Imposter Syndrome

Fake it til you make it! I have likely said those exact words a few dozen times to trainees while working in restaurants who felt that they had no idea what they were doing. As a bartender, pretending to know how to make every single drink (while quietly looking up a recipe on your phone under the bar) or confidently spouting off information about a specific bourbon that you’re vaguely familiar with is key. For what it’s worth, I would never LIE; I would simply expand upon the small amount of detail that I knew for a fact, making my knowledge base appear more vast than, perhaps, it actually was.

Of course, when you’re dealing with liquor, the stakes are significantly lower than when you’re dealing with someone’s mental health. Things look a bit differently through the lens of a new therapist getting comfortable in the freshly starched role. I imagine the same goes for a new doctor, a new lawyer, a new… you name it!… everyone has to start from Day 1. And I, for one, much prefer the well-worn feel of having practiced a skill for years to beginning as a newbie. But. As you might imagine when considering my background in acting and bartender, I am quite good at faking it. If I may say so myself.

I realize this seems terrible. A therapist FAKING it?! Of course I don’t mean fully faking it – I had years of schooling and internships and experiences that built skills (of course that first client through that first internship was truly faking it, let’s be honest). But no matter how much schooling, how much learning, how much reading one receives, it is certainly very different in action. And so faking it til you make it is the only way through. Pretending to be confident while inwardly praying that your educated impulses are spot-on becomes familiar, until one day it simply disappears. Well, until attempting an unfamiliar strategy or skill, but by then (in my experience) the fear of messing up has diminished considerably.

I no longer feel like an imposter (if you don’t consider those off days when looking at my life incredulously after so many years of not being able to pinpoint what I actually wanted). Regardless, imposter syndrome is REAL and can pop up for anyone in any number of inopportune times. I’ve read that women often experience this more than men and any minority in a room will feel similarly (societal much?). Underneath it all lies an insecurity that we cannot measure up, that we are truly undeserving of what we are doing and that someone will suddenly jump out and declare us inept. It declares us as less-than, and we don’t deserve it. Especially from ourselves. So perhaps we need to start choosing differently.