You know that feeling when things are just flowing smoothly in the shit storm of your life? I mean when you can leave work feeling like a decent human being, make small talk with co workers, actually finish what you wanted to finish, and feel like you, dare I say it...know what you're fucking doing?! You’re feeling a little bit calmer, content, maybe a smidge confident in those evidenced based interventions you studied and practiced for almost 10 years, but still question your competency with when your client is trying to eject themselves from their chair because you asked them to wait before helping them. Then, just as you’re feeling like a real professional, you get an email from the director requesting a meeting to discuss reported complaints from a colleague about your client’s care. All of that confident competence slinks to the floor as your legs grow heavy, stomach churns, muscles tighten, as your thoughts begin to swirl into familiar old patterns.
“ I made a mistake” or “they don’t like me”
can quickly escalate into:
“I have no idea what I am doing and these people see it and are going to fire me.”
For me, criticism has always come at a cost. Receiving criticism typically meant I was in trouble as a child. Giving criticism was not allowed as a child. Somehow, my brain has not developed past this childlike sense of logic to do what it was trained to do in grad school: look at the facts. What evidence do I have that any of this is true? Since working in the school setting, none of my new colleagues had ever brought up an issue with me directly before, they had only ever talked behind my back or to a client's parents who would then frantically email our agency. I was already suspicious and anxious about working in this setting because of the subtle sabotaging tactics our agency had been dealing with since forming this new partnership. My shiny gung ho perspective on multidisciplinary teamwork had been a failure so far, and this email pushed me over the emotional ledge.
I questioned my interventions, my competency, my very field at times working in the school. So, obviously, my brain has been falling into old thought patterns and my unconditional positive regard feels forced at times as I constantly question “If I do this, what will so and so think? Will they whisper to so and so how the young social worker is so out of her depth she should just leave?” I imagine it in my head as though I have witnessed it myself. “She is not cut out for this work..” I hear them say in my mind reels. Meanwhile in reality, I have no proof that any of these scenes will happen nor that I am an incompetent provider. Yet, I question myself and my practices constantly.
This post is digging into the Imposter Monster. We are going to “dig deep” (as Brene Brown suggests in “The Gifts of Imperfection) on how the phenomena of earned worth and productivity mutate with past experiences that have shaped the way we view ourselves and respond to criticism. The ingredients that form the biting cocktail known as Imposter Syndrome.
Let's start with criticism itself. How do you handle it? Take a moment and think about the last time someone gave you personal or professional advice. Put yourself back in that moment and as you recall the advice, reflect on what thoughts you have/had as you were receiving it. If you happily accepted the criticism without a flinch, put your boundaries in place with said person, or responded in a way that reflected your values or field then good for you. I bow in awe at your positive self esteem. Now, think about the advice or criticism you were given. Was there value in what they suggested? If there was, and you still felt like a drooling toddler (social worker) playing house (therapy) after the conversation, you may struggle with imposter syndrome.
A study conducted by Pauline Rose Clance & Suzanne Imes (1978) on women in the workforce defined imposter syndrome as a phenomena that involves feelings of doubt over your ability to work/research/professionally perform your role and the perspective that you don’t deserve to be in your role and have “fooled” others….AKA Impostered your way to a job.
Read the fancy science here: https://www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf
We HAVE to look at factors of race, class, gender, ableness, ethnicity and more when dissecting imposter syndrome. If you’re a black man or woman working then you probably rolled your eyes at that sentence because you’re more than likely very aware of the systemic racism, sexism, and other ‘isms that make it goddamn difficult to feel respected and confident in your workplace. Sorry straight white men, the research (Ahmed et al., 2020) shows that you are the least likely population to experience the hardships of imposter syndrome. I can’t imagine why? S a r c a s m
Read the fancy science here: Afran Ahmed, Aarushi Kaushal, Tatyana Cruz, Yusuke Kobuse, & Kristen Wang. (2020). Why is there a higher rate of impostor syndrome among BIPOC?. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4310477
So, what does any of this have to do with my worth and productivity feeding a metaphorical monster? According to the research, the way the people and environments responded to our actions as children into adolescents and young adults shaped the way our brain thinks. If you were raised in a household with a high level of control over what you did, that expected achievement from you without addressing your emotional needs as important, then you were inadvertently taught to feel anxious unless perfect and not share your thoughts or feelings with others for fear of being seen as imperfect. Hello perfectionists, we have a problem. This is why I love and praise Brene Brown. Her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, is a beautiful read that can change your life if you are willing to dig deep into the practices her research has found on living wholeheartedly and accept the positivity that happens when you embrace being imperfect.
