Impostor Syndrome and How to Come Out of It

My Story

In 2017, I took the plunge into the world of remote, location-independent work as a data analyst. My working life has been blissful after that. Then, I turned slash-careered and became a data scientist/mentor/teacher. I couldn’t remember how many times I wanted to update my friends on where I was, career-speaking, but this excitement, when compared to my main line of thoughts, always paled in comparison.

Many students commented on the fact that my teaching styles energized them, and that energy spurred them on to continue learning. Being a new instructor, that was the best news that I could have ever received.

When I told my doctor how much I have been enjoying teaching, he slammed his palm on his thighs, stumped his feet, and shouted: “You were born to teach!”. It was extremely encouraging to hear because although he cares, he will not foster daydreaming not grounded in reality.

After the first term was over, I was offered to teach a part-time program at a university.

And I didn’t have the urge to pick up the phone and tell my closest friends.

Strangely, my emotions were muted. Instead, I simply went about to understand what was expected of me, and the level of delivery that was targeted. In the tornado of prep activities, I started to get more and more overwhelmed: I was the organizer of the material, the conduit of knowledge transfer, and my efficacy as an instructor would directly lead to the success or failure of the program.

Once I understood this, my feelings were complicated: I felt extremely honoured, and I felt the sense of responsibility to do well and achieve the mission. I also felt very humbled — out of so many candidates, they have chosen me! But this incredible choice also quietly horrified me: what if I can’t answer the questions that my students have? What if I say something wrong? What if I don’t have all the answers?

The days of feeling honoured and encouraged turned to weeks of anxiety, paralysis, and dread. I started to lose motivation. I started to sleep a lot, moped around, and stopped doing anything nourishing for myself during these weeks.

A month went by. It finally dawned on me: you CAN get depression from impostor syndrome. I was paralyzed with fear — fear of getting caught out. My depression was a classic manifestation of imposter syndrome.

Coming Out of Imposter Syndrome

Just like with any problem, framing and characterizing a problem in a way that can be tackled was my first step in solving the problem. My problem started with the very pleasant news that I will be teaching university-level courses, and it compounded in severity when I felt that I had nobody I could share the excitement with.

Impostor syndrome imposes emotional pain on us. That was what my experience has taught me.

In years past, I have heard that the brain scans of people under physical pain and emotional pain are indeed so similar so that they serve as a clue that the brain behaves in identical ways in different types of pain. Knowing this is influential in how I tried to come out of the impostor syndrome: I need external help, not just inner strength, to endure the pain itself before I can address what had happened, why it had happened, and how I can avoid the same thing in the future. Proper triage and pain management becomes an important step.

Stop the Bleed

In an external injury, the first thing to do is to stop the bleed. In an emotional injury, I need to stop the chorus inside my head repeating the same hurtful rhetoric.

For physical pain, you stop the cause of the pain. For emotional pain, you stop the intake source of emotional pain.

I want to teach. Giving up teaching, even before I started, is not an option. But my depression didn’t come from teaching. It came from my reaction to the opportunity to teach. It came from my fear of getting caught out. It also came from being isolated and alone with that fear.

Recognizing this, I finally decided to share my news with my friends. That act of news-sharing transformed many of the relationships. Some relationships got closer, some went away. However, I did receive much-needed reaffirmations from a small circle of friends, and their belief in my ability helped to stop the intake source of pain.

Manage the Wound

In a sustained pain situation, you need to manage the pain. In a sustained emotional pain situation, you to reconsider toxic relationships.

With my intuition, I already had a feeling that some of my relationships were questionable, in the sense that some wouldn’t be happy to hear about my news. But since the questionable nature of friendship basically gives a probability distribution of how likely that this condition will be confirmed, I decided: whatever comes, comes.

That act of sharing the news transformed many of the relationships. Some relationships got closer, some went away. I have received much-needed reaffirmations from a much smaller number of friends from the original set.

Conclusion

Emotional events are always charged — they are either positively or negatively charged.

Each day in our lives brings the potential for us to feel threatened and challenged. From this experience, I learned to recognize the personal and professional situations that can lead to emotional pain. A negatively charged event, unless dealt with, will eventually change our mental landscapes, and this will impact both our mental and physical health over time. We need to learn to protect our emotional selves by administering first-aid and care for our emotional well-being on an ongoing basis when the situation is recurring or chronic. These are the necessary first steps to de-energize these events.