I have considered myself a writer for as long as I can remember. And, for as long as I can remember, I have always considered myself pretty good at it.
And then I started graduate school. More specifically, I attended my first residency; a week-long on-campus ‘intensive’ where, instead of only communicating via email and video conference, all of the students come together to work on, edit, and discuss their manuscripts. I was in a group with four other amazing women who had life experiences that were far beyond my own, and I really took notice of that as I was reading their work. They were all kind, generous, lovely people; and I did not belong with them.
In comparison (as I saw it at the time), I was an immature person who had no idea what she was doing who thought she could be an MFA student because she once wrote a story about her shoes.
I learned, from someone in my group and from the director of my program, that this is called Impostor Syndrome. And this new thing fascinated me.
Imposter Syndrome is, just as it sounds, a feeling of being an impostor. It’s an idea that can develop in one’s brain that they do not actually deserve to have gotten as far as they’ve gotten, and perhaps only made it there through sheer luck or circumstance. This is, according to the TIME Health article I read, a common feeling for people. But it was all new for me. And it scared me.
I don’t really have a moment where I ‘overcame’ this feeling, and I’m not sure I’m, even now, over it. All I could do is find a way to deal with it. Live with it. Mainly, I’ve just been talking about it. I mentioned it to the people I was working with that week, and they all understood how I was feeling. And it was really nice to know that a) I wasn’t the only one who had felt this way, and b) I had people who were willing to meet me where I was and help me through it.
And, as this is labelled “part 1,” I will be following this feeling as I go through grad school, and life in general. My second residency is coming up, so I’m sure I’ll have some words about that.
But for now, this post is over.
Peace.
