I was reading on Facebook the other day one of those click-bait things that gathers together stuff from reddit talking about people that suffer from Impostor Syndrome. For those who don't know what that is, I'll save you a google search. "Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts his or her accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud"." So there you go. It's the overwhelming feeling that one day all that you're doing will be taken away from you because you think you're a fraud, a fake, and that you don't actually know what you're doing. I never knew that the self-doubt I have about myself and my position within the Department actually had a name. It was strangely comforting to discover that there are others out there that seem to have this issue as well. It doesn't happen all the time, but usually when I'm under a bit of stress or if I start to think about how long I've been in the Department and how close I'm getting to being able to retire. (We can retire at 50 or 20 years of service, whichever comes last.) Seeing as I'm in my almost mid-forties, that's now something to think about.
Self-doubt has been with me probably as long as I've loved peanut butter, which is indeed a very long time. Even when I know I'm good at something, I can never focus on it and revel in it. I'm always worrying about what I don't know and what I've failed at instead of what I'm good at and things I can do. It's a never ending cycle. When I was in school, I was always very good in social studies. History is something I really enjoy and even love, and excelled at it. But I was never very good at math. So I felt down that I wasn't excelling at math instead of being happy that I was doing well in history. I won the Social Studies test (I think) 4 times from Elementary School through to High School without studying for it, but didn't win anything for my science fair project. Guess what kept popping up in my mind bothering me, even though I had trophies showing my achievement in my room to remind me of success? Yep, science fair. I even started doubting I was actually any good at history because of my inabilities in other subjects. How much does that suck?!? I'm good at something, and yet I can't feel joy in it because I don't think I deserve it.
My work though is one of those things that always gets me with the feelings of being an impostor. Much of it has to do with my first job in the foreign service, and how I was made to feel less than everyone else. Much of this was because of my age. Imagine walking into a workplace at the age of 24, being at least 5 years younger than everyone else, and being in charge of the largest section. I got called "De Kleine Kind" (The little boy) by my staff at first, and then by staff in other sections as well. In fact, one of my employees said, in Dutch that she didn't know I spoke, "We needed a man to get this place working, and they just send us a little boy!" Let me tell you, that shit HURTS! You're trying to do your best and getting roasted by your own staff before they even know you. Lots of other stuff happened that dented my confidence, and since then I've had to work to prove to myself that I've earned what I have, and not that I'm just lucky.
This feeling mostly kicks up at about year 2 of my tour, as it usually means that I'm about to bid. All the old insecurities start to pop up and I feel overwhelmed. The problem is that I extended here for 4 years, so this time the insecurity is a year early! Lord knows what it'll be like next year, but we'll just have to see I suppose. Maybe one day I'll feel like I earned everything. I certainly hope so, but there's so many times I feel like closing the door and hiding because I just know they're going to come find me and tell me that the jig is up and it's time for me to leave.
