NAVIGATING IMPOSTER SYNDROME

While reading through the proof of last month’s column, I noticed for the first time that what I had written had been edited. I am sure that it was not the first time it has happened, and I am not sure why I had never noticed it before.

Anyway, that is not the point. The point is that I am not sure what the correct response to having your work edited is (probably just casually accepting that it is part of the writing and publishing process and moving on), but I am pretty sure it is not descending into a massive downward spiral of self-doubt where the voice inside your head tries to convince you that you are clearly terrible at writing and should probably just stop doing it altogether.

Don’t worry, I have not told you this to seek validation, nor is this column going to be a “pity party for poor old David”. Instead, I want to touch on what causes those negative voices. It is a concept that most of you reading this column are probably already familiar with, and one that many of you may experience, or possibly have experienced before. It is the concept of “imposter syndrome”. In fact, so common is imposter syndrome that Erin Michel writes in an article for the Graduate College at the University of Cincinnati that “at least 80% of the general population [will] experience it at some point in their lives”.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to not know about it, imposter syndrome is the feeling in people that they have not earned what they have achieved or that they are a fraud. They believe that they are not as good at something as people think they are, and they are just managing to fake it. They experience the fear that, as clinical psychologist Dr Audrey Ervin explains, “they’re going to be ‘found out’ or unmasked as being incompetent or unable to replicate past successes”.

In one of my favourite anecdotes by the author of bestsellers like Coraline , Stardust and American Gods (or, if you are more of a Netflix person, Lucifer or The Sandman ), Neil Gaiman shows how no one is really immune from feeling it:

Gaiman talks about how he was at an event being attended by the world’s “great and good people” and found himself standing at the back of the room, dreading the moment everyone there would realise that he did not belong. While there, he says, he started talking to an elderly gentleman with whom he shares a first name and at some point in the conversation the other Neil turned to him and said: “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.” To which Neil Gaiman replies: “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

What Gaiman says he took away from the encounter was that “maybe there aren’t any grown-ups, only people who have worked hard and also got lucky and are slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we can, which is all we can really hope for”.

While a little bit of self-doubt is probably not a bad thing, and imposter syndrome can, in certain cases, lead to growth, it can also stifle that growth and lead to increased feelings of anxiety and depression, and cause people to not live up to their true potential.

One of the best ways suggested to deal with the feelings of imposter syndrome is to recognise it for what it is and keep in mind that it is fleeting. Psychologists point out that it is not even a clinical diagnosis and should therefore rather be called imposter “phenomenon” or “experience”. While it is definitely a case of “easier said than done”, they also suggest that you “call yourself” on it. For example, rather than letting yourself spiral and start believing that you should stop writing altogether because your work was edited, stop yourself and realise that if your writing was really that horrible it would not just be subjected to some editing – the publishers would probably tell you outright that they no longer want you to write for them.

Other suggestions for dealing with the phenomenon (which may also be easier said than done) are letting go of perfectionism, being kind to yourself, celebrating your victories and being able to look back on them as facts. And accepting that, while the feeling is fleeting, you are sure to feel it again sometime in the future, but that when you do you will be better prepared to deal with it.

If you do suffer from the same feelings as I do, I hope some of this helps.

Until next month (provided that my imposter episode wasn’t right after all and they do decide that my writing is rubbish!), enjoy your journey.

- David Bishop