So many people claim that we all suffer from Imposter Syndrome.

NO! WE FUCKING DON’T!

Imposter Syndrome is not a real syndrome, phenomenon, or medically diagnosed disease, and is not even classified by The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the handbook widely used by clinicians and psychiatrists in the United States to diagnose psychiatric illnesses, as a real mental illness.

So, if psychiatrists and psychologists know full well it is not a real disease/disorder, why do you continue to insist on suffering from it? Why do you continue to choose to suffer from a syndrome that’s not a syndrome and isn’t a medically diagnosed mental disease?

Imposter Syndrome does not exist in and of itself, it is nothing but an umbrella phrase to cover a long list of insecurities.

So get your shit together and name your insecurity, deal with your insecurity, and then kick your insecurity to the curb.

Why insist on suffering from feelings you can deal with? Why choose to continue living your life by someone else’s narrative of you that’s been stuck in your head for years, if not decades? Why continue to live with the delusions that other people are wasting their time and energy judging you when they don’t even know you exist? Live your damn narrative and get your own damn life.

I found my way to a video of an ex-designer on YouTube a couple of years ago and then along came a discussion on imposter syndrome. What irritated me was her lack of awareness about something she claims to have.

“If you think anyone doesn’t have imposter syndrome then it’s just not the truth like absolutely everyone does,” she said.

Medical experts don’t even claim that because they know it’s NOT true. And a quick Google search will show you that quite clearly.

Everyone DOES NOT suffer from it. It’s not only one of the most generalizing sweeping blanket statements to make but to claim so is highly arrogant, highly ignorant and highly uneducated. And makes you look plain old stupid!

Just because you might read hundreds of self-help books or a few hundred Google pages doesn’t make you an expert where you can categorically say that “everyone” does something when you have not met “everyone” to know that.

As a woman, I am so sick and tired of being lumped into the “everyone”, “everybody”, and “every woman” categories just because the person spouting the nonsense is in that category based on their insecurities, or thought patterns.

Aren’t you sick and tired of being lumped into the same basket as everyone else?

I am.

Aren’t you sick and tired of “people” speaking for you even though they’ve never met you?

I am.

If you haven’t met every author or writer on the planet, how can you, in all good conscience, claim that we all suffer from the same thing?

She also called Imposter Syndrome, “a holding pattern of procrastinations”.

I couldn’t find that phrase in any definition of imposter syndrome on Google even though procrastination did come up. But even then, I found it hard to believe anything I read.

If we’re using that phrase, then I’d say imposter syndrome is a holding pattern of her insecurities. And if she, or you, are telling your imposter syndrome that you’re just going somewhere for fifteen minutes and you’ll be back to finish the conversation, then you’re having the wrong conversation with yourself. Because one, imposter syndrome doesn’t exist, and two, why the hell are you giving your insecurity power and talking to it? Does that not sound weird or absurd to you? That you’re talking to a non-existent “thing” and giving it power by telling it to wait fifteen minutes or to go and “sit over there while I finish this one thing”? I say, kick that non-existent bitch to the curb and don’t look back.

And then she goes on to say: “Human beings are quite selfish and inward facing, so we’re all worried about our insecurities”.

Wow, such… pathetic disrespect towards the rest of the human race.

Again, you only have the right to speak for yourself. No one else. I don’t let the one insecurity I do have run my life. It rarely gets to take a breath because I refuse to let it surface and control me. I think she needs to stop reading those self-help books she devours because it’s doing her no good whatsoever.

I am so over being told what I suffer from or should be doing with my life by uneducated people who have no idea about me or my life, when they live in their little world that they don’t want people seeing inside of for fear we may see who they are. And believe me, her insecurities wouldn’t want “everyone” seeing her for who she is. The things I know about her…oi!

Below is my current video on Imposter Syndrome. It covers much of what I wrote here, but I do add a tasty morsel at the end. The idea came from a published author I follow on TikTok answering someone who’d left a comment on a previous video of hers, and she claimed all authors feel like imposters. It pissed me off so I commented…

“Not actually true. I’ve never felt like one and am a bit sick of people saying we all do. We don’t.”

Reply – “Fair enough. You’re probably the first author I’ve come across who’s said this, but I take your point. Still not “all”.

Yeah, no kidding. NOT FUCKING ALL! Because it DOES NOT EXIST!