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Katy, a 28-year-old accountant, feels a unique kinship with Alias’s Sydney Bristow. “The tension, the conspiracies, the disguises . . . I love watching that show, because I’m so acquainted with a life built on lies,” she says.

No, Katy’s not a secret agent. She’s not crunching bad guys, just numbers. But she is hiding a major secret—one which, if discovered, could crumble the walls of protection she’s carefully built: Katy has bulimia.

You’d never know anything was wrong by looking at her. Katy dresses stylishly, with her makeup impeccably applied. Her cheeks are rosy, she’s not obscenely thin, and she’s a diligent worker. Lately, though, the stress of keeping her secret hidden is starting to take a toll. Katy’s supervisor recently asked her if something was going on in her personal life, as he’d noticed her taking more time than usual to complete her assignments.

“I didn’t know what to tell him,” she sighs. “When I first started here, I had it all under control. I’ve lived with this condition for so long, that I’m real good at hiding the signs. I eat normally, so even when we have team meetings or whatever, no one would look at me twice or assume I had an eating disorder. All I need to do is run to the ladies’ room every now and then, and what’s strange about that, right?” Unfortunately, at the start of her second year with the company, a coworker overheard her purging in the restroom, and asked if she was okay. Katy was so embarrassed, she couldn’t think of a quick cover. “I know I should have just said lunch didn’t agree with me, but I got really flustered, and I’m sure I acted like a weirdo about it all. And since then, I feel like this woman is always watching me . . . staring at me, looking up from her cubicle every time I get up to go to the bathroom . . . I can’t stand it. It’s making it all worse, because the more I feel watched, it triggers my disorder, and I start obsessing . . . I know it’s started interfering with my work, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

Katy’s therapist advised her to talk to her employer, explaining that there are laws protecting her against discrimination for mental disease. At least if her boss knew she had a legitimate problem, the therapist argued, he would be more understanding and not assume she was just slacking off. “I see where she’s coming from, but I work in a very male-dominated company; I think this would just be one more reason for them not to take me seriously. I’m sure I wouldn’t get fired or anything, but I doubt I’d get ahead, and I don’t want to be stuck in an entry-level position the rest of my life.”

Stressful secrets
Not all problems are as serious as Katy’s, but for many Gen Y women, hiding personal issues has become a full-time job in itself. With the Internet Age making the concept of privacy an ancient relic, we have to fight harder to keep our personal and professional lives from clashing. In a March 2010 piece for CNN.com, writer Stephanie Goldberg reported that a “recent survey commissioned by Microsoft found that 70 percent of recruiters and hiring managers in the United States have rejected an applicant based on information they found online,” including such information as “‘Inappropriate’ comments by the candidate; ‘unsuitable’ photos and videos; criticisms of previous employers, co-workers, or clients; and even inappropriate comments by friends and relatives, according to the survey report, titled ‘Online Reputation in a Connected World.’”

The problem with social media is that it’s made us all too honest. Blogs are often little more than online diaries; it’s too easy to Tweet in anger, putting your darkest thoughts out into the world; and it’s difficult to keep track on Facebook of what potentially inappropriate things your “friends” are posting, ending up in your news feed. And while there are obviously undesirable things like drug use (making it a wise choice to leave those shots of you at Lollapalooza with the joint in your hand out of your “Summer 2010” Facebook album—and you might want to request that no friends tag you if they decide to put up the shot themselves, incidentally), sometimes it’s the most seemingly innocuous things that could hurt our careers. For Lisa, 25, her “secret” involves her husband’s profession: active military. “When interviewing with potential employers I never volunteer the fact that my husband is in the military. It’s like advertising that we’ll only be in the area for a few years. It’s always really difficult to keep that from people, because they can see from looking at my resume that I move around quite a bit, and even when making small talk in the first few minutes, people usually say, ‘So what brings you to this area?’ But it can be seen as a real turn-off to have to train someone who will likely only be around for 2 or 3 years.” Unfortunately, Lisa can hedge the question all she wants, but one quick look at her Facebook page—where photos of her husband in uniform or wall comments about military-related issues—might spill the beans.

Religion, politics, learning ability, depression, OCD–private and personal
It’s not just social media that can make it hard to maintain a façade at work. These days, in our heated political climate, even our points of view can potentially harm us. When I asked Caroline, 26, what she feels she most needs to keep hidden from her employers, she didn’t hesitate. “My political views. I work for a large investment company and things tend to lean pretty heavily towards the right around here. So I pretty much smile and nod or keep my mouth shut a lot of the time.” Jessica, a college administrator in her 30’s, feels similarly; but in her situation, it’s God, not the current administration, that alienates her from her coworkers. “I feel I need to hide my faith and my participation in my church. Religion is something to be mocked in my workplace; I work in a very liberal, arts environment where everyone is trendy, jaded . . . Religion is the last thing they can openly make fun of here, so I just keep it to myself.” Jessica does add that she has opened up to some of her more understanding coworkers, though. “My closest friends here are fully aware of my beliefs and are extremely respectful.”

