FEATURE
THE GREAT PRETENDER:
A Personal Perspective on Imposter Syndrome
I
have always been very good at acting. In first grade, I played the lead in the school play – a bunny, named Bunny Sue, who just couldn’t figure out how to hop. In fourth grade, I got to play a princess who was under a curse that meant she couldn’t smile. In middle and high school, I was often the matronly supporting character giving words of wisdom to the lead: Mama Mae Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie, Aunt Arvida in Guys and Dolls, and Widow Paroo in The Music Man. I went on to major in Theater at Muhlenberg College, where I discovered a whole new kind of improvisational acting: role playing games. Even now, nearly ’20 years later, I get together with friends once or twice a week and pretend to be someone I’m not – a jazz singer from the roaring 20s, a genius crafter of magical artifacts who acts before she thinks, a WW2 codebreaker with a supernatural affinity for luck, or a young barbarian fighting through giants to save her mother. Playing parts comes easily to me. For years, I walked into rooms or sat down at tables and introduced myself as a fictional persona. By trying on so many different hats, I learned confidence, gained experience, and internalized empathy. I am a better person 18 Women2Women | Spring 2022
because of what I learned while pretending to be someone that I’m not. Being myself is a little bit harder. When I, as myself, walk into a room of accomplished, intelligent, successful people, I know for a fact that I don’t belong. To cope, I fall back on what amounts to a fight or flight response: either I shrink away to nothing, quietly waiting to be acknowledged before offering any of my insights, or I put forth a persona with confidence and again, pretend to be something I’m not. Neither of these are really who I am. That’s the worst thing about Imposter Syndrome. It’s right there in the name: Imposter. I’m being disingenuous, a fraud, a phony. I’m pulling the wool over your eyes, and at any moment you’re going to figure out that I don’t belong. Then, not only will you realize what a charlatan I am, but you will know that I have conned you, betraying whatever trust we had. I live in fear of that moment every time I am introduced to someone as part of my new position at the GRCA. Strangely enough, I don’t see myself as an imposter in other
areas of my life. In the nerdy world of role playing games, I long to confront the boys club who foolishly believes that being a girl makes me any less than they are – try me, boys. If someone wants to talk Shakespeare, Stanislavski, or Sondheim, I’m itching to add my two cents. When it comes to weddings, I know that I know what I’m doing because I’ve got the pictures and the kudos to prove it. In my current professional sphere I am, for the first time, not “just the admin.” I’ve been an administrative assistant and a database administrator, and while I’ve had the opportunity to meet owners and CEOs, I was mostly there to run the PowerPoint. I’ve been the supporting cast. It’s been a long time since I took the lead. Now I’m face to face with successful, poised people, and I don’t feel like I should be considered their peer. Because none of them could possibly be imposters, too. 2
By Katie Johnsen,Events Coordinator Greater Reading Chamber Alliance
