The Lie We Tell to Fit In (And Why It Keeps Us Lonely)

This is going to be a bumpy ride, so buckle up.

Pride Isn’t Just About Celebration

I watched a video this morning by someone describing what it was like to grow up being raised by her transgender uncle.

She talked about classmates whose parents wouldn’t let them come to her house after learning her uncle was trans. She talked about growing up separated from her half-sister because religious family members refused to allow the relationship. She also talked about something that struck me.

People often told her that she didn’t need to mention that her uncle was transgender when telling her story.

Her response was simple.

Leaving that out erased part of who he was.

I think she’s right.

His being transgender wasn’t the whole story, but it shaped his life, her life, and the experiences she was describing. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make the story more universal. It makes it less honest.

Yesterday marked the end of Pride Month. Today begins Disability Pride Month.

That timing got me thinking about identity, belonging, and the exhausting pressure so many of us feel to pass as “normal.”

The Pressure to Hide

A while ago I read a discussion about why so many blind people are single.

Whether that premise is true isn’t really the point.

The discussion argued that blind people talk about blindness too much.

At the same time, blindness support groups are full of people asking when they should disclose their blindness while applying for jobs or beginning relationships.

Apparently we either talk about blindness too much…

…or we shouldn’t talk about it at all.

For me, hiding my blindness isn’t an option. I use either a white cane or my guide dog, Kronos. I’m totally blind.

Many blind people aren’t.

Someone with limited peripheral vision might appear clumsy because they bump into things. Someone with central vision loss might look like they’re ignoring people they simply can’t recognize. Someone with enough usable vision may go days or weeks before anyone realizes they’re legally blind.

They can pass as sighted.

At least for a while.

Eventually, though, something gives them away.

The same seems true for many other identities.

I don’t know enough about being transgender to speak with authority, and I don’t want to pretend that I do. But it seems clear that some trans people can move through the world without anyone realizing they’re trans, while others cannot.

The details differ.

The pressure feels remarkably similar.

Be Yourself… But Not Too Much

Lately I’ve been inundated with dating advice.

The internet desperately wants me to dress better.

Smell better.

Master small talk.

Become irresistible.

Apparently I can accomplish all of this for only $97.

One of the most common pieces of advice is to avoid “trauma dumping.”

If you aren’t familiar with the term, it generally means unloading deeply personal trauma very early in a relationship before trust has had time to develop.

That advice has some wisdom in it.

At the same time, those very same influencers tell us to be authentic.

Be vulnerable.

Be emotionally available.

Be yourself.

Well…

I’ve lived through alcohol abuse.

Emotional abuse.

Sexual assault.

Financial infidelity.

Those experiences shaped who I am.

If I worked hard enough, I could hide all of that.

Many people do.

The neurodivergent community has a word for that.

Masking.

Some masking is probably part of living in society. None of us say absolutely everything that crosses our minds.

But if we’re always hiding the parts of ourselves that made us who we are, what exactly are we asking people to build a relationship with?

Sometimes We Hide the People We Love

Last weekend I attended a storytelling event presented by The Moth.

One storyteller described growing up gay in rural Oklahoma.

He developed a close friendship with another boy who was deeply involved in a Protestant church. The storyteller was Catholic. Over time, the friendship became a secret romantic relationship.

As they spent more time together hiking and doing ordinary things, people began to suspect there was more than friendship between them.

Those suspicions weren’t kind.

His boyfriend became increasingly determined to pass as straight.

He insisted on driving everywhere.

He controlled their outings.

Then one day they became lost while hiking.

Calling for help might have put them on the evening news.

That terrified him.

He would rather remain lost than risk people finding out.

Eventually the storyteller called for help anyway.

They were rescued.

Driving home, something had changed.

It wasn’t just that they’d found the trail again.

He had stopped letting someone else’s fear control his life.

Passing as Sighted

For nearly a decade I worked entirely from home.

Many coworkers never met me.

We communicated through email, instant messaging, and conference calls long before video meetings became normal.

Most people had no idea I was blind.

I worked hard to keep it that way.

Sometimes I went months.

Sometimes years.

Eventually I’d need an accommodation.

I’d ask someone to send text instead of a screenshot.

I’d ask them to describe a diagram.

Every time, I felt ashamed.

Not because blindness was wrong.

Because I worried they’d stop seeing me as just another software engineer.

I thought they’d stop seeing me as normal.

Even with a disability that’s impossible to hide forever, I found ways to postpone the moment when people knew.

That should tell you something about how powerful the pressure to fit in can be.

The Communities We Choose

For decades I kept my distance from the blind community.

I had blind friends, but we met through amateur radio and Internet broadcasting.

I didn’t seek out blindness organizations.

I didn’t date blind women.

I used to say I didn’t even like blind people.

Looking back, I think I was trying to avoid being seen as “too blind.”

Later, life surprised me.

When I founded Penny Forward in 2020, I suddenly found myself surrounded by blind people.

Something unexpected happened.

For the first time in my life, I felt normal.

I didn’t have to explain screen readers.

Nobody questioned why I used a guide dog.

I didn’t have to pretend.

I belonged.

That belonging changed me.

It also taught me something else.

Blind people are just people.

Some became lifelong friends.

Some weren’t healthy for me.

Some shared my values.

Some didn’t.

Sharing an identity doesn’t automatically make someone safe.

Neither does not sharing one.

We All Deserve to Be Ourselves

So what ties all these stories together?

We all deserve to express our identities without shame.

Blind people shouldn’t have to pretend blindness doesn’t matter.

Gay people shouldn’t have to hide the people they love.

Trans people shouldn’t have to erase part of themselves to make everyone else comfortable.

People recovering from trauma shouldn’t have to pretend their past never happened.

Our identities include both our joy and our pain.

We should be free to talk about both.

Authenticity Also Comes With Responsibility

Being authentic doesn’t mean saying everything at every moment.

Relationships require timing.

Context.

Boundaries.

A blind person who’s passionate about accessibility should also be curious about the interests of the sighted people around them.

Someone recovering from trauma can talk honestly without describing every painful detail to someone who isn’t ready to hear it.

Someone listening to another person’s trauma can respond with kindness instead of dismissal.

“I’d like to come back to this later” is very different from “I don’t want to hear about that.”

Supporting a transgender friend means making a sincere effort to use their name and pronouns.

It also means recognizing that some questions aren’t ours to ask.

Authenticity isn’t an excuse to ignore other people’s comfort.

Courtesy isn’t an excuse to erase ourselves.

Both things can be true.

Permission to Be You

The older I get, the less interested I am in passing as normal.

Normal is a moving target anyway.

I’d rather be known for who I actually am than admired for someone I had to pretend to be.

That doesn’t mean I tell everyone everything the moment I meet them.

It means I no longer believe that the parts of me that make some people uncomfortable are the parts that need to disappear.

We all have identities.

We all wear masks.

Some protect us.

Some imprison us.

The trick isn’t throwing every mask away.

It’s learning which ones we no longer need.

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Did this resonate with you? Did it challenge the way you think about identity, authenticity, or belonging?

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As always, thank you for reading, for thinking deeply with me, and for your support.