I have never been good enough.
My extremely high standards can only be met by someone who is physically non-human, so it's a miracle that I can ever be happy with or proud of myself at all. Don't get me wrong, those instances are rare.
Lately more so than ever I have felt the stench of imposter syndrome slowly creeping in. No longer in my peripherals, it fogs over my entire life and the insecurity is pounding louder than ever before.
I feel it in every domain of my life.
I feel like one day Scott is going to realise that I'm a terrible girlfriend who doesn't deserve his patience, kindness, and support.
I sit at my desk fearing the day that someone walks up to me and demands to take my PhD off of me. They will say, "You don't have a clue about what you're doing. You don't deserve this. You will never be good enough for this. Give it back so we can give it to someone who actually deserves it."
I do my work hoping I won't get fired because I feel like I'm wandering around in the dark and my hands are tied behind my back so I can't even feel my way through. People may be looking at their own computers, but I feel their mental eyes sizing me up, seeing right through me, knowing that I conned my way in and the only achievement for me is to be a disappointment.
People say I'm an inspiration because of how far I've come with the depression and eating disorder I've experienced. I want to yell at them, "How on earth am I an inspiration?! I don't know what the hell I'm doing! I like to wallow in self pity and cry myself to sleep, is that your idea of an inspiration?! Because it's pathetic."
And this smell of bullshit has been lingering for so long that I no longer know where the source of it is. I've tried to ignore it for so long that all I've managed to do is keep walking through it, spreading it everywhere, rubbing it deeper into the carpet, where it can't be removed any more.
And worst of all, this sense of impending doom and self-insufficiency is just plain tiring. It's exhausting. I don't want to feel like this. And I don't want the answer to be, "Everyone feels like this." Because all that means is that everyone feels just as shit as I do, and everyone is tired.
I've struggled a lot with imposter syndrome too. First experienced it going into high school (I'm too stupid to go to a selective school). Experienced it again as I started my masters and all these highly intelligent people around me kept saying all these things that blew my mind. They'd effortlessly set up these complex electrical systems and read graphs or recordings off the computer so easily, and when I looked at them I couldn't tell the difference between noise in the reading and an actual response.
ReplyDeleteAs time went on and I continued working solo on my thesis and my research I started to pick up a lot of things, and now I'm in the position where I do actually know what's going on. Bloody hell it took time and I still think I'm stupid, but then I look back at how far I've come and realise that I can't be that dumb if I got this far.
I don't write this comment to offer you a solution, because I don't have one. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in feeling how you feel, and I sympathise with you. No one starts a PhD knowing everything, despite what some people would have you believe. And I dare say the other people in your department are busy trying to hit deadlines or figure problems out rather than judging you. I brought up similar feelings to a PhD once and she was like "Oh no, I never really watch you run the study, I'm too busy replying back to emails. I didn't even notice you did x y or z".
It's easy for me to say this stuff having come out the other side of my postgrad now. I dont know if anything that I said is useful to you in any way, but I read your story and related to it so strongly that I had to share.
Keep your head up. Life is rough, some patches more than others, but you deserve every success.
I'm not sure that I can explain this as well as I think I understand it. I have read a couple of books relating to 'happiness' recently. Only live in the present moment. You cannot control the past, but if you got into the PhD you have most certainly earned it. Whether or not you succeed in the future you can't do anything about. What you can do is focus each moment on what you are doing in that moment. You cannot control what other people are thinking, so why concern yourself with it. They are probably thinking more about their own personal issues than about you. Be happy with what you have right now in THIS moment. The other thing I think is important is acceptance. We are ALL different (it would be so boring if we were all the same). Accept who you are for yout own unique qualities. Don't make judgments (good or bad). Just accept who you are. And in my opinion, your 'success' in PhD or any other slice of life is not important. The only important thing to me is that you are in fact a nice person. Be happy! Love life. You only have one.
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