work is conducting training which tells us that we need to share our life stories, disclose what makes us "us", be vulnerable, share our emotions. If we don't, we are told that we're being anti-inclusion. My colleagues and manager are therefore having a go at me for being too private.

I'm finding this really upsetting as I'll chat to anyone about many things but there are aspects that are very difficult to talk about. They're nothing to do with work and quite frankly nobody else's business.

AIBU to stand my ground?

I've just read your update and am appalled! Serious mental health problems and relationship history? There's no fucking way I would be participating in that - and I'm lucky in not having had mental health issues and normally happy to talk about other stuff. How can they possibly think that's appropriate?

I've been on this sort of stuff. As a very private person it was torture. I don't get why companies and trainers think that making people do this stuff is going to make them work harder.

You have 2 choices really

1. Stand your ground. You would be perfectly right to do this however it will risk alienating you from your team. If they are oversharing and you don't even pretend to, it can make people feel exposed and like you're not a team player.

1. Find some insignificant stuff that you are happy sharing. I think I said some stuff about not getting on with my siblings as a child ie something that is so mundane and ordinary, no one cares. When asked why that was so significant I said some nonsense about my relationship changing as I grew up and nodded sagely. I also used the stock phases "it is important to ME" when asked if that was the best I could come up with and "it is something for me to think about" a lot. That was my "topic" for the sessions and I went into nothing more than predictable surface details. They might know you're not really engaging but just keep emphasising how the inane examples are really important to your idea of self and they can't criticise you.

Boundaries! What next?! Why do people want to know the details of people's lives? Do they not think this could leave people very vulnerable to abuse? They have no right to expect this from you. You do your job when you go to work, not share your life. I despair.

Personally I would go on the sick with stress, that would trigger an occupational therapy appointment at most places. Then all this crap would be property documented. Tell the OH how stressed it makes you feel to be forced to share stories and experiences that you aren’t comfortable with colleagues. Then that would be written into conclusion that you wouldn’t have to do that and they would have to follow that!

This sounds like utter hell to me. I'm as private as can be for reasons unrelated to work. I will not share those reasons as that defeats the purpose.

However if I thought I may get poor reviews for my privacy, I might share funny, relatable stories. Not necessarily real, I would mine the internet or find something utterly mundane in my own life to share.

All that said, I am a woman of a certain age/crabby bitch and would really tell them to shove it up their arse. Can you do that?

I agree with CallTheMobWife

Or tell them you are actually King Charles secret daughter/a Martian/something else ridiculous. See what they make of that.

Twatty people and twatty corporate cultures will never change. Just make something up and don’t sweat it.

That training event sounds intolerable. Reward yourself for enduring it with a large G&T

It sounds like they, in common with many others, have misunderstood 'bring your whole self to work '. Which just means that one should feel confident that one won't be discriminated against if one refers to an aspect of one's life that is covered by equality legislation.

It really really doesn't mean you or anyone else tells colleagues deepest darkest secrets and traumas.

Most of us keep work and home separately and this is entirely prudent. Your colleagues are your competition! You don't tell your competition about how your dad never treated you the same as your brother or that time you got caned at Glastonbury and it was really really funny.

I'd just be non committal and ask them lots of questions about themselves. They probably won't even notice that you haven't told them anything.

Sorry, I didn't see your update.

You won't be the only person uncomfortable with that level of intrusion. Is there a friendly senior manager or HR person you can speak with?

I agree

I had to do an exercise like that this week. Everyone was in tears due to the sensitive and shocking nature of some of what was disclose. Very draining

Can you make something inocuous up? I was upset when my cat died kind of thing?

Personally, I'd have a couple of inane or superficial stories to share and just not go into too much detail about anything.

I once worked for a "bring your whole self to work" place.
Sharing of personal feelings and being "vulnerable" etc was encouraged in meetings by the directors.
Then one day someone mentioned that they quite liked a bit of professionalism in the workplace and that sometimes "bringing your whole self to work" just isn't appropriate.
And then there was an awkward silence and then a lot less talk about "bringing your whole self to work"

Or you could go completely the other way… divulge that Fred West was your babysitter and that you are traumatised by the satanical cult next door…

Make up a story and stick with it. I remember finding a website dedicated to different stories to use in workplace scenarios.

The expectation is that we share information on things like serious mental health conditions and our relationship histories.

This is just awful.

Good grief.
Ask them if they’re going to pay for the therapy when people feel cornered into sharing too much. And they can’t cope with what they bring up. And end up mentally unwell.
I wonder where this all fits with reasonable expectation employers keep people safe at work.
SAFE is psychological, not just physical safety.
Ask them this. I would be very interested to hear their response.

Can you say generally what sort of industry you work in, without being too outing? This sounds horrendous and I would be very interested to know how the management think that this will improve your ability to work well with colleagues. It feels deeply inappropriate to compel people to do this.

I don’t mind sharing personal stories to a limited degree myself, and my employer has been running a series of features on our intranet where colleagues have done interviews about their experiences of mental health issues and (in a separate series) racial discrimination. They have been fascinating but I absolutely respect others’ rights to maintain privacy. And to be honest I am but sure I want to hear personal stuff- I have a colleague who has given me chapter and verse on every twist and turn of his divorce and I really would rather he had kept it to himself.

It sounds dreadful. I'd look for a new job. In the meantime, I'd drone on and on about my alcoholic father and my co-dependent mother. This would sound like I'm really sharing and baring my soul. In reality, I DGAF who knows about my dad's alcoholism, but it would give the appearance of sharing whilst keeping the actually sensitive stuff to myself.

completely within your rights to not want to share stories of your life. But if they insist make one up, turn to MN for inspiration & tell the story if how your dog/cat died, ghosted by a friend or your MIL hates you etc.

The reason people keep this stuff private is because they have a very real fear that it could be used against them.
I would tell them that you are feeling bullied by their insistence and if they carry on you will file a grievance.

I honestly can't imagine that my colleagues would want to know about my crappy relationship history and severe mental health problems and childhood trauma. Some of them know the bare bones, as it's relevant for why I needed to go part time. That seems to be plenty for them.

Of course if you did want to go the inventive route then Harry/Spare is your inspiration !
My sister used to like creeping up behind me and tripping me up in cow pats.
My next elder sister used to pull my hair really hard when she plaited it before school. And she made me cry on my birthday because she insisted I still had to lay the table for breakfast even though it was my birthday. 🤔
Given the opportunity I think I could really warm to the theme. As the youngest my father always called me the baby. Even when I was doing my A levels. Baby will be the title of my book. I reckon that has caused me lots of grief now I think about it.

With me, usually I prefer to be a closed book, so to speak, I'm not one usually for war stories, I've had to open up when strategically needed, but in General I prefer to talk about my hobbies more, or the latest politics, ect,
on here, mumsnet, I've been more open, but usually as open as I get.

preference wise, I Understand the view point, of being open, but to me, it shows weaknesses, that some Machiavelli personality may try to spin.

That's a point actually, what debrief will everyone get afterwards? What if someone says something that other people have difficulty processing or it triggers them? It's all well and good saying "tell us your traumas" but how do they expect people to deal with those if they find them traumatising,/personal, or it unexpectedly brings up something from their past, or just don't want to know that this thing happened to Sue from Marketing?

When you share emotional stuff, the person listening has to take ownership of that too, whether they want it or not. Counsellors train for years and have processes in place to protect their wellbeing. What will be in place to protect your wellbeing?

You don't know what people are going to bring.