Amazing, But Not Really

Thursday Thoughts on Mental Health

With my line-up of daily themes, I noticed Thursday didn’t have one. In thinking about what I wanted to write about today, I decided mental health topics in general would be good for Thursday. It is, after all, what I aim to do on my platforms. Talk about mental health so that I can be a small part in ending the stigma.

To kick off this new theme, let’s talk about imposter syndrome. Yesterday I really began to question whether or not that’s what I was experiencing. After reading the definition that Google gave me, I don’t think that’s exactly what I had, but part of this definition was true for me.

“Imposter syndrome is an internal, psychological experience of self-doubt, where high-achieving individuals feel like “frauds” despite evidence of their competence. Sufferers fear being exposed, often attribute their success to luck rather than ability, and experience chronic feelings of inadequacy, commonly leading to burnout or anxiety.”

Here’s what made me question this about myself. I have four working days left at my current job. My last day is next Friday, but I’ve got some sick days sprinkled in throughout the week so that I won’t be working a full week next week. I realized yesterday that I still needed to inform the instructors that I supervise that I’m leaving. There are about 40 of them. So I sent a group email to them all. By the end of the day, I had gotten responses from about five or six of them. My favorite response was from someone who simply replied, “???? NOOOOOOOOOO”. He did follow up with an email that contained actual words put together into sentences. But his initial email got a genuine LOL out of me. The emails were very positive and sang my praises. One of the responses was, “You are amazing!” And that’s the one that gave me pause.

I’ve talked to my therapist about the fact that compliments embarrass me and I don’t like them. They make me feel very uncomfortable. I’ve gotten better about them as I’ve been healing in therapy and in life, but I actually mentally questioned the people who were saying I was amazing and saying all these good things about me. How could they possibly think that about me? Seriously, I’ve literally only been doing my job. That’s it. What’s so amazing about that? That’s when I thought maybe this was imposter syndrome. Certainly the part about self-doubt is true. I just don’t believe that there’s anything amazing about what I’ve done for these instructors. Josh pointed out that perhaps it’s because they’re used to dealing with people not as nice as me and that I’ve treated them well. Which I have, that’s true.

I think, though, my self-doubt in this situation ties into my old job. Where I worked when I was a teacher and a principal, I routinely went above and beyond my normal job duties. My resume’ was initially four pages long! I wanted to make sure future employers knew what I was capable of. All the things I did extra that took up my entire life almost, those things made me worthy of being called amazing. But now? I do my job as described, what’s amazing about that? I do recognize the flaws in that logic. It doesn’t make sense to think that way, and yet, that’s how my brain analyzed the situation.

While I wouldn’t necessarily say that type of thinking is a mental illness symptom, I think it’s more a way that I was conditioned to think based on my experience at my old job. I’ve written before about how it is that I considered it toxic there. How I think now is a byproduct of that environment from which I’m still healing.

Maybe that’s the lesson here…healing takes time. I know that. But even when things are going really well and you feel wonderful, your brain has a way of interjecting some old ways of thinking into your present consciousness. That’s ok. As my therapist taught me, putting those thoughts on trial and rationalizing why they aren’t true can really help.

These instructors are telling the truth about me. What I did could be considered amazing because even when I was stressed and super busy, I still had patience for them and treated them with respect. I don’t think that happens everywhere anymore. I’m worthy of their compliments. Still feels awkward to receive them, but it’s ok. I’ll be ok.

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