Be Yourself* (Terms and Conditions Apply)

Don't hug your kids (kidding. kind of.)

I think I was loved too much as a child.

No, really. I think people had too much faith in me. They believed in me too much. The stereotypical gifted-child-bored-with-traditional-classroom-and-social-etiquette-so-she-becomes-a-menace-to-her-classmates-and-ends-up-ostracizing-herself narrative hits a bit too close to home.

When I first started dealing with imposter syndrome, I felt like an even bigger imposter because no one's ever told me I'm incapable.

The chip on my shoulder doesn't come from being told "you're not good enough" or "you're not smart". Quite the opposite.

People expected great things from me and I had no idea how to give it to them.

The world was my oyster, and the choice between endless opportunities paralyzed me. It was never a question of what I was capable of, it was a question of what I wanted. And I had no clue how to answer that.

I found myself settling: for jobs I knew I could do, relationships I knew I could control, games I knew I could win. I became risk-averse, always staying in the middle lane because the fast lane was terrifying but the slow lane would kill me.

I wanted to be great. I wanted to be successful. I actively craved passion and drive in my life, yet I was still immobilized and for years I didn't know why.

Love for others + fear of self = Pretty rough, not gonna lie

I am a person of extremes. I know this about myself. When I am passionate about something, I'll work 14-hour days without even thinking about it and I'll love every minute of it.

But when I'm disinterested? It's evident. Be it work or relationships, the second it's no longer holding my attention, getting me to do even the bare minimum is like pulling teeth. I try to work around this by gamifying what I can but, despite my best efforts in dissociation, life isn't always a game.

I was talking to a friend who faces similar challenges: when he's in, he's in. He will spend hours researching a topic, mastering it, dissecting it from the inside out until he could write his own book about it. When it loses his interest, it might as well be as if it never existed at all.

In this conversation, we were talking about my experiences with writing and with work and he asked me why I was scared of my own potential. I thought about it for a moment before answering, "I'm terrified that I won't be able to control myself if I fully let go and everything I know about my life will change."

It made me realize that, for the majority of my life, my main driving emotion has been guilt.

Guilt that I hadn't done anything wildly impressive even though I had all the resources to do so. Guilt that certain things had always come naturally to me when so many people I loved and cherished struggled. Guilt that I'd been presented with more opportunities for success than my parents, who had given me everything. Guilt that I was reaching a point in both my personal and professional life where I'd surpassed the people I was used to looking up to and they could no longer offer me advice.

This guilt led me to cling to any semblance of control I could, and familiarity felt like control.

My innate loyalty to the same people who wanted me to do well was holding me back because, deep down, I knew that success would mean leaving behind the majority of the people who helped get me there.

I'd put a lot of weight into trying to be a good person over being a successful one. I wasn't sure how to walk the line between completely investing in myself and still being "good" because my definition of "good" was a flawed one: put the emotions of others above your own. Putting the needs and feelings of others before mine had been how I attempted to cope with the guilt. It was also how I attempted to apologize for my perceived "character flaws".

On my worst behavior...most days

I'd watered myself down for a variety of reasons over my life tracing back to elementary school where I was severely understimulated. I was bored, so I was loud and distracting, so I was told to quiet down.

This behavior followed me into my professional life. If I wasn't being challenged or I wasn't passionate about my work, I became a liability. There is not a single job I've had where I haven't been dress coded at least once. I'm the employee HR knows by name and rap sheet, and that's never bothered me (though it probably should).

It created this toxic loop: I'd want to be on my best behavior so I could make a good impression, but always being on my best behavior is wickedly against my nature, so it would build up like a pressure chamber until I inevitably cracked. Then I'd chase every avenue I could to push back, make a scene, and entertain myself. Because behaving is boring. It always has been. No one writes songs about simple, well-behaved women.

Why does the length of my skirt matter if my work is getting done? Why does being well-liked in the office have to revolve around the fact that it makes others feel excluded? Why does my being good at my job become about the feelings of inadequacy it sparks in others? Why were the good things I did never about how they made me feel and always about how they made others feel?

I came to notice most of the guilt came from a central source: the traits and gifts people seemed to admire me for were also their biggest criticisms. My outgoing personality was too flirty for a professional setting. My quick wit and ability to connect with others could be seen as inappropriate or exclusionary. My no-bullshit attitude was applauded when it came to cutting the fat and meeting deadlines but was criticized when it came to my brashness and tone with others.

People wanted to cherry-pick my personality and only wanted my authenticity when it benefited them. I lived the emotional whiplash of being brought up to be cut down just as quickly.

Some (most) of these cutdowns came from people who genuinely wanted to see me do well. They truly wanted me to succeed and thought the only way for me to do so was to refine aspects of who I am.

This is where the imposter syndrome came from. It wasn't as basic as "I don't deserve to be here," it was "I don't deserve to be here as my full, authentic self." I'd convinced myself I only deserved success if I did it on other people's terms, and that's what had tainted the idea of it.

I'd equated the idea of success with a loss of identity and sense of self.

What happens now?

Moving to New York was the first step. When I told people it was happening, no one questioned it. This was wildly validating because it meant more than just people believed in me; it meant people believed in me and they were okay with being left behind if it meant I was pursuing my goals.

The world would not crumble in my absence, hallelujah! (We'll circle back on how codependency is the shadow side of narcissism in another article, but that is not for today. Don't worry, I'm aware.)

The second step is a work in progress and it won't happen overnight. Step two is to stop apologizing for who I am.

I am loud. I am driven. I have a bit of an attitude problem. I am opinionated. I am not always nice, but I am usually kind. I think your dress code is stupid. I think several people I know and love are settling in their lives but their fear of their own greatness can no longer be my problem. I have to focus on my own.

I want to do great things. I want to be a good person. I will learn how to do both.

My way.