A Li'l Sus

Much has been written about impostor (also imposter, but Merriam-Webster's first entry is impostor) syndrome and how creatives suffer from it. If this is a delicate topic for you, I suggest skipping this blogpost and coming back later because I have been tasked with writing about my impostor syndrome and, I'm not gonna lie, it gets gnarly in here. 

It's been well documented that creatives get impostor syndrome, which is, in short, the idea that one does not belong in the peer group and has only gotten there by mistake. Neil Gaiman has written about it. There are probably a dozen Medium pieces on it right now.  Most people talk about what they do to combat it. More on that later.

This is not going to be one those pieces.

My therapist has asked me to write about how impostor syndrome makes me feel when I'm experiencing it. First, if you're a writer, it's a pretty good idea to get a therapist. I don't know what it is about writing that hurts us so, but none of my other creative pursuits are a dagger to the heart the way writing is. I've shed tears over music; I've had impostor syndrome in music too. I mean, try playing in master classes. What are you doing up there? Who the hell knows. (I used to play in a band with an Indigo Girl and her daughter is in my son's class at school, and the only reasons I did not run screaming from that situation are that the other parents in the band were totally cool with it, and I had never really listened to the Indigo Girls. If she ever needs a session musician, you bet I will jump at the chance no matter how much I might fuck it up.)

I've had impostor syndrome in photography, especially when I've gotten praise for a photo that still, after years, does not match the vision I have for it in my brain. Funnily enough, I have not had impostor syndrome in babywearing, probably because I helped write the modern pedagogical method book (figuratively speaking) on it. At any rate, impostor syndrome for music and photography and editing can be acute, and instead of seeing the face of God, you definitely glimpse the face of despair, but I've gotten over it. I am who I am. Whatever. Most of the time.

Writing, though—here, I see the face of the devil.

There is something about the long labor of writing, the devotion required to sustain it, the way we return, over and over, to the tar pit of negative feelings and inadequacy, that makes it the worst for me. Full stop. I mentioned I've shed tears over music. I've cried because I've had streaks of bad lessons and months where nothing I did was correct. I've cried because I've practiced so much and still my body has not internalized what it's needed to, or because I've practiced so much on what my teacher told me to do one week, only to have her reverse course completely the next week, and now I've gone several steps backward in her eyes. I've cried over music and how it sounds and how that reflects on me, but my impostor syndrome in music has not made me question my ear or my artistic gut on what to do.

When I cry over writing, I'm really crying over myself.

I'm aware that impostor syndrome is about lies masquerading as truths. Or, as my friend Erin says, feelings masquerading as facts. Success in writing is no aegis against impostor syndrome. Would that I could cut off the head of Medusa, mount it on my shield, and brandish it against my impostor syndrome (or my Bad Brain) any time it shows up, turning it to stone. My impostor syndrome also has levels to it. At its best, it makes me think I can't hang with other more-famous writers, but if there's anything I can do, it's bullshit, so fake it till you make it, as they say.

At its worst, when it arrives, I feel like the drag of a concrete block against another concrete block, a slow abrading, a hollow growl. I feel like two extra-coarse pieces of sandpaper pushed and scraped against the other, the grit of them specially designed to remove every layer of varnish I've put on my failings. One part of me understands that I have a responsibility to this profession now, that I can't claim I'm not a writer because um? I have this book deal? and what am I doing this second if not writing this blogpost and using figurative language? And the other part of me is extremely afraid of wanting anything, afraid of claiming the title and prioritizing this work, because that's what real writers do and I'm not a real writer. I know that jinxes exist and if I speak my wants aloud, they're vulnerable, scraps of fluttering, gossamer hope that fall easily to predators. Best not to look at them directly or acknowledge them or let them out. You cannot have something taken away if you never have it.

When impostor syndrome collides with my wants, it causes dissonance of such magnificent, disgusting proportions that I spiral into the Bad Brain Place for days, accompanied by depression and anxiety. It upends any trust I have in myself. It turns everyone into a betrayer. It'd be one thing if it were confined just to me, but my impostor syndrome has splash damage. The friendly fire toggle is on. I want to be comforted, but I don't want someone to feel burdened with comfort; if I get validating words, I turn right around and invalidate them so I can keep validating my feelings; I throw a fishing line out and reel in praise that I use to make myself feel worse. It's unfair to everyone around me that I get, in video game terms, an emotional manipulation debuff that has an area of effect. I become an objectively nasty person, devoted to the holy task of ruining myself.

So I do my best to keep things quiet, knowing that this is a me problem and not an anyone else problem. I've learned through repeated touchings of the stove that if I take an invitation to speak more openly about how I feel, I'll be met with hostility or dismissiveness. Eventually it goes away, but impostor syndrome cycles back, so if people don't get a chance to take a whack at it, it'll be right back like one of those shows on cable, all thirteen seasons of it, syndicated forever.

There is, as far as I know, no cure for what ails me, no magic bullet, no panacea. I have tried to quit writing and failed at doing that. I have tried to keep my work private, but creativity is, as I have read in a recent newsletter, not done alone. (Additionally, if I share, I'm afraid I won't be able to stop. Is there anything worse than monopolizing someone's time?) I have tried thinking about my accomplishments. A horrible idea; if there's anything I hate, it's being told I have done something special, useful, fresh, "insightful," "dazzling," or any other empty book blurb language that exists, because I am none of those things and have done none of those things. I have tried not comparing myself to others, but I cannot fucking lie to me: I'm an Aries sun with an Aries moon, a wood Rat, a life path 1, an only child, a self-starter who gets what she wants by grace or grit. I'm highly competitive and if I'm not succeeding at the field I've chosen, why even bother?

The only thing that helps, if you can even call it help, is burying my head in work and kicking the can down the road, hoping that Future Me might be able to deal with this horseshit better than Present Me.

I wish there were some way of capping off this blogpost other than resorting to an Anderson Cooper–style "We'll have to leave it there." No pithy ending exists, not when I'm currently in the thick of it. Sometimes, in literature, especially Russian literature, a character's polar wants cause a break or a catastrophic event to happen, and that's what's going on in me right now: a catastrophe in triplicate, a desire to smash myself to pieces so I don't have to feel this anymore. I have writing to do, but more importantly, I have editing to do, a day job to do, a family to take care of, and no time to indulge myself in the selfish, frivolous, soul-devouring agony of writing even if I've considered quitting everything and letting my husband take on the financial burden of rent for the studio and writing full-time. I considered shaving my head and running away to the circus too, when I was sixteen. Guess what I haven't done.