Now, the word imperfect is still nails on a chalkboard to my brain. Years of inconsistent adult warmth and empathy left me feeling very confused about what is okay and not okay behavior in life. The drive to achieve academically, physically in my body shape and presentation of self, and be the well-behaved factory model child inadvertently taught me that I was not worthy of love, praise, respect unless I met certain standards. My worth as a human and professional was not met unless I met standards for productivity. What the fuck does that mean? Have you ever felt anxious while trying to relax? That is your mind and body trying to tell you that you are not deserving of rest or play. For me, its my mom yelling me awake from an after-school nap when I felt exhausted, and saying “go for a walk and visit your friends like a normal kid!” Not that I wasn’t a social kid or an active person naturally, but for my mom all forms of productivity were means of survival. As a single parent she didn’t relax or rest often, but if she did, she always felt guilty. That guilt unfortunately got passed down to me. A trait my mother constantly apologizes for and supports me in correcting every time I call her on the verge of panic. Yet, I still struggle with feeling guilty about taking a day off if I'm not feeling well. I feel small and unworthy of my fiancé's love if I don’t appear like a magical social work queen that fights social justice and loads of laundry all before he comes home.
Now that we’ve learned more, let's jump back to the intro example of this story. I’m feeling good, the data is showing the interventions are working, the teacher and parents share how well my clients have been doing, and my supervisor is working to promote me. With that one email, all of my education, training, and validation were disintegrated into dust. I showed up at the school the next few days feeling small. I put on a brave face but deep down I was either overcompensating or procrastinating out of fear of making a mistake or being seen as a fraud. One of those days an OT provider gives me constructive criticism that goes against my field's research, but is also somewhat helpful, and I feel an overwhelming tsunami of confusion and excuse myself to the bathroom to cry quietly in a child sized stall. Now, I'm in a shit storm of shame. I’m irritable and feel attacked. If I connect my thoughts and feelings, I find that my inner imposter monster was being fed by the cascade of my negative thoughts. In that moment with the OT provider, I felt I had made a mistake and should have known better. I should have been perfect, and because there was now proof that I was not perfect and all-knowing... I was actually feeling pretty worthless.
When we think about the history of our lives we can usually find the connections between our feelings of worth and value in various settings. Being raised in a society that values productivity and exhaustion as indications of our worthiness can make us hide away from our values and needs out of fear for being seen as unworthy or unprofessional. This lack of authenticity to our true selves can cause issues with our ability to place boundaries with other people and drive perfectionism. This is a cocktail made for feeling like an imposter in the workplace. In fact the research indicates that imposter syndrome usually impacts those who have high level achievements! So, put the thoughts and the two weeks notice down. Unless your environment is making it difficult to do your job, like my school setting, or you have concrete evidence that you need better training, then those thoughts telling you that it's YOU who isn't good at this role have no supporting evidence. We need to fight them.
You do not have to sacrifice your values or needs to be worthy of your role. You were worthy of your professional role the day you were hired. That's what I tell myself at least. Hopefully, the more I practice embracing my innate imperfections the less damage will occur the next time I feel like a fraud. In the meantime, I’m comforted by friends who heal me socially, a mother who loves me and consoles my inner child authentically even in adulthood, and a fiancé that reminds me constantly how amazing I am. This isn’t always enough, I still need to learn how to remind myself that I'm amazing and believe it with the same conviction he does. As Brene says…”awkward, brave, and true, here to get it right, not to be right.”