Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 01:37:57 AM

Login with username, password and session length

who's got imposter syndrome

Started by madhair60, October 11, 2021, 09:41:45 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

madhair60

I do (me), I get it "big time". I worked very hard to be in a particular position I'm in, and every single time I participate in the activities I have earned the right to participate in, I get "big time anxiety". Anyone else?

katzenjammer

Could you be a little less specific please?

The Mollusk

I can relate to this. I think mine is due in part to growing up with ADHD and no one (including me) knowing, so throughout my school years I was made to feel like there was something wrong with me for my inability to focus or achieve anything at school, both by teachers and myself. As a result of this I've gone through my life as a friend, a family member, a boyfriend, an employee and an artist always constantly with the cloud over my head of "you don't fit in here, you'll never be more than entry-level good at this, people don't really like you that much, they're just tolerating you". I feel like the odd one out in so many situations, all the time.

What's weird is that I get constant affirmation from the people closest to me - namely my mother and my fiancée - but it seems to just drift by me. I think it's because I'm naturally a depressive and self-loathing person and I have been for the majority of my life so words are often ineffective, or maybe part of me finds it hard to believe them even though I know they're true. Those words do resonate with me on some level and they make me happy to hear them but it's never been like "oh right, these people all do love me, the problem is now fixed!" and I wonder if I'll ever get to that point of really truly accepting that I'm loved and I'm a great person.

bgmnts

Nah because i literally am an imposter, I actually quite enjoy it now.

I think when you realise how little value other people have, who are confident as fuck about what they get, it sort of fades away.

Now, if I had some sort of skill to be anxious about, yeah probably would be paralysed in anxiety. But that's because you're aware I suppose.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: madhair60 on October 11, 2021, 09:41:45 AM
I do (me), I get it "big time". I worked very hard to be in a particular position I'm in, and every single time I participate in the activities I have earned the right to participate in, I get "big time anxiety". Anyone else?

Yes all the time - pretty much everyone does though.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I can't remembering acquiring a position of responsibility or reputation to ever feel like an imposter. Having one album that got very low level but nice attention, a job I can do almost blindfolded and a bar guide that's been popular but very steady in terms of interactions hasn't ever made me feel like that.

If you feel like an imposter maybe congratulations are in order as that implies some level of ambition fulfilled in the sense that you are doing or being something that you thought was for other people or unobtainable.

Actually I just remembered I used to represent immigration clients in court, that felt a bit weird to be thrown into doing straight out of Uni after a media course. So that.

Captain Z

I should be able to contribute to this thread but I don't feel like my imposter syndrome is as strong as other people's.

Buelligan

Used to.  Then I took a long hard look at myself and understood how incredibly silly that was. 

JaDanketies

Y'know what? I really don't think I've got it any more. I must be getting big-headed. A year or two ago I would've definitely felt like I had imposter syndrome.

To be honest, people say to me "improve my SEO" and I see a bunch of stuff to do that, to me, seems really obvious. On the rare occasion where they say they didn't get the results they expected, I tell them that they will eventually, and I am totally confident that (almost) everything I've done has improved their SEO. It's a bit of alchemy and I don't know if everything I do has an effect on every website, but in general I feel everything I've done is entirely uncontroversial and that Larry Page himself would agree with me. (He's what PageRank is named after fyi).

Back in the past I would've put on a confident voice and said the right things but I might have felt like an imposter. Now I've seen enough positive-looking graphs to know I'm right. Also my business grows entirely on referrals that I put no effort into getting, which counts for something.

What is really impostery is that this is considered a speciality and a professional skill that you need to hire an expert for, when it's actually real fuckin easy.

Buelligan

It's not about being big-headed really is it?  In fact, I'd say that idea was invented as a prop for the old syndrome.  No, IMO, it's about recognising that you are you. 

That's the whole of it, you can tinker at the edges but in the end, you are essentially everything you've got.  I believe, if you accept yourself, you know yourself (and you know that you're not, at least intentionally, a cunt), that's all anyone can ask of themselves.  If other people don't like it, they can get someone else in or shut the fuck up.

Thomas

I was speaking to somebody very creative and talented a few weeks ago. I began to worry that she was only humouring me, and that she couldn't wait to get away from the conversation, but then she mentioned imposter syndrome - which I guessed she wouldn't have risked bringing up if she actually thought I was a boring talentless dweeb.

I've always felt that 'imposter syndrome' barely needs a name. Seems to be a fairly routine element of the human experience, like wondering or doubting or daydreaming - but I suppose they have names, too.


The Mollusk

Quote from: Buelligan on October 11, 2021, 10:55:06 AM
I believe, if you accept yourself, you know yourself (and you know that you're not, at least intentionally, a cunt), that's all anyone can ask of themselves. If other people don't like it, they can get someone else in or shut the fuck up.

That's not really anything to do with it though. It's not about how other people actually view you, it's about how you think others view you, and for me personally this realm of thought occupies a large abstract almost formless space where I'm not actually actively thinking about how others perceive me to be the odd one out, rather it's an omnipresent thing I can't see, it's just everywhere like the air we breathe. It's not suffocating or unbearable, it's just accepted, and in that regard it becomes all the more impossible to overcome or even address.

frajer

Quote from: Huxleys Babkins on October 11, 2021, 11:05:14 AM
John Culshaw

Yeah Imposter Syndrome sounds like something UKTV Play have in development. "Make it Taskmaster, but with impressions, but if the impressions don't work then don't worry, exactly as popular and cheap to make as Taskmaster is the main remit."

