I feel like I take up space in this world when it’s meant for someone else
reddit.comu/MichaelaRene — 1 day ago
r/ImposterSyndrome
Any INFJs feel like they are impostors in their job?
I've noticed a pattern of finding it easy to impress in the interview phase and get the job, but once I'm in, that's when things start to go downhill.
The impression I gave at first was fake and I quickly become tired and overstimulated by the environment.
My managers and coworkers begin to wonder what's wrong with me or if something is wrong, but I was just faking it all along.
After all the interview was a small group of people or even one on one and that's where we excel right?
Once I'm in the job it's like a timer starts and it's only a question of time before I get "discovered". I lose motivation, burn out quickly. It's like I can't keep up the facade for more than six months and that's where I mostly crumble and turn from the perfect new hire into the person that needs to be monitored and out on a PIP.
It's been so much work to beat this feeling of not being the right person for the job I'm in. Mostly involves overcoming my technical deficits and self discipline but also just feeling less like an alien or a stranger at the workplace, because oftentimes my work wasn't actually the problem.
It's so annoying and I don't know how to break this pattern. Anyone have experience with this?
u/AffectionateStory775 — 3 days ago
Why are we trapped in a cage of always feeling not enough?
I think I have spent most of my life, as a typical lower-middle-class Indian male, trying to hear people say that I am enough. I never got to hear that. When I look back on my life, I only see the things I am not good at and the things I think I will never be good at. Is there any way to change this? Does anyone else have the same problem?
u/Peranbu-is-eveything — 4 days ago
How do I get over feeling fake and phony in general social interactions? I know how to socialize, but I dislike having to be fake?
This has been a continual sticking point for me. I’ve always been extremely self-aware and highly introverted, and so I am overly aware of my inner state, especially in social situations. I cringe internally whenever my social persona is misaligned with my internal state (my thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.) — to the point where I feel cognitive dissonance, sometimes extreme. And this mismatch between how I feel internally and how I act externally torments me — I actually feel like a liar or a bit shady because of this. But this “social acting” is a social necessity in polite society, so I play along!
I also do know how to socialize effectively, and I am not neurodivergent (I was recently tested because I suspected that I might be somewhere on the Spectrum). I do have mild ADHD (undefined ADHD is what my report states) as well as depression and anxiety. But it’s not as if I don’t understand socializing or have actual social deficits. I am very socially competent.
I simply can’t seem to find a solution for getting over this feeling of being fake and phony at times (at least in specific instances) in daily social interaction. I believe the main sticking point for me is that in my mind I equate phoniness and fakery with lying —which makes it seem as if I am committing a moral violation whenever I “wear a social face.”
Help me out here. What am I missing?
u/Harry_Callahan_sfpd — 5 days ago
feeling guilty about underworking
hey y'all. I'm a newly hired postdoc, just started a couple of months ago straight after my PhD (neurobiology).
I'm feeling inadequate; eerily similar feelings as during my PhD, to be honest. Essentially, I feel like I'm not working enough hours. Most of these days I do 4 hours, maybe 5 of work. Some days I do 8 but it's quite rare (once a week maybe). Although I do have quick bursts where I have 2-3 7h days in successions. Am I doing this right?
My project(s) are going steady I guess, although I can't help but feel I'm not earning my wage. Like I should start other side-projects or read, but I feel I'm not motivated enough for that. I'm not looking to become a PI either.
My lab is a very chill environment, people socialize all the time and don't work that hard. But still, most of the time they're still in the lab when I leave (granted I start a bit earlier in the morning than them).
I guess that's it. Impostor syndrome and all? My PI is quite chill and is not complaining at all. It just feel very bad to work something like 25-30h per week.. sometimes 20??
u/vankappa — 8 days ago
One Year After Graduation, I Still Don’t Feel Like a “Real” Engineer
I am an intelligent person, but I don’t put myself forward for opportunities, and I’m afraid to take on any kind of responsibility, even when it isn’t particularly significant. This conflicts with my career path as an engineer.
Should I accept this situation and move toward an academic path, such as teaching and pursuing a PhD? Or should I keep going and continue trying? It has been a year since I graduated, during which I have been doing internships, but I still feel that I don’t have the qualities I associate with being an engineer—such as confidence, the courage to put myself forward, approach others, and prove myself.
I would really appreciate your honest opinion.
u/MinimumSorbet7310 — 7 days ago
Anyone else feel like they dont know nearly as much as people around them
Title. I’ve been struggling with this for a bit and thought I’d put it out there.
There’s so many subjects that people just KNOW, whether history, socialization, life skills, etc. and I feel like I don’t have any of that.
It makes me feel so self-conscious about my worth and what I can contribute.
u/Starhunt3r — 6 days ago
I cannot stop comparing myself
I was let go from a job within my probation period and I feel like I failed - miserably. The job required a level of autonomy I just wasn't ready for and I accept that. I learned alot though and I wish I had the chance to continue on so I could learn even more. However, I am now looking at the people my company is hiring to potentially replace me and I feel like such an idiot. No wonder they fired me and hired the people they did - they have so much more experience than I do and seem so much more competent than I am. I have always felt a sense of imposter syndrome but it has gotten so much worse with this current setback. I do not know how to overcome this mental block I have placed on myself that I am bad at my job and that there is almost always someone better than me with so much more experience. I do not know how to get myself out of this funk. Please advice.
u/No_Curve8379 — 10 days ago
My costume gave me life altering super powers
Ever since I was young, I was raised in an environment that taught me to shrink myself, make myself small, and become a people pleaser. I became someone who constantly felt the need to make amends with people who had harmed me. A lot of that came from a deep desire to be liked, loved, accepted, and welcomed into a community. But that way of thinking had a profound effect on my self esteem as I grew up, and over time, it began to affect my creativity too. I found myself stifling my creative instincts as a performer and storyteller, and it hindered me from fully developing my artistic skills and exploring the person I could become creatively.
