Impostor syndrome
Hello, I haven't been here in a while. But while I have been doing superficially well from a social point of view - hence the loss of what little belonging I felt here - lately I have been feeling increasingly detached and I don't have anybody close enough to talk to.
Many things have been going really really well in my life - I go out quite regularly, volunteer, do well in school, I just got into a very competitive program in university - so I can't say I feel depressed or anything, but the pressure is really getting to me and it's making me realize most people I talk to daily would be quite put off by all this repressed insecurity, which means they din't really know me, which means I actually have a lot of superficial acquaintances but 0 real friends. The only people who know how horribly anxious I feel before every exam are my immediate relatives, and they like pretending nothing ever happened after my meltdowns are over. Everybody keeps congratulating me for getting this scholarship, but I feel like I got it by accident, that if the interviewers could see the mess inside my head they would immediately revoke it.
Sorrry for the downer but coming to the realization that you have nobody to talk with about the fact that you havent't had sex in ages (the fact that you feel like every cute boy you meet is boring as f**k and that you have no clue how to flirt don't help) and that you feel like an enormous fraud is freaking disconcerting.
I don't really know what I'm looking for here but ranting is helping.
But you are doing something with your life and contacting people. I don't even do that much. Well, I do met my cram school group for 2 days every 2 weeks but there is only 5 people there and we talk only about the lessons. Other than that - I just sit in front of my computer day after day and speak to noone except my parents and bunch of random strangers on Internet forums that I don't even remember nicknames of.
Well... at least my classmates do know about my school stress (although only one of them knows abut my AS). I am not sure how much of it they understand but they seen me going meltdown and shutdown in class or after school and they didn't stop liking me. The only thing I heard from them afterwards were explanations of the things I couldn't get (not understanding lesson makes me one step from meltdown) and advices of "not worrying so much" when I was overwhelmed.
Those people are nice, even though I can't relate to them outside school field.
Boy, can I identify with the first paragraph in your first post in this thread.
Lying/faking like that isn't worth it.
Do you really like what you took/are taking in school?
I also feel like I get some things accomplished by accident, like it was a fluke; I'd never be able to pull that off myself; I'm not smart enough! But I pretended I was so that people wouldn't know how stupid I was, and so that they'd think I was smart.
Or I feel like I got help doing those things. The accomplishments, I mean.
I do know that the pain of isolation is much worse than what I'm feeling right now.
I really like what I do, I'm just not sure I have what it takes to do it. Am I smart, competitive, hard-working enough? I certainly don't feel like I am
Agreed. Alone is worse.
At 20, its hard to know completely what your capabilities are. For everyone there is a trial and error period. If something works, go with it. If something consistently is not working for you come up with a work-around/alternate method. Part of the trick is finding out what you can do in a sustained way, more or less indefinitely and what things drain you at unmanageable rates.
Just being on the Spectrum, or having fragilities does not mean you must fail. There are plenty of examples of those who have gone the course. Allow yourself your meltdowns. We are just flesh and blood, not machines. Just always get yourself up afterwards and keep going. That's the one thing you can't let yourself wimp out on.
First, congratulations on your scholarship.
Please know, you DO deserve it! You earned it.
I so much know what you mean though; at times I sense I am as an imposter. Although no one can know what's happening inside of me, of course, I sometimes cringe hard because of my 'difference.'
I have something to share with you too. I watched this lecture multiple times and my approach is bolstered. Please do watch, and you might be surprised near the end when her secret is revealed. Worthwhile 20 minutes, I promise (& I cried too). I just really want to encourage you, you are stronger than you know.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc[/youtube]
_________________
The ones who say “You can’t” and “You won’t” are probably the ones scared that you will. - Unknown
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