imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome at work: How I stopped feeling like a fake
Imposter syndrome at work: How I stopped feeling like a fake

Hey everyone! I wanted to check in and see if anyone else struggles with imposter syndrome, especially as a parent. Sometimes, I feel like I'm not doing enough or that I'm not good enough in this role. If you can relate, I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences. It can be really debilitating and create a lot of negative feelings. I know deep down that I'm capable, but when I make a mistake in parenting, it feels like a validation of my doubts. ❤️‍🩹 #ImposterSyndrome #mother

Hey everyone! I wanted to check in and see if anyone else struggles with imposter syndrome, especially as a parent. Sometimes, I feel like I'm not doing enough or that I'm not good enough in this role. If you can relate, I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences. It can be really debilitating and create a lot of negative feelings. I know deep down that I'm capable, but when I make a mistake in parenting, it feels like a validation of my doubts. ❤️‍🩹

I'm on my third job and once again my depression and imposter syndrome are disrupting my life and my routine. Sometimes I feel like I won't be able to hold down a job for more than a year because my symptoms always get worse eventually. I feel desperate and I feel like I'm letting everyone around me down. I don't know what else to do to feel better. #Depression #ImposterSyndrome

Hi, my name is BohemianBluebird13. I'm here because I have chronic pain (and imposter syndrome) struggling to keep it together today

#MightyTogether

You need to calm down. I mean, does anyone really want to be told this? Probably not, but it’s even worse when you can’t control how excited, loud or energetic you are. When someone is manic or hypomanic, this is definitely not something to say to them. Mania and hypomania can cause the person to speak more loudly, speak over people, have tons of energy while getting very little sleep, make them hyper focused on a topic or project, or cause really severe irritability. None of these things are controllable, and odds are, if they could “calm down” they would, they don’t need to be told.

Just snap out of it. This could be something said to someone during a manic episode, but I think it’s more likely to happen during a depressive episode. Depression is very poorly understood by a lot of people. They tend to think if you try hard enough to be happy, or do x, y, or z you can go back to being your normal self. That’s just not the way it works. Depression isn’t a choice, and it’s not something that just affects someone’s mood. It can cause physical weakness, problems maintaining proper hygiene, hypersomnia (sleep too much), grogginess, poor judgment, and a whole list of other symptoms. It’s not as simple as just, “snapping out of it.” Just don’t say it to anyone suffering from depression; it only adds to the guilt and hurt they are feeling.

I’ve never seen you depressed or manic, so I don’t think you’re bipolar. Leave the diagnosing up to the medical professionals. Just because someone thinks they haven’t seen someone with bipolar either manic or depressed, doesn’t mean they haven’t. People with any mental illness can get very good at masking their symptoms. Seeming perfectly okay to others while absolutely falling apart on the inside. Statements like this also feed into imposter syndrome which a lot of people with bipolar disorder suffer from. Imposter syndrome can take on different forms, but in bipolar disorder it usually means that someone feels as though they aren’t actually sick, or don’t actually have bipolar disorder. This is the main reason a lot of people with bipolar disorder will stop taking their medications at some point in their life. When they’re well or manic, it’s easy to think everything is good, that they were just faking their illness, and they’re not actually bipolar at all. Statements like this make it even harder to push those thoughts to the back of their minds.

Try harder. This kind of goes hand in hand with, “just snap out of it,” but it is different. This directly implies that depression or mania are within the person’s control; that’s just not true. Yes, there are things people with bipolar can do to reduce their symptoms, but nothing is going to cause someone to come out of a depressive or manic state aside from medications or time. Others may argue with me on that, but that’s been my experience.

Your life isn’t bad, you shouldn’t be depressed. This statement says to the sufferer that their depression is based off of life events; that’s not the case. Depression is cause by a chemical imbalance in the brain. There can be a catalyst that starts a depressive episode, but someone could have the best life ever and still become depressed. Depression is out of everyone’s control. No one can just smile more, or think happy thoughts and cure depression.

“Are you okay?”

How do I explain to you that the answer to that question has never been “Yes?”

I don't know what okay means. I have spent my whole life, as much of it as I can remember, trying to convince myself that I was okay, that the screaming hole of emptiness, of alienation, in my head was my imagination, that I was ungrateful for all I had, all I'd been afforded the opportunity to achieve and experience, if I thought of myself as anything other than “okay.”

But I'm, as My Chemical Romance say, not okay.

And all those times that I seemed okay to you, all those times that I appeared to be able to manage things and life seemed to be going well? I was not okay then. I had guilted and shamed myself so much for struggling so much that I shoved it aside, I carried it in my heart and my head, and I put on a mask of what I thought “okay” was meant to look like. But I was not okay. I was teetering. I have been for as long as I remember.

How to describe it?

I've called it Imposter Syndrome about my existence. I've called it a black hole in my soul that sucks everything in. I've called it BPD, ADHD, PTSD...I've called it Tom. This is just how I have always been. I have never felt good enough, despite repeatedly being told, and shown, that I was. I have never felt loved, or part of a group, despite the wonderful and vast array of friends and family I have been accepted into over the years. I have always felt like a letdown to the people around me, like I have not lived up to the potential that everyone else sees in me. I have always felt like a burden to be around, like I am included because it would just be too much trouble and drama to finally tell me that I'm not really wanted.

Even with my family. Sometimes especially with them.

I am not okay. What I've just written barely contains the daily torture of my mind. I don't believe the language exists for me to properly describe what it's like. It's good that it doesn't. It would be too much.

That was about as honest as I have ever been about anything.

#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #ADHD #PTSD #Depression