Impostor Syndrome and Fantasies of Deserving
Impostor syndrome is a phenomenon most of us are familiar with, and we might assume that everyone understands the term the same way.
But it’s couched in medicalised language that leaves a lot open to interpretation.
I have known people to understand impostor syndrome as:
a chronic condition that limits our ability to participate in activities of daily life and work - much like chronic fatigue syndrome.
an injury to the self, which needs to heal before we can return to full functionality, as an athlete might approach a diagnosis of compartment syndrome.
a psychiatric condition arising from adverse experiences, as in Stockholm syndrome - where there can be no hope of recovery until one is free from the dynamic that caused it.
Without a doubt, impostor feelings can be intense, relentless, and destabilising.
However, if we consider the presence of these feelings to mean that we are unhealthy, afflicted with something - a condition that blinds us to our own worth - we risk strengthening the system of defences that keeps us locked in our sense of not-belonging, not-healthy, not-good-enough, not-ready-yet.
Impostor syndrome involves a fantasy that we could avoid the pain of rejection, ridicule, disappointment or loss if we could only be certain of our worth.
In this fantasy, we have control over what happens to us. Bad luck, systemic inequalities, and ruthless people don’t enter into it. The fantasy is that we will feel calm, ‘right’, comfortable if we can just be good enough, and be sure of it.
This is why all the affirmations in the world that we are enough, we are worthy, we deserve happiness, don’t offer durable relief from our anxieties.
They don’t offer certainty.
They deal in the currency of deserving - a slippery concept that is moveable, subjective, dependent on our own internal states, the internal states of those around us, the environments we’re part of, and those we grew up in.
The relationship therapist Esther Perel describes ‘deserving’ as ‘the entitlement of deprivation’ - the deep-rooted sense that it is not acceptable simply to want something (belonging, attention, affection, praise), but that good things are owed to those who are worthy, or who have earned them.
When we are in this frame of mind, we might not feel happiness or satisfaction when we do well, but vindication. Or the temporary relief from our residual feelings of anxiety. We can’t celebrate our successes, because we can’t be sure of their meaning.
There is a defensive feeling, even when we lay claim to what we feel we deserve, that prevents us from experiencing the joy of getting what we want.
To feel free to desire - to pursue what we want and need because, well, why wouldn’t we? - we need to untangle our fantasies of deserving.
Some reflective questions to explore your fantasies of deserving:
Who decides who deserves?
What do you feel you (or others) need to be in order to deserve? (Hard working? Selfless? Interesting? Attractive? Consistent? Original? Try to get at everything that’s in there - it will be different and complex for everyone)
What were the messages you absorbed in your early life - in your family, school, community, or peer groups - about what it means to deserve?
In which situations and relationships do concerns about deserving arise most powerfully for you?
What feels comforting about the idea of deserving? What does it allow you not to think about?
What do you WANT? Consider how easy or difficult it is to think about this.
If impostor syndrome, perfectionism, or other habits of thinking or feeling routinely get in the way of your doing the work that feels meaningful to you, consider signing up to my newsletter, or joining the next cohort of my 6-week workshop, Compassionate Productivity, where we create a framework for making decisions about how to spend your time, energy and attention that account for your particular skills, priorities, desires and aversions.
