Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you are an imposter? (2020) [pdf]

Writeup ignores the nuances of mental health - there is a gradient between &quot;I am definitely an imposter&quot; and &quot;I have imposter sydrome, these thoughts are not real&quot;. In between is a miasma of self-doubt and anxiety. And it can change depending on the time and the situation.<p>If a friend or colleague confided in me that they felt like an imposter (but weren&#x27;t sure) I would treat that as a tremendous act of trust, not an attempt at &#x27;humble bragging&#x27;.

That write up itself sounded like the &quot;humble brag&quot; that the author was complaining about.

Just want to vent for a moment, because the author seems to genuinely think that people displaying vulnerability and disclosing their impostor syndrome to you is some sort of humblebrag? You don’t need to sus out some sort of hidden meaning here: the person doesn’t feel comfortable in their current environment and is probably seeking support and validation. There are surely some among us who are “faking” it, but that’s literally true of everything, so I don’t see the reason to assume bad faith :&#x2F;

This fails to acknowledge the fact that imposter syndrome is generally an irrational belief and often coexists with others forms of mental health issues. This means that (while I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s part of a humble brag <i>sometimes</i>) that admitting to this feeling while following up with evidence to the contrary fits squarely with the fact that it&#x27;s an <i>irrational belief</i>. It&#x27;s one that is held <i>despite</i> counter evidence that the individual may be fully aware of. Try telling someone with OCD that they don&#x27;t need to check the door lock for the 4th time. They remember checking it 5 seconds earlier, and 5 before that. It&#x27;s not about evidence.<p>As such, this article says very little about the people the author makes fun of but a whole lot about the author&#x27;s ignorance on the topic.

This article makes me furious. What does the author want to tell us? That everyone who feels like an imposter, and talks about it, is an arrogant arse that only wants to brag? Maybe he is and all the people he meets are. But me as well as many of my close friends (none of them arrogant, I assure you) do feel like an imposter at their specific jobs from time to time. It&#x27;s a thing that holds us back, a personal insecurity that we just carry around. We have learned to live with it and accept it as just something completely normal, especially because we talked about it.

I have suffered from imposter syndrome in the past and it stemmed from a previous job where the leadership intended to make you feel useless and incompetent. I have overcome it recently and have more confidence in myself these days. I am not aware why people would use imposter syndrome as a way to brag but for myself I genuinely didn&#x27;t feel comfortable about myself.

<i>noun: imposter syndrome<p>the persistent inability to believe that one&#x27;s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one&#x27;s own efforts or skills.</i><p>I am not sure the author and I share the same definition of the subject of the piece.

Remind me of a random idea from heard somewhere: I’m not crazy because crazy people don’t think they are crazy…<p>Loved what the author mentioned about how not being an imposter can be verified. Have you produced something that solves a customer need? Have you fixed a bug in somebody’s code? Have you produced something that is of value to somebody else? Then you are not an imposter! You are able to do what a typical developer should do.<p>We all don’t need to be Linuses or Bills or R&amp;K to not be an imposter.<p>At the same time, I totally agree with the author’s assertion about the irony of “confessing” feeling like an imposter. It’s like bragging about how humble one is!

You don&#x27;t know what people are actually going through without gathering more information. Maybe they are in the wrong job or field, maybe their coworkers are just jerks and they have insecurity due to how poeple have treated them in the past. Constructing strawmen like this is easy and not insightful.

Sooo no way to win here, according to this edgy take. This philosophy, where any expression of stress is just a ploy, seems like a great way to prevent people from reaching out to each other for help with the psychological pressures of intense work environments, thus making it all worse.

&quot;Everyone <i>else</i> can successfully fake feeling like an imposter, but I can&#x27;t ….&quot;