A Familiar Stranger

My story is not unique or unusual. At some point in our working lives we have all felt a bit fraudulent and the truth is, some like me may never stop feeling that way. But over the past years, I have developed tricks and means of hiding the symptoms. For instance, when people meet me, they might see someone confident, articulate and secure in her abilities. They may not notice me trying to quieten the inner critic that tells me that I am a fake. They may not suspect that I am fighting an inexplicable fear of being unmasked for not knowing what I am talking about. They may even genuinely believe in what I am saying, even if I often lack conviction in myself at that point.

But there must be a reason why I feel this way. After all, did I not spend bulk of the last decade and more, flitting between job descriptions and career goals? Wasn't vast swathes of my time not spent riddled with heightened doubt and crippling anxiety? Weren't there days which were occupied just waiting for the phone to ring or an email to come through? Do the small bouts paid work that I did during that period really count for work? Aren't there gaping, gnawing holes in this very Linkedin profile which, if truthfully filled out, should say 'clueless years' and 'raising children' (whether we can genuinely accommodate women's time spent raising children and consequently, taking time to reassess their career choices as worthy of being on their CVs and not dismiss it as 'gap years' is another debate for another day).

So there you have it. An honest appraisal of how I feel when I go about my job on a regular basis. So when I was tagged in a post asking me to share a photo of myself working in the arts, I was torn between posting one (you can see above) and acknowledging the truth of it. The honest reality of feeling like an imposter and still carrying on.

These days, there are fewer and fewer occasions when I feel like a charlatan and with writing this post, I hope I have exposed the ghost to the bright lights of the day and made it go away. But I know enough that it will strike when least expected and when it does, I will welcome it and ask it wait for a while, because I am busy.