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?

Mine too, almost always have had teams like this. We're friends more than colleagues, wouldn't know what I'd do without a strong work team support structure, these are the people you spend most of your time with

I'd be tempted to tell your manager that reliving your life story could be a trigger for you and they wouldn't want you to struggle because of it would they?!

Announce that you were sexually assaulted by someone very high up in the organisation whom you don't want to name. They will not want to take that conversation any further.

WTAF none of their fucking business can you say what sort of job it is ?

God, what new circle of hell HR twattery is this...can't somebody find these people a real job?!

Have bookmarked though as this almost certainly means the HR twonks in my particular part of the public sector will be introducing something similar soon and I quite like the idea of the shopping centre one as my younger sister did actually wander off in a shop when I was 10 or so and dad had taken us both into town. Thank God nothing happened as we caught the little munchkin before she got to the escalators but it was pretty scary at the tume.

I also like the idea of just getting the one with the biggest ego to talk about themselves for 90 minutes. Our new senior manager is so in love with himself that would definitely work.

I really hate these stupid modern team bonding ideas though and wish HR would realise they don't work.

Not a chance in hell. My life story is traumatic and fucking private. Although if I was a different kind of person I'd tell the whole story and stun them into silence!
My work colleagues are NOT my friends, my therapist or anybody I want knowing my business FFS.

Sounds like they want us all to be like Harry,.vomiting every single emotion he ever
had.

I am sure over the years I have shared some personal information with colleagues. But only as and when I felt like doing so. This session sounds more suited to group therapy than work training. I can’t decide whether I would stand my ground by refusing to participate full stop, or whether I would go along and share only innocuous stories about myself.

I think it depends on what is meant by "vulnerability". Professionally this is, I agree sometimes helpful. Something like "I worry about how my work in X area is perceived because I have always felt imposter syndrome in this area" is a lot different to "I had an abortion as a fifteen year old and have never really got over it".

Err no! Dress it up any way you like personal information can and often is used against you at work, especially for women.

I was totally gaslit by a boss when struggling with what was an unmanageable and undoable part of my job yet kept being 'symoathetically' told it was because I was struggling after a miscarriage. Now miscarriage is horrible of course however by this point it was my 6th, several if which I didn't even take a day off work as I valued the distraction so luckily I knew it was bullshit and fought it but if I HAD been struggling it would have been awful.

As a result work now get the highlights and the information required to allow me to do my job to the best of my ability.

I'd tell them that their initiative is ignorant, intrusive, ill mannered and corporate bullying of the worst kind. That you have no intention of allowing yourself to be bullied and unless this is actually in the terms of your contract (it won't be), you won't be taking part.

If you actually shared a serious trauma with colleagues, especially one perpetrated against you by someone you should trust, and have found this life changing, then you're unusual. But that's actually brilliant.

Encouraging forcing people to open up their deepest darkest things to a group that they don't feel safe in (and given that OP is being hassled about this already, it's already not a safe space) is unethical.

OP you need to outwoke them.

"It's my truth"
"It's important to me"
"I feel so nervous sharing this"
"I feel so vulnerable just thinking about talking about this"
Then a story lightly touching on the favourite topics of wokeness (in its current meaning, the one this course is relating to). And apply one or two of them to a childhood friend. You had to watch said friend go through/deal with it. An it was very upsetting and life changing. And you were vulnerable because as a kid/teen you felt entirely helpless.

But if possible do not make an entirely new lie up. You may have to remember this or go into more details. It's far harder to remember a lie and make details for it than something based on reality, if others are talking about being raped or abused then you could actually cause yourself problems if you are discovered to be lying.

The people running this sort of course are sadists and emotional vampires, Why would you actually want to make people share deeply personal things and experience pain when you're not qualified to deal with it properly? I knew some trainee counsellors like this. One was working in HR at the time and tried to get her workplace "clients" exposing their childhood trauma to her as part of work-place "career coaching" that she set up. Ultimately she was fired, as well she should have been.

