Fooled ‘Em Again…
By Dr. Valerie Young
To the outside world you seem remarkably able and accomplished. But you know better. Any positive feelings about your accomplishments are woefully short-lived. Before the applause has died down, the performance review has ended, the acceptance letter fully read, four familiar words rise up inside to cancel out our glee… “I fooled them again.”
For the Impostor, there’s no sense of security. After all, as Lincoln famously observed “You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Believing that you’ve somehow managed to slip under the radar screen, sooner or later you know that it is just a matter of time before you are FOUND OUT! It’s not surprising that instead of offering assurance of our competence, each new accomplishment only serves to intensify the ever-present fear of exposure.
The fear of being unmasked is also an incredibly stressful way to live. Betsy used to be the activities director at a nursing home. It was a job she’d slowly worked her way into and one which she genuinely loved. She felt comfortable in her role, well-respected by her coworkers, and received glowing recommendations. The only problem was she barely made enough to pay the bills.
So when a significantly better paying position as admissions director came up at another nursing home, Betsy’s friends and coworkers encouraged her to go for it. It was a whole new job with new people, a new staff, and an entirely different system to learn. From the moment they offered her the job, Betsy questioned her ability to “pull it off.”
Like any new job, the first few weeks were pretty stressful. But the stress of believing she had fooled the selection committee into hiring her made the stress debilitating. Betsey began each morning with a stomachache and ended each day with a headache. About two weeks into her new job, she started having chest pains. The pain was so bad one day that her secretary thought her boss was having a heart attack, and called an ambulance. Betsy’s chest pain was very real, but it wasn’t a heart attack. It was stress caused by the anxiety of having to “fool” all these people into believing she was qualified to be the admissions director.
Sometimes our impostor fears present themselves in the form of a dream. As my oral examinations drew closer I started to have a recurring dream that the university had discovered that I had not completed some fundamental aspect of my education and had to go back to elementary school. (As traumatizing as this was I recall taking some small comfort in knowing that had a leg up on my fellow third graders.) Peggy McIntosh of the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College had a remarkably similar dream but in her case someone from Harvard University calls to say they found out that she never took final qualifying exam – in German.
What about you… Have you ever had an “unmasking” dream? When do you most fear being “found out?” What do imagine will happen when they do?
I’d love to hear what you think!
Comment by Paula Lozar
Re “unmasking” dreams, I think every student at some point has the dream where they have to take a final exam in a course that they enrolled in but forgot to attend. I had that dream repeatedly when I was in school.
When I became a teacher myself, I had the teacher version: I had to give a final for a course I hadn’t prepared for, on a subject of which I had almost no knowledge. I’d be at the blackboard writing out the exam questions, and a roomful of students would be sitting there dutifully taking them down … and I was in terror of being shown up as a fake.
Then a few years ago, after I quit teaching and devoted myself full-time to contract work (technical writing), I had the contractor version: I had taken on 2 contracts, but spent most of my time on one and spaced out on the other. Finally I showed up at my desk at the second company to discover a pile of undone (and dusty) work, a gazillion unanswered emails, and an impossibly close deadline — so I not only felt “shown up” but guilty about taking on a job I couldn’t do.
(Every time I start a new contract, I feel like an impostor the first few days — but over the years I’ve concluded that that’s just “learning the ropes” and it’ll all become clear to me soon. It always does. So I’ve developed the habit in the first few days of asking lots of questions and saying as little as possible, and, because people love to talk about themselves, they think I’m wonderful.)
Comment by Janice
I never had the fear of being “found out.” I was always afraid that I wasn’t good enough but nobody would tell me I was doing good so I worked even harder. In the process I got totally burned out from doing what I enjoyed and now I am facing a world of unknown. When I had to make the decision that it was time to stop because it wasn’t enjoyable any more no one tried to change my mind so it made me even more doubtful of my ability. Now I face a world at the age of 54 with no security to face the future. I am now having to believe in myself and my ability to do what I have always wanted to do but never thought I had the ability to support myself. The only thing that I am proud of is that I raised my three children and they graduated from good colleges and are not supporting themselves with a career that is their choice and they enjoy. Life has never been easy and now I have to face a different world that is strange to me but I have to use the fear to help me move forward.
Comment by Sharon
I dreaded school from the time I was in first grade, knowing I was to be constantly compared to classmates and feeling like I rarely measured up to the expectations of others. Truth be told, I had little to no interest in the things I ‘needed to learn’ then, and even at 50+yrs I still have no desire to know many of the things the world deems important; which is where the fear of letting down and just being myself comes in. I have played the imposter many times throughout life. I love to read and enjoy creative pursuits. I long to clearly define my driving passions and to be able to support myself in line with the things that will bring joy and freedom to the next 50+ yrs of my life. I sense I am on the brink of breaking through, which creates an urgency and expectation within that needs to be harnessed and used to pull together the life I sense is momentarily beyond my grasp.