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It’s a cop out, I know it is, but I’ve spent my entire life hiding.

In my youth, hiding my background: a middle-class, practising Christian family, living in a great big house in the affluent suburbs. In college, I told no one where I lived. Even the one I called my best friend knew nothing about me.

As a student, hiding my agnosticism, from my family, near and extended, fearing their censure and rebuke. Throughout my career, hiding my adopted faith: a practising Muslim since the age of twenty-one, my prayers performed in secret, my social life with colleagues curtailed.

For twenty years, a stigmatised diagnosis, carried by me and my beloved alone, unspoken of with family or friends. To this day, none knows its name, lest they Google it and thus judge me on the basis of whatever it is they’ve read.

I know others don’t have the privilege of hiding what causes others to discriminate against them. I know my profession of faith is invisible, whereas others must contend with prejudice and unconscious bias without relent. I know my diagnosis is minor compared to all that afflicts many.

Still, I hide, choosing silence on all I know will cause disquiet in others. It’s a cop out, yes, but I seek a quiet life, unperturbed by the prejudices of others.