Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome
<<< From my Graduation photos session by Sara Carpenter
I don’t think I truly understood what Impostor Syndrome was until I started to feel it myself. I noticed, mostly while recording my podcast (not so shameful plug for A Show of Their Own) that I would be hesitant to call myself a journalist and kinda brush it off.
Mostly I think it comes from not having a full time job in journalism. I spent four years studying it, have done my fair share of work for a degree in it, and yet I find myself still saying “I like to consider myself a journalist” instead of “I’m a journalist.”
“Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments or talents and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. ”
And I don’t think not having a full time job should make any of the work I do considered less than but there’s apparently a small voice in the back of my head that thinks it does. That voice most likely stems from anxiety and comparison but it makes me understand more when other people talk about it. Because when I see someone else talk about having impostor syndrome and not feeling like they’ve done enough or are doing enough to earn and keep a title, my first reaction is always to reply with ‘you’ve more than earned * insert title/recognition here * ‘ but it’s so much harder to say to myself?
In a way my blog has always been a diary and I’ve always said it’s much easier for me to write/type out my feelings than it is to voice them, it helps me get them from just floating around my brain and taking up space and that’s what I’m dong here.
I sat down not really knowing where I was going with this post but just knowing it was something I wanted to start a conversation about, something I could hopefully stop fixating on by getting it all out.
I graduated from college almost two years ago and being on the job hunt and in the middle of a pandemic has taken a toll when it comes to feeling like I’m being productive, like I’m doing enough. Because I’m not where I want to be and obviously that feeds everything from anxiety to impostor syndrome.
Again, I don’t really know where I wanted to go with this but it’s not longer swimming in my brain and that’s good enough.