TW: Discussion of mental illness
Being a person who wants to make things for people to consume and enjoy is hard. It’s even harder during a pandemic. We’re at month seven now and there’s no end in sight. For me, this meant that I had to stop waiting for “things to get better” before I got my ass back in the saddle and buckled down on doing this work. And while I understand that I can’t continue to beat myself up for being depressed or overwhelmed with school while grieving a lost family member because WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC, it still feels like I’m failing. I can chalk this up to capitalism, depression, Superwoman Syndrome, literally anything. But at the end of the day I’m still not doing the work I want to do [emphasis on WANT] because I’m getting in my own way and that doesn’t sit right with me.
I want to name this feeling and really hope that I’m able to articulate it the way I’ve conceptualized it in my head. I don’t want to remove accountability from systemic factors that pit people against each other, but I also think that we default to these macro-level ideas when sometimes it’s a lot smaller than that. Yes we all live in a capitalistic system that prioritizes what you do over who you are, and it’s impossible not to internalize those feelings.
However, I’ve seen in my own life and those of people around me, sometimes we name our regular-degular insecurity and jealousy as Imposter Syndrome almost as a defense mechanism because it’s easier than confronting the real reasons we aren’t doing the work we want. For my purposes, we’re defining Imposter Syndrome as “[people] attribut[ing] their accomplishments to luck rather than to ability, and fear that others will eventually unmask them as a fraud.”
We’re honestly doing ourselves and our work a disservice by immediately scapegoating it to Imposter Syndrome rather than confronting feelings like jealousy and insecurity. The actual definition of Imposter Syndrome kind of highlights the flaw in this behavioral tendency in informal contexts because it’s hard to be seen as a fraud or un-knowledgeable in your field if you’re not actually demonstrating what you know in the first place. The anxiety of what could go wrong if you Do The Thing or questioning if you should do it at all because someone is inevitably doing it better is not in and of itself the result of Imposter Syndrome, but the result of what it means to be a person producing things in a world that values you for what you put out and internalizing that external value.
I have to specify that this applies mostly to work we do for fun or as a hobby, and not necessarily career or academic work because those hierarchies are more structured and leave less room for less-than-perfect work, especially if you’re already marginalized. I can say that I feel bad about sex blogging because if I say the wrong thing I’ll get cancelled and no one will ever trust my expertise again so it’s hard to feel motivated to write. That is partially true, and partially the result of Imposter Syndrome. What’s harder to say, because it requires introspection, is that I’m not motivated to write or make content because I haven’t done enough self-work to feel educated on certain topics I want to write about and I don’t have the mental energy to put the effort in to do so right now.
I don’t believe in validating my own mediocrity just because white people get away with it. I either give things my all or don’t bother in the first place because what’s the point of expending energy just to half ass something? When I say mediocrity, I mean mediocrity by my own standards, not “traditional” ones (thanks Virgo rising).
To take it a little bit further, I’ve been unpacking these feelings of guilt and insecurity over what I haven’t been doing with my therapist. She’s helped me by asking me what it means to me to be doing what it is that I do and what I feel like I’m losing by not doing it. Is it doing the thing that makes me happy, or is it being known for doing the thing that makes me happy? If it’s being known, what internal gaps am I trying to fill with this external validation?
Having her help me draw those lines gets to the ego innate in so much of what we do, and why even those of us who are aware that we’ve been socialized to internalize our worth based on production still fall victim to these feelings of guilt and shame when we’re not producing things. I got into this work because I want to be able to help people, yes, but I also want to be known and compensated for what I do! A lot of us do and it’s not shameful to name that.
Please understand that this is a self-drag more than anything. I’m absolutely not advocating for “grind culture” or working yourself into the ground. I actually feel like tapping into why you feel like you’re not able to do what it is you have a passion for is a necessary part of overcoming the need to work even when our bodies and minds aren’t up to it. This summer, I was (re)diagnosed with depression, and while I’m a massive advocate for being open about mental health struggles I’ve so far mostly dealt with mine in silence, choosing to step away from various roles and spaces while I deal with my diagnosis, my reality, and work through my treatment plans. It’s not a logical decision, but even being a mental health clinician in training doesn’t undo decades of internalized mental health stigma. Detaching from owning that identity publicly, to me, made me feel as if I was actually giving it less power over me. Again, not logical at all but it’s how I’ve managed these few months.
On the outside though, it looks like I just fell off the face of the earth. One thing about me, I work in strides. I try my hardest to front load as much as I can while I have the energy and passion to because I know the train eventually stops for me. But maybe that’s less about working styles and how I just live with my mental illness. After returning to Instagram after a year-long hiatus, I worked so hard during the summer making content and hitting a stride just to hit a wall as soon as September hit and school kicked into overdrive for me. I also experienced a sudden loss in my family and have had to continue to work through my grief. While I’m sure people understand why I vanished, I never gave them the chance to because I didn’t explain what was going on or how I’ve been feeling.
Others who I consider peers in this work are still working, and I can’t help but compare myself to them. This is the crux of this post and why I felt it prudent to share now. I am not minimizing the impact of competition on our self-esteem either, but rather acknowledging that most of the time we’re our own harshest critics and let the fear of what we’re doing not living up to someone else’s standards dictate what we choose to do.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve ever learned in life is that you are not nearly as big a factor in other people’s lives as you think you are. It sounds harsh but it actually brings me comfort. I’m not doubting our ability to impact people positively but it’s more likely that, on the whole, people aren’t watching your every move. You can absolutely have people who keep up with you whether they like you or not, but as people we’re so focused on ourselves we don’t really think too hard about what other people have going on unless it directly affects us.
I’m saying all of this to say that we don’t always need academic or social concepts to justify or explain how we feel. Sometimes feelings are just feelings. Engaging in our work when it feels good and right is key, because forcing ourselves through it anyway is a great way to start resenting it and your own abilities. I’ve noticed that creating whatever it is I need to hear or see is when my work is best received, which is why I’m doing this now! When you’re feeling unmotivated, scared, or insecure, ask yourself why it is you’re doing what you do, and let those answers guide how you move yourself and your work forward.