For a long time, I desperately wanted to get away from the environment I had been raised in. I was living in that environment well into my early adulthood, and I could see how the adults around me, many of whom were creatives themselves, had gradually given up on their creative dreams because of adulthood, financial pressures, and the rising cost of living. I understood why they had made those choices, but I did not want that to become my story. I did not want to reach adulthood and abandon the things that made me feel alive. I wanted to continue pursuing my dreams, and I came to understand that in order to do that, I first had to confront the things that were holding me back psychologically. I had to find a way to work through the mental and emotional blocks that had been keeping me from expressing myself fully.
The only way I felt I could safely begin doing that was through an alter ego. So I created this very colourful, bright, unapologetic character and costume that allowed me to step outside of the version of myself that had been conditioned to be small. The costume immediately attracted attention, but more importantly, it gave me a kind of freedom I had never experienced before. I could completely go crazy, wild, strange, and uninhibited with my creative expression without constantly worrying about being judged, because nobody knew who was underneath this gorgeous, beautiful pink costume. In a strange way, hiding myself allowed me to finally be seen.
For four years, I used this character and costume as a space in which I could grow, not only as a creative, but as a storyteller, singer, actor, writer, dancer, and ultimately as a human being who simply wants to exist creatively, perform, and pursue a life within the entertainment industry without being paralysed by the fear of judgement. Looking back now, I can see just how much I have changed during those four years. What initially began as a means of protecting myself became a way of developing myself.
And now, I am slowly beginning to see the rewards of that growth. I am seeing how people who identify in ways similar to me, particularly Black, queer, femme presenting trans people, can see themselves in my work, relate to the way I see the world, and find something familiar in the stories I tell. But I also know that those connections are not simply happening because of my identity. I have worked incredibly hard at my craft, and over the years I have developed the skills necessary to create work that can genuinely affect people, particularly people from my own community.
I am now excited to see where I go next. I have seen myself grow exponentially through the short films I have made, the short film I recently released, my screenwriting, the connections I have gradually built within the industry, and the small but meaningful steps I have taken towards establishing myself creatively. I am also watching my social media presence continue to grow as more people become aware of my art, what I stand for, and the story behind the work I create. Each of these things might seem small individually, but together they have shown me that I am actually moving forward.
And what makes that even more significant is that I am still currently living within the same toxic household environment that I have been trying to grow beyond. I am still living in the environment I wanted to escape from, but I no longer feel as though it has the same power over the person I am becoming. I genuinely feel that I will eventually be able to leave and build a life that is free from it. And in many ways, I feel that the character I created played a part in getting me through one of the darkest periods of my life. It gave me a way to express parts of myself that I did not yet feel safe enough to express as myself, and through that expression, I slowly became more confident in who I actually was.
So now I am incredibly excited to see where this journey takes me. I have spent the last four years using this character to discover what I am capable of, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens when I take everything I have learned with me into the next chapter of my life. I am especially excited to see where I will be in my late twenties, hopefully living outside of the environment that once made me feel so small, continuing to create, continuing to perform, and finally allowing myself to live the creative life I have always wanted.
u/kentokwesa — 9 days ago
i feel like im fake and everyone else is real
example:
(my friend likes something)
me: wow they must really enjoy that thing and know a lot about it!
(i like something)
me: omg im litterally faking liking this thing to seem cooler i litterally have no personality or interest
its stuff like that all the time. say i sit a certain way, rest my head on my hands, or make a certain facial expression, im thinking, "why am i trying to copy other peoples body language and movements?" "why cant i be original?" " how does everyone else just know how to move?" i think someone could just look at me and think, "oh shes only saying (random thing) for this exact reason, she only wants attention for saying that, these are her exact motives behind saying that thing" LIKE I CANT EVEN MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. am i broken?
u/Rainbowdash6000 — 8 days ago
Abandonment
Hi folks looking for some advice. So when I was 21 I lived happily with my parents I was engaged but we both stayed with parents.
My mum and dad decided to by a pub in tenerife and I was the last to know they were moving. I have two sisters who are a lot older and one of them was selling there house 35miles away to move into my parents big house so she could run my parents business that they have back home. My sister her man and daughter.
Well once my parents moved to Tenerife I was staying in the house with my sister and she was making life very difficult and to be honest she didn’t want me there. So out of desperation I bought a house with my fiancee. Six months after moving in together we split up after six years. I clearly wasn’t ready to move in with her.
My parents lived in Tenerife for ten years then came home and sold up over there.
Now i started doing cocaine a few months after the time they moved and i feel as though i have Abandonment issues and that i never really had guidance through those 21 to 31 years growing up. I struggle with trust from my wife even though she’s the most trustworthy person I know. Could this all be linked to not having them around.
u/Scottishfella82 — 11 days ago