Jessica might actually be protecting her secret more successfully by taking the chance of confiding in a few trustworthy coworkers. It can be extremely tiring, frustrating and stressful to hide a large part of your personality (like a strong faith, or political views) all day long. Plus, if coworkers assume you feel one way about an issue, it can give them “permission” to talk openly about things that might make you uncomfortable. This is a surefire way to create a hostile work environment, which is the last thing any employer wants. You may feel like you’re targeting yourself by expressing your true views, but look at it this way: your coworkers, in the comfortable position of representing the “norm”, aren’t hiding their opinions. You have just as much right to a comfortable work environment as they do. When Lauren’s coworkers had a political radio station (with viewpoints that outright offended Lauren) blaring throughout the workday, the 30-year-old account manager finally broke down and talked to her employer. “I just asked him if we could institute a no-talk radio policy. I told him it was distracting. I was worried that he’d assume—and rightly so—that my political views skewed differently than his (I knew I was the odd man out in the office, in terms of political views), and that he’d favor other people over me, even if it was subconscious on his part. But I also knew that if I had to listen to one more second of that radio station, I was going to go postal. That would have been a lot worse for my career than simply requesting music rather than talk as background noise, you know? I figured the worst he could infer from my request was that I was apolitical, which didn’t seem like a bad thing.”

As Lauren discovered, there are often ways to make work life more bearable without revealing your secrets. But what about when you’re dealing with a chronic mental condition like depression or obsessive compulsive disorder, which might interfere with your performance? Or a family problem that might require your taking time away from the office, or cutting back on workload? Alexandra is the mother of a special needs child, a fact that she takes great lengths to keep hidden from her employers. The 31-year-old attorney tells me that she quit her job after her daughter was born with severe physical and mental handicaps. “I knew that if I stayed at my firm, where they all knew what had happened, I’d never make partner. It was hard enough being a mother who had to take maternity leave; I knew the higher-ups would just assume that I wouldn’t be able to give the firm my all, with such commitments at home. Didn’t matter that my husband is a stay-at-home-father, and quite happy doing so. Didn’t matter that I had never missed a day of work in my life, or have since (at my new firm). I just knew that they’d always look at me and think, ‘liability.’” So, Alexandra left her firm and moved to another, never mentioning her daughter’s condition, and keeping her family life close to the chest. “I’m sure I have a reputation for being cold-hearted, since I never really socialize or talk about my family, but whatever. It’s better than the alternative,” she explains.

22-year-old Francie, fresh out of college, is maneuvering her way around the job search scene, and is very hesitant about disclosing her dyslexia to potential employers. “I feel like I’m doing myself, and everyone else with dyslexia, a disservice by treating it like it’s something shameful,” she laments. “On the other hand, this market is so tough as is . . . I really don’t want to give them any reason not to hire me. And truth is, I sometimes do need a little extra time to proofread things, or read a report, or whatever.” Francie says she recently read an article on a dyslexia website that suggested holding off on revealing her condition until she’d been offered the job. At that point, she would have better leverage, the company couldn’t withdraw the offer, and she’d still be able to ask for any special arrangements she might need. “I don’t feel like it’s being dishonest, because I know that I will be an incredible asset to whatever company I end up at. Everyone has problems of some sort; at least I’ve handled mine with grace for the last 22 years, graduating at the top of my class despite the challenges I’ve faced. I’m just making it easier on them, so they don’t need to make the grave mistake of not hiring me!” she quips.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have Francie’s confidence. Anna has hidden her intense fear of driving in the snow from her supervisor for the past 5 years. “I use my sick days whenever there’s a snowstorm. I’m sure they will put two and two together eventually, but until then, I just pray that no one figures me out. It’s just my own extra ounce of crazy,” she says. From an outsider’s perspective, a phobia of driving in the snow doesn’t seem like too undesirable a trait, but Anna doesn’t want her company to see what she perceives as a weakness. Her words echo those of Bryn, a 30-year-old teacher, who attempts to conceal her long struggle with depression from her principal. “I’m a kindergarten teacher, and I don’t want any anxious parents finding out their kid’s teacher has clinical depression. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I’m responsible for young children—who wants a crazy person taking care of their 6-year-old?” Bryn’s insecurities over her disease force her to pay out of pocket for expensive anti-depressant medication. “If I run it through my insurance, my employer could find out . . . I just think it’s easier this way.”

Job performance affected
It’s understandable, especially in our current layoff-happy environment, for us to want to hide anything that could be used against us. It’s equally important, though, to make sure the act of concealing our perceived flaws doesn’t come back to bite us in the bum. Dr. E. Carol Webster, PhD, a clinical psychologist and author of three books on the stress of success, explains on her website: “The performance of high achieving, successful people can begin to decline when personal problems get in the way. No one intends to allow this intrusion and, indeed, most argue that they are working very hard to keep their troubles to themselves and out of the workplace. But reality is that worries about finances, unhappy relationships, dysfunctional relatives, legal woes, and other such difficulties force telltale signs onto the job. Personal problems have a way of occupying your focus and draining emotional energy causing performance difficulties, such as not making it into the office on time, losing track of important papers and responsibilities, missing critical deadlines, and becoming more unmotivated and testy with colleagues.”

It’s a fine line between revealing too much, and holding so much in that it starts eating away at your insides. The best thing to remember is that your personal life is just that—your personal life. As long as something doesn’t affect your work performance or attitude, then it’s no one’s business but yours—and it should remain that way. This may mean being a bit more conservative with your use of social media, or refraining from telling casual work acquaintances any intimate details of your life. But that’s a pretty decent tradeoff for the luxury of keeping your darkest secrets under wraps, without too much espionage on your part. There’s truly no need for Alias-like behavior in the workplace. Unless, of course, you’re talking about Sydney Bristow’s brilliant fashion sense, which is arguably something to emulate . . .