A sheep in wolf's clothing.

Like seemingly most professionals, especially professional women, I suffer from a quaint little affliction: imposter syndrome. There’s that small(ish) part of me anxious about the day people realize I’m not that good at what I do. One day, they’ll see the emperor is wearing no clothes. Except I’m no emperor; I’m more of a naked plebe wandering the streets, strategically positioning myself behind signage, water barrels, and the billowing skirts of properly-clad denizens. 

Early in my career, I chalked it up to inexperience and my non-traditional path. I never got around to going to college; I owe my career largely to a lucky temp job placement, plucky attitude, and very patient boss who liked how I wrote office-wide emails. On the surface, that may sound oh-so-bootstrappy, but by stumbling into my line of work, I’ve never felt fully in control; it doesn’t entirely feel like mine. I don’t have an educational foundation to draw from, just my gut. And intuition has never been my strong suit. On the bright side, I didn’t rack up a crushing amount of student debt.

Don’t get too jealous — I married into that.

But back to my delicate psyche. I moved from admin to writer, but for many co-workers, it may have seemed like simply a cute office experiment. After I moved on to my next job, I bumped into an old coworker who seemed unnervingly surprised that I changed companies but not roles. For someone with neurotic levels of self-doubt, it was like watering seeds. Clearly — that was 10 years and 3 jobs ago and it’s still with me.

This shit is all compounded by my start in agency life. If you’ve never worked at an agency, count yourself lucky. Yes, we could crack a beer (or vodka) in the middle of the day with minimal judgement, but it was less a perk and more a survival strategy. Agency life is brutal. One place I worked had a couple stairwells. It was generally impolite to notice the people crying between floors. There are two kinds of people who succeed at agencies: the ones who are fucking rockstars at their trade and the ones who can handle vocational abuse. I guess I like a challenge?

Thankfully, I’ve moved out of agencies for now. Maybe even forever. But now I can’t rest on being quick with the copy and the bullshit. Things are slower, more deliberate. It’s not an element I’m comfortable in. And nothing gets those inner demons talking like discomfort. Every time I write something, those little fuckers are nattering away: this sucks, they aren’t gonna like it, it doesn’t make sense, you’re gonna get fired. You’re not good enough. It’s exhausting trying to keep them quiet.

And the craziest part is that I KNOW this is insanely common. I’m sure there are several highly-capable, talented, awesome people I know working through similar issues. But that doesn’t make the anxiety any less real. In fact, it feels like as soon as I acknowledge I’m good enough, that’ll be the catalyst for everything to unwind. I have no idea how to get past this.

Imposter syndrome is a bitch. The struggle is real.