There’s No Imposter Here
By Lea
The feeling of unbelonging, uneasiness in your body, feeling like you’re a fraud? The word ‘stranger’ pounding constantly at the back of your mind.
Nerve-wrecking, anxious, desperation, and doubt. These are the words most common to describe Imposter’s Syndrome. A large majority of people go through life, experiencing these heart-wrenching feelings inside at least once at some point in their lives. Despite this, the feeling and illness has no name and the label of Imposter’s Syndrome is unfamiliar in people’s minds.
Imposter’s Syndrome is not as famous as its other counterparts, such as depression, anxiety, trauma and others, but so many fail to recognize that these are also common traits for Imposter’s Syndrome patients. Besides its rare sighting in mental illness stereotypes, individuals that suffer from this paradoxical syndrome are also incredibly hard to identify.
Imposter’s Syndrome significantly affects high functioning successful people with greatness up their sleeves. The downfall of the syndrome is, they often mask the extraordinary by forcing these incredible individuals to see their achievements only as pure luck. It was merely luck that got them where they are. It was coincidence that made them become who they are; it wasn’t them. It was never their hard work, aspirations, confidence, and determination. It was merely luck and nothing else.
“They bully and belittle themselves. What if it was all true?”
The short sightedness of people with this syndrome causes massive anxiety within themselves and it manifests in various ways. The manifestation of feeling like a fraud, an imposter, a fake; the desperate and anxious feeling that someone might realise that you’ve been faking your successes and your achievements were never yours. You’re worried someone might call you out, tell the world the news, have your name passed in whispers by people in your playing field and end up in a ditch somewhere, lonely. Although this sounds like an extremely dramatic ‘worst-case-scenario’, this is the exact scene painted by a large majority of people faced with Imposter’s Syndrome.
It’s already tiring to handle the mental strain of not being allowed to enjoy and indulge in your own successes. These high functioning individuals credit their success to external factors, but at the same time, they can’t face failure. They don’t want to lose, but they say they won just because it happened. They say they won the game by a point and it didn’t matter, but if they lost, they’d see that point as a failure forever. The strain of winning, but not winning too much plays in the balance of these people’s minds. Crediting your success to others, but hot branding your failures to your name, and yours alone.
‘You don’t deserve this. You didn’t try hard enough. You got in just because you were lucky.’ These are horrible words you don’t say to people. Unfortunately, people with Imposter’s Syndrome say these exact words to themselves all the time. They bully and belittle themselves. What if it was all true? They’re scared that their worst nightmare and feeling might actually be true. At some point, they even question if they’re faking their own illness.
