How do you deal with case of imposter syndrome and depression?
I'm not sure how many this applies to but I've noticed with my depression (which at this point is very self-manageable) that the one area I really feel genuinely down is whenever imposter syndrome creeps up.
Effectively it's the feeling that you're so bad, so useless that even taking on say a job as a janitor is too hard for you (as in you suck so bad that can't even do that kind of job).
And any project that you think of is either all:
* Too hard to implement alone
* Or someone else already done it so what is the point
Essentially it makes everything feel very defeatist with an extra dose of "even if I make it, it'll be far worse than anyone else".
For those who have something like this, what's your experience with dealing with it?
Since it's not really something I feel typical psychology can help too much with, no amount of awareness over one's action is going to change the lingering self-regulation.
9 comments
[ 1.1 ms ] story [ 34.6 ms ] threadMake it. My git server is full of halfbaked projects i abandoned. The least people already start with an full structure of their program.
Like say seeing some influencer brag about how they manage to create a game engine in 24 hours while for me making a "deployable webapp" takes months, will make me feel worthless and then start to question anything I've done is actually learnt or if it's just "luck" or "cheating" that made me able to write this simple webapp.
You shouldn't.
> it's more a feeling of as another commentator said "worthlessness" and that I do not have any knowledge and as such anything I've made has been only possible through external means (googling, following tutorial, whatever excuse my mind makes up about me making up my experience).
Well, maybe it's not "debilitating fear of failure". Maybe it's indeed a "feeling of worthlessness". Maybe it's something else with an official name that you can wave around to justify your failures. One thing is sure: it's not impostor syndrome. At all.
> Like say seeing some influencer brag about how they manage to create a game engine in 24 hours while for me making a "deployable webapp" takes months, will make me feel worthless and then start to question anything I've done is actually learnt or if it's just "luck" or "cheating" that made me able to write this simple webapp.
Never, _ever_, compare yourself to anyone else.
Challenge level: impossible
More realistically, compare yourself to others but chase it with the perspective that you have totally different lives and that you only see the best of other people. You probably know stuff they don't; you've each been on different journeys.
If you see 3 people better than you at 3 things, it's easy to overlook that and to instead think, "Damn, I suck at all 3 of those things!" And when you do find out one of them knows less than you about some 4th thing, it hardly seems to matter since your brain is most attuned to confirming your insecurities and noticing the next thing you "need" for status or survival or whatever. :p
I don't think our brains were meant to cope with "your peer set is the entire world; enjoy seeing everyone convincingly better than you at everything you hinge your pride on all at once, instantly ultra-humbling you".
For me, 2 things helped me:
1. External perspective: I was told by peers and management how good they think I am (e.g., in performance reviews), and I've noticed my knowledge is above average on related topics, so I mostly believe them.
2. I enjoy doing what I do. It's the journey more than the destination. Is my thing redundant? Well, I enjoyed doing it regardless. Does it suck? Well, I'll probably enjoy learning how to make it better. :D
If you wonder what the reason is, despite starting CS in 2014, I haven't had a full-time job once. My skills are so diverse that I don't qualify for anything but happen to know a few of most things. So what value do I contribute? Nothing.
Hence, what OP writes is something I relate to. If I make it, it would be a shittier version of what is already out there because I do not have the energy/skills to make something novel. And all those rejection emails have proven that I am worthless. So there is nothing in this world that gives me hope.
OP, if you are feeling like me, the only hope I have is something stupid like faith. No idea why but I have started to trust religion because of the peace of mind it brings. This faith thing, at least helps me bring back on track and allows me to do even when I know, to the point, this all matters to nothing.
What you are describing is about overall worthlessness.
For impostor syndrome, I tell my staff staff the following. I approach it by letting my emotions be driven by my logic. I look at goals I have set and see if I achieved some (or most if I am a perfectionist) of them. If so, my emotion is wrong. If I failed all of them, then likely it is not a syndrome and I need improvement. The liar will try to deprecate the delivery (e.g., was not good enough, not exact, was just partial), but the logical part will be able to use facts.
It is conscious work to recognize the negative inner monologue and snip it off early on with fact. with time, it can become a second nature.
The flip side of it is the Dunning–Kruger effect, where one things they know everything, even through they are oblivious. Much harder to deal with it.