Impostor Syndrome - Knowing is 90% of the Battle
At about age 7 I suddenly started suffering the personality traits of Impostor Syndrome. It came on very fast, strong, and stubborn. It ruined every achievement I made for almost the next three decades. I went from happy, successful, and confident to suddenly and completely uncertain of myself, embarrassed to be called on in school, and absolutely certain of only one thing: I didn't deserve anything I won. Everything I achieved was luck, or me weaseling my way into something I didn't deserve. I was sure of this to the core of my being.
And I did a lot of winning. I won the spelling bee every year. Starred in plays. Captained the academic teams. Skipped a couple grades. Straight-A student through all of my education. Took the SAT at age 11, and got a score that would have got me into the best universities in the world--if I'd been older and able to afford anything like that. The success continued in the workplace and at university.
If it sounds like bragging, go look up Impostor Syndrome on Wikipedia. I didn't feel good about any of it (which is an understatement). I was certain people were awarding me by accident. I won competitions because I was lucky. All I really remember about any of those experiences at the time, was the terror that people were going to find out I was merely lucky--and not actually deserving at all.
I even felt that way getting onto the school bus. I knew it shouldn't be bothering to stop and pick me up. I feared the bus driver would put me off at any second because I didn't deserve to go to school, or I didn't deserve a ride home.
The problem continued when I got older, getting into my car to go to work. Soon, I knew, my employer would discover I wasn't good at my job--only lucky. It was luck I made a million-dollar sale. It was luck I managed to fix things that were broken. I didn't actually know my trigonometry well enough to fix the analysis...I just accidentally found and corrected the right lines of code.
I would sometimes cry in the car on the commute to work, for fear of what would happen when they found out. Would it be today? How would I buy food? Where would I go? I kept track of whether the homeless shelters were full. I knew I would find myself in the queue soon.
When I walked into classrooms. I couldn't actually concentrate well, because I was overwhelmed by my fear of being discovered as a fake who didn't know anything. But, I understand and process information much more quickly than most people. Nobody noticed* I was spending about 80% of my time in any given situation, worrying I was about to be discovered--or just attacking myself. Clearly I had been abusing my good luck to steal a rightful place from someone else who deserved it more.
*Actually some of my teachers did notice when I was younger. They would hold me after class and ask me what was wrong. Was I worried about something at home? (They knew I was really poor, and never ate enough. Some would decide that had to be the real problem, and bring me food. As if I would let something silly like hunger get me down!--and I'm not joking there.) I wanted to tell them what was wrong, because I knew it was the right and fair thing to do. I believed in their good intentions. I really wanted someone to understand, to sympathize. But how could I explain? I would start to tell them, but not one of them bought it. They would stop me. In at least one case, a teacher decided I was making it up to cover up something else!
My little problem, as I eventually learned to think of it, only went away while I was doing stage acting, or while I was really absorbed in what was effectively a character--such as my role in a group activity. I loved stage acting, especially comedy. I loved putting on my character's shoes, and focusing only on being someone else, and getting the audience excited--watching their faces, timing my speech and body language to make them laugh. If I'd been older, I would probably have learned to use acting skill to improve other parts of my life. Indeed, later I did.
As an adult, I have learned to become a stage actor when I can't otherwise cope well with a difficult situation. (And Impostor Syndrome makes a lot of situations much more difficult than they need to be.) I create a more ideal version of me--a character--that can handle it, and go from there. People who've worked with me know I'm ultra-calm in emergencies. Through acting, I eventually learned how to instantly convince myself I really am calm. This was how I somewhat coped with impostor syndrome, before I realized it was impostor syndrome--and not just me being a uniquely fake snowflake.
If you've ever used character acting to solve your problems in day-to-day life, you probably know this: the major drawback is it takes a lot of energy and effort. I cannot do it all the time. It's a last resort. Others have often noticed me looking like an absolutely terrified, inconfident, shaking nervous wreck before I speak onstage, or when I have to do something I'm otherwise not entirely confident in (which used to be...well, pretty much everything). Then they see me 100% confident while performing--as soon as I step onstage, all the terror and worry evaporates. I have stepped into the character, and the character is fearless, competent, happy, and full of energy. The character has no memory of anything else, and does not accept anything else. I am often asked afterward how I managed to do what looks, to people who haven't seen me do it before, like a 180-degree surprise turnaround of my state of mind. Part of it is the ability to act.
And now, part of it is knowing I have impostor syndrome--which is the key to how to fight it.
I know it for what it is now. This is what it's like to be in my mind: I am attacked by thoughts that no one should have handed me the mic. That I don't know what I'm talking about at all. I shouldn't be in this room. I never deserved the chance to be here. Everything is luck--lightning strikes me with it every day! I didn't even deserve a high school diploma. My teachers gave me A's by accident. I don't actually know how to solve math problems or write essays. I may have somehow aced four years of calculus and higher mathematics, but I cannot even be trusted to add and subtract.
I am not a perfect actor at all, and sometimes the inconfidence shows through. Some types of people pick up on it, and treat me as though my inconfidence is grounded in fact, and real. (If you ever had a professor or boss who really hated women, these types pick up on it fast, or they strike it accidentally--and cause me a lot more trouble than they ought to, for example.) This accomplishes nothing good--it makes the bad stuff much stronger and harder to fight. I have found that I absolutely have to hide impostor syndrome from people who will use it to hurt me. For me, that often means going into character and staying there, where, for me, the troublesome thoughts can't have much effect.
It may sound as though I'm crazy, that my life is really heavily affected. As a child it was. By the time I was a teenager, I had become pretty good at hiding it, and as an adult I've even learned to cope. If you met me, you would probably never suspect I have personality traits that oppose confidence and self-esteem. For example, after more than eight years of marriage, when I found out this thing has a name, I told my husband. I told him what sort of thoughts I have and how I deal with them. He was astonished.
I talk about the problem at every opportunity now, even though some might perceive it as weakness--because I know that I am not the only one. And, once I knew that this is a 'thing' and it is common enough to have a name, I became able to fight it very effectively. It doesn't exhaust me anymore and it doesn't affect my work. I am able to laugh it off. I have never been so happy.
The very next day after I learned I was not a unique, fake snowflake--I managed to do something I could never do before.
Following what I had read worked for other people, I made a list of my achievements and decided I could not deny them. I hold the list in my mind, now. When I'm having a bad time with my problem, I swat it away with the list. "Would a person with this list of achievements be bothered by this thought?", I ask myself. "Absolutely not. Goodbye, silly thought."
And now I can laugh. The thoughts about luck and such that I have, are so ludicrous that they are funny. If I am talking to a large group, if someone has handed me a mic, if I am accepting an award, if I am being called out for doing a great job--I guarantee you one thing. Some of what is running through my mind is not pretty. But, that stream of thought is very small and very weak now, because inside my head, I am laughing at how ridiculous it is. And probably using some of that to fuel my smile!
