Feeling Like Imposters

[amilyn]

Imposter Syndrome

Excerpts:

"Impostor syndrome" is the name given to the feelings that...young [academics] describe: Their accomplishments are just luck or deceit, and they're in over their heads. The key to getting past it, experts say, is making accurate, realistic assessments of your performance. Perhaps equally important: knowing you're not

Comments

[englishlitrulz]

I've had moments like this. Interesting to know it's an actual phenomenon and not me just freaking out.

[amilyn]

Everyone I know has those moments of, "OMG I suck...they're going to figure that out and KNOW how much I don't deserve to be here!"

[ama_blue]

At orientation at my school they have these sessions where they reinforce the whole notion of "you belong here, you are incredibly intelligent or you wouldn't be here". Because it's something a lot of people I go to school with struggle with all of the time. The therapists at my school have a field day, I'm sure.

"very unrealistic notions of what it means to be competent"
Exactly, competence isn't equivalent to perfection!

[amilyn]

Wow. What school do you attend? I've never heard those kinds of reassurances. *I* tell my h.s. freshmen that they're going to encounter REAL WORK, some of them for the first time, and that they shouldn't let the NEED to do REAL WORK that takes effort undermine their senses of themselves as "smart" even though most of them have never had to TRY or spend TIME on their school work, that instead it means they're (finally) being given tasks to do that are comensurate with their intelligence. Many of them rise to that, many are crushed by it.

And that last...I haven't learned that one yet. The ONLY thing that I really find acceptable (for my performance in anything) is perfection...and even when I'm on the way there but not DONE yet...I tend to think I'm Doing It Wrong.

I need to read your sentence over and over every day.

[ama_blue]

Yale. We're a crazy bunch is all I can say. Fandom helps me detox from the stress of the day. lol There's a great deal of pressure (mostly self-imposed) to not be that lazy-ass kid not doing anything which is probably why none of us get any sleep. But I really love it. I mean LOVE it. It's a huge bubble of borderline-geniuses and I kind of eat that whole environment up.

That's good to tell your HS students that. HS is a tough time and teenagers can be really competitive, get down on themselves very easily.

[amilyn]

I teach in a selective enrollment school where they've tested to get in (although it's public) that's a college prep program in the Chicago Public Schools, so some of the kids are only there because they test well, some because they don't want to go to their Scary Neighborhood School, some because their parents have Big Plans for them, but most because they WANT to be there and WANT to be good at this and WANT to go to good colleges and WANT to have good lives.

But...Yale. Wow.

I went to the second-least-demanding state school in Illinois (SIU-C) because they gave me a scholarship so it was both free and 2 miles from my house, so, no housing fees.

I love that you all are all trying NOT to be the lazy-ass kid not doing anything. That is awesome. I had four of those fail their freshman English classes this year.

[imbri6]

I almost flunked out of college because "all my friends who are smarter than me have already flunked out, so I'm doomed to fail." It was a close, close, close thing.

[amilyn]

I seriously don't know anyone who hasn't felt like they were doomed to fail, like they didn't belong, like they weren't good enough.

[kevenn]

Holy crap! It's ME!!!

Thank you for posting this! Now that I recognize this, maybe I can do something about combating it.

[amilyn]

I know. It's, like, all of us. It's the scene from Notting Hill where they're competing for the brownie at dinner and Julia Roberts' character says that in 10 years "They'll discover that I CAN'T act, and I'll end up" a washed-up nobody.

I have NO idea what to do about it, especially since I'm SO even subconsciously convicted of the idea that if I'm not AT a state of perfection at nearly all times that *I* am doing something very, very wrong.

[imbri6]

I read your second paragraph, then noticed your icon and wondered...

"Does amilyn accept that perfection includes the chance to revise?" The icon would suggest so, the 2nd paragraph would imply perhaps not.

So, I ask...

"Perfection"? Does it permit revisions? (note, please, the PLURAL in the question)

[amilyn]

My revision problem is that when I think of "revision" my goal is to make it better and make it better until it's as close to perfect as it can be. ...And then I'm happy that it's BETTER, but it could have been better.

So..yeah...can't handle the not-perfect because all those revisionS mean that going on and on and on and trying means I won't get there.

*sigh*

[havocthecat]

Young says the root of the problem appears to be "very unrealistic notions of what it means to be competent" and says that people "set this internal bar exceedingly high." When they occasionally fail, these people may adopt negative behaviours such as procrastination and perfectionism.

I want you to know that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what this is like.

None. At all. Really.

Why are you laughing at me?

[amilyn]

What laughter and mockery??