JaDanketies

Quote from: Buelligan on October 11, 2021, 10:55:06 AM
It's not about being big-headed really is it?  In fact, I'd say that idea was invented as a prop for the old syndrome.  No, IMO, it's about recognising that you are you. 

That's a nice way of putting it, thanks. How could I be an imposter when I'm the best damn me there will ever be?

Probably also helps that I work at home self-employed so I don't really compare myself with anyone

katzenjammer

Quote from: Thomas on October 11, 2021, 11:03:32 AM
I've always felt that 'imposter syndrome' barely needs a name. Seems to be a fairly routine element of the human experience, like wondering or doubting or daydreaming - but I suppose they have names, too.

It's just lack of self confidence isn't it?

In my experience people that don't suffer from it are the dangerous ones. They confidently make terrible decisions that fuck up all around them.

Buelligan

Being comfortable with oneself is not the whole story though, is it?   Self-acceptance is a good start, that's all.

Quote from: The Mollusk on October 11, 2021, 11:08:55 AM
That's not really anything to do with it though. It's not about how other people actually view you, it's about how you think others view you, and for me personally this realm of thought occupies a large abstract almost formless space where I'm not actually actively thinking about how others perceive me to be the odd one out, rather it's an omnipresent thing I can't see, it's just everywhere like the air we breathe. It's not suffocating or unbearable, it's just accepted, and in that regard it becomes all the more impossible to overcome or even address.

Yep, I used to be absolutely crippled by those sorts of thoughts.  Steady and constant drip of self criticism.  At work and socially, when I was at school, all my life but I got sick of it.  Decided to empty the whole box out and have a good hard look at the mess in there, turns out I'd learned to bullshit myself - guessing had it trained into me because someone who doubts themself is far easier to control.  I think we do it, as a cultural thing, to most of the ones capable of introspection.  Decided I was better off without, what the fuck is the moral compass there for, we don't need all that negative self talk too.


Thomas



batwings


JaDanketies

Quote from: Buelligan on October 11, 2021, 11:20:55 AM
Yep, I used to be absolutely crippled by those sorts of thoughts.  Steady and constant drip of self criticism.  At work and socially, when I was at school, all my life but I got sick of it.  Decided to empty the whole box out and have a good hard look

Definitely relate to this as well. I feel like at one point I just got sick of my brain occasionally deciding to be my worst enemy. I have no real understanding of CBT (cock and ball torture Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), but I might have CBTed myself a little. When my brain started going down these pathways, I would notice, forcefully wrench control of it, and refuse to let it continue. I'd also try and think about what set me off so I could stop it at source.

Bingo Fury

Yup. Despite my publisher, successive editors and numerous colleagues telling me I was good at what I did, I couldn't shake it off, and it definitely contributed to the breakdown I suffered in the early 2000s.

Thursday

I'm not good enough at anything to have it.

peanutbutter

That one woman in the CIA ad recentlly had this.

I don't really have imposter syndrome much anywhere, there used to be weird little competitions across my extended family amongst a bunch of cousins all around the same age and I could just never be arsed with any of it. Framed things as "well I'm actually doing this thing a bit differently, so I'm not really even competing with any of these people".
Seems to have extended into a professional environment, but also unless I feel I'm actively increasing the workloads of the people around me I won't be too bothered. Probably helps that it's quite easy in my field to point at work done if needed, even if you've done fuck all honestly.


My self esteem is absolutely shit, mind, just not in a manner that I feel like an imposter.

Johnny Foreigner

I am the only one in the family who has a university degree (two of them). At the advice of the then-headmaster, I also learnt six years of Latin at school, with which my parents were, of course, wholly unable to help. Father was often dismissive of it: 'Those aren't real subjects. Metal-working is a real subject', was what he used to say. I was also a lover of antique books and classical music, and have never been remotely interested in football. Home was a distinctly working-class environment. Consequently, during my first few years in office jobs, I often felt out of place, thinking I shouldn't really be there and that you could not make money from typing at a desk.

Yet, whenever I look back at all that now, I always have the satisfaction that I have not turned into Roger Scruton.

Norton Canes

Sort of comes and goes. Sometimes I'll be convinced I'm a complete fraud who's managed to get decades into his life without acquiring any relevant or helpful professional skills; then, I'll make some minor or moderate achievement and I'll suddenly be like a boxer psyching himself up in a mirror, "That's it, you fuckers! I'm the best! I'm the one!"

Mostly the first bit though.

Butchers Blind

Wait til you find out who I really am.


Gregory Torso

Quote from: frajer on October 11, 2021, 11:11:16 AM
Yeah Imposter Syndrome sounds like something UKTV Play have in development. "Make it Taskmaster, but with impressions, but if the impressions don't work then don't worry, exactly as popular and cheap to make as Taskmaster is the main remit."

Ah that's a great idea, but make it like Strictly and have peens paired up with impressionist tarts like Rory Bremner and Alistair Macgowan and they have a week to learn how to do a Arnold Schwartzenegger imporession and then they all come out on a stage and go "I'll return" or "get in a helicopter" and given marks out of ten and then next week it's do Dot Cotton being disappointed with her son and there's a montage of someone stretching their face out in a training centre seminar room and groaning "oooooooooooh Nick i need me fags"