I think you gauge it as it goes, it's not as much as about content as about the vulnerability if that makes sense. Maybe I'm the exception here, I've done many leadership and professional and personal development courses, what is a bit odd here is with OP is I don't think they tell you this upfront, it more happens organically (it's been a few years so hard to remember). Any decent facilitator would never let you do anything you're not comfortable with. I wonder if HR has got it wrong in how they've communicated it to OP.

YANBU. As PPs have said this must have been dreamt up by someone who has led a very happy life with little trauma.
I started a new job recently and on my third day I attended a meeting with a 'get to know you' activity where we all had to stand in a position in the room representing the area we grew up and explain what values we had gained from our childhoods there. Everyone was beaming talking about family and belonging etc as I sweated trying to come up with something to say that wasn't 'my childhood was shit and did nothing other than teach me which values to avoid' to a load of people I'd never met before. I think I ended up mumbling something about learning how to make my own way and be independent.
Part of allowing yourself to be vulnerable is to set boundaries so that you can do it within your own control. Isn't it completely normal to have a work self and a home self?

I thibk this sort of inclusivity is shit. But it is an 'easy win' for an organisation rather than solving difficult problems such as the equal pay gap, and a lack of diversity at management and exec levels.

If you are brave enough, I would say "I am a very introverted person and I think training such as this is not inclusive to people like me. I have had steepless nights ahead of this training. This has made me feel very upset and vulnerable".

I would just say
"Sorry, super-injunction, and I shouldn't even be telling you that." 😶

Please raise a complaint, it is just wrong. Whoever come up with this idea try to intrude others private space.

I personally would say I've got nothing personal to share.

This is a great response!

They can't make you disclose anything you don't want to. They're not going to ram hot pins down your fingernails if you don't share enough. Say what you feel comfortable saying and don't say anything else. Everyone will be the same.

I have a strong suspicion it might be not nearly as bad as you think. They'd find themselves in very deep water if someone decides to share something unpleasant which really triggers someone else.

Hi Op

Tell work people and bosses
You are not paid to be at. COUNSELLING Therapy sessio. At all.

Only reveal what you feel comfortable withDon't feel emotionally blackmail ormanipulatived nto.doing something you feel you want to do,

I have never heard about having to do this type of thing for work.

Wtf,! L.O.l

Didn't know it was such a thing, !!!

How do you know if you or anybody shared something personal it would not be gossiped outside work environment or even used against your vulnerability in some way to your distant age...!

I’m shocked at this too.

look at the AA, people only bare their souls to others that they fully trust will keep everyone’s information confidential and even in those meetings, you’re supposed to talk only if you want to.

i would make up a story, doesn’t have to be something dramatic, base it on a childhood friend or a book character.

If they're so keen to embrace diversity, they need a chronic oversharer and someone who shares nothing, don't they? To have the full range.

Terrible idea. Is the person facilitating it a trained therapist? What if someone opens up about something and then isn’t supported with the effects of it?

Vulnerability isn’t telling everyone your stuff. Vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability. You are right not to want to do this if you don’t want to.

I went away for a couple of days training a years ago and there was a similar exercise at the end of the first day. No one was guilted into sharing though, and it’s awful you’re being made to feel bad for being private. The fact it’s the basis for an entire training event in the name of ‘inclusion’ is absolutely horrific.

After going through a similar thing, I fed back that it didn’t sit right with me, and that you can be vulnerable and build trust without sharing something traumatic (some of the things really were) with people you’ve just met. It was 50/50 the people who did or didn’t share.

Stand your ground. You wont be the only one horrified by this.

Eh no thanks!

There’s some colleagues that I don’t even talk to/don’t talk with me so there’s no chance I’d be sharing with them. I have shared (a bit) with a colleague in the past but she wasn’t interested and then I got upset, never ever again.

Utter rubbish it sounds!