duckswearhats asked: Hi, I read that you've dealt with with impostor syndrome in the past, and I'm really struggling with that right now. I'm in a good place and my friends are going through a lot, and I'm struggling to justify my success to myself when such amazing people are unhappy. I was wondering if you have any tips to feel less like this and maybe be kinder to myself, but without hurting anyone around me. It's a big ask, I know, but any help would make my life a lot less stressful
The best help I can offer is to point you to Amy Cuddy’s book, Presence. She talks about Imposter Syndrome (and interviews me in it) and offers helpful insight.
The second best help might be in the form of an anecdote. Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.
On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”
And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.
So much of managing your mental health is just…learning to parent yourself like you’re a toddler
Like, “Honey, it’s 10 pm and you’ve been up since four in the morning, no wonder you’re emotional. Plus all you’ve had to eat today was three chocolate truffles and a half a protein drink. Make yourself some scrambled eggs and peas, you can even put them in separate bowls so they don’t touch. Then go to bed. You can do more fun things tomorrow, but first you need to sleep. Okay?”
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In the old days we didn’t call this managing mental health, we called this managing being an adult.
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Interesting, that.
See, I’m five years into adulthood. I have a college degree (a few in fact), a car, insurance payments, a job, yada yada. I ostensibly joined the Grown Up Club a few years back.
But, having grown up with a number of undiagnosed disorders and mental illnesses, I never learned a healthy style of self-talk.
If I’m honest, between depression and anxiety, the way I grew up talking to myself was abusive. I’m not kidding; if the things I thought to and about myself were said aloud to someone else, it would be considered verbal and emotional abuse.
So this idea of treating myself like a small child? With the same loving firmness and compassion?
This is a radical idea for me.
This is me learning to stop those abusive thought patterns, and talk to myself in a kinder, healthier way.
And it doesn’t have much to do with adulthood. I know adults who have treated themselves unkindly this way for many years. A healthy relationship with yourself doesn’t just sprout once you’re an adult; you have to develop it.
Those are my thoughts anyway. I hope they make sense.
“To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.”
So, I heard about this and I can’t find the original, but apparently this started because someone returned a book to a library with a taco in the middle of it.
