'I invented an entirely fictitious life'

“Before Deutsche Bank I was an IT teacher at an all-girls high school in Sydney. When I started, a male teacher suggested that it would be easier to just tell the students I was married to a woman. So that’s what I did. After a few weeks the kids started asking questions about my personal life. They began comparing notes on what I had told different groups. I gave little bits of information and then slowly started inventing different parts of my relationship; where we met, how I proposed. I even bought a ring as I didn’t wear one and was being asked why. As the lie got bigger it became more difficult to remember what I had told to whom. I wrote myself notes on my false personal life. I spent seven wonderful years teaching and I do miss it terribly. But having an entire life that was completely fictitious was exhausting. If I could do it again and I felt able to, I would have just told them the truth."

"When I came to Deutsche Bank I didn’t want to have to pretend to that level again. I wasn’t going to invent stories anymore but I also wasn’t sure if the bank was a completely safe space. So I continued to pretend for three years. I described my partner as ‘they’, never using a male or female pronoun. I kept his job and identity vague. No-one would ever meet him. If colleagues asked me what I did at the weekend I would just say ‘stuff’. I would keep tabs on how I walked, how I spoke, how I used my hands, the words I used. I was petrified that my clothes might give me away, so I would mimic the outfits of the rest of my team."

"I had been at the bank for three years when a colleague spotted me on the train to work and asked me to join dbPride. I instantly panicked that she’d worked it out. Had I slipped up, walked wrong, said something? I avoided her for ages, scared that I’d now need to change jobs. She asked me again months later and that’s when I finally let the barriers down. Her warmth was the gateway to me being myself at Deutsche Bank  and she encouraged me to contact the Bank’s Employee Assistance program. With their support I felt weightless, finally free of the pretence. I knew I wanted to be at the bank for a long time but I needed to be accepted for who I was. The bank did accept me, with open arms. I knew that we had a supportive culture, but it was different putting it to the test. My team was so easy going and my boss was an especially accepting person.

There are still a lot of mechanics in my own personality to work on. I’ve spent so many years not being me that it’s sometimes hard to know who me is. But I am now myself at work, and the bank has really helped with that."