This week is Mental Health Awareness Week 16th-22nd May and I’m doing my part to start a conversation by getting back into my blog. The topic of this years MHAW is relationships – relationships with friends and family, minds, and bodies, just to name a few.
It’s been a while since I last posted properly and I’m sorry for that – that’s more of an apology to myself for not sticking to my goal of posting every couple of weeks. Last time I was just about to start the last semester of my extended university career, now I am at the end and trying not to think about what my final classification may be! A lot has happened in those few months and I’m finishing uni having had some amazing experiences and now with great opportunities ahead of me. I want to just take this opportunity to expand slightly on my post about failure by saying that I have definitely learned from my own and made the most of the extra year I have had at university.
One thing I decided to do was to challenge myself and the relationship I have formed with my anxiety. Although I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember, I have never been fully aware of how it may have been impacting my life. It has only been over the last couple of years when my anxiety had grown increasingly worse that I could reflect back on certain events and relationships and see how my anxiety may have been playing a part. More often than not though, despite my anxiety, I would still do most things. So I have tried to embrace my anxiety, accepting that I have it and I will probably always have it, so how do I start to live my life with it once again? I’ve only done a few things so far such as giving blood, taking part in a discussion panel in front of my peers and experts, and agreeing to take part in The Wolf Run, but these few things are not only helping me take charge of my life again but are also helping me to get involved in things that for years I have turned down. Many of these opportunities that have cropped up are also the result of the relationships I have formed with people: I probably wouldn’t be taking part in The Wolf Run if it wasn’t for my friends getting me involved and encouraging me; the discussion panel was the result of my lecturers and university friends inviting and supporting me; being asked to take part in a talk because people mention me, saying I have something to offer… and yet I always have this nagging feeling. Why me? How have I managed to convince these people that I am capable, that I have something to offer? At some point they’re going to realise that I am not who they think I am. There is a term for this (apparently) – impostor syndrome.
I put apparently in brackets for a reason – to emphasis that because I have these feelings of being a fraud and I almost completely believe I am, I find it hard to say that I have impostor syndrome. It is linked with with high achievers and, yep you’ve guessed it, I don’t believe for one second that I could possibly be a high achiever so my belief that I am an impostor is factual… you can see the vicious circle that this is forming.
Although I have felt like this on and off over the years, I felt it most intensely very recently in regards to the job I have recently acquired at university. I never expected my little idea to become what it has and I’m overwhelmingly happy that it has done, but in the process I have ended up with a small position at university working alongside the head of Graduate+ and being invited to manage my project up until I am not longer officially a student. I was most definitely stunned, surprised and extremely excited at this opportunity but all throughout I have been thinking, but why? Why me? I’m nothing special but somehow I have lured these people into thinking that I am capable and have something to give. When I sat down at my desk on Monday and discussed what would be happening and my tasks for the day, cold dread swept over me – I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. They’re going to find out that I am not who they think I am, they’re going to be so disappointed in me. PANIC.
That feeling has not completely shifted and I felt like it again at work on the Tuesday as I was sat in my Step-On session (I’ve also decided to take on some training at work in an attempt to challenge myself). My manager has been really helpful and encouraging in my decision to take it on, and the main thing she said I needed to work on? I need to believe in myself more.
Whether I would suffer with impostor syndrome if I didn’t have my anxiety is something I will probably never know but I do think it can go hand in hand with anxiety and depression, certainly with the stigma that still surrounds mental health. I mentioned in my first blog post that I have often questioned if I even have anxiety and depression, or is it because I’m actually weak and lazy like people sometimes say about those that struggle with these problems. I still do question. I questioned myself on Monday and Tuesday in my respective job roles, whether the anxiety I was feeling was because I have anxiety or is it because I am an impostor and I am doing something I’m not actually capable of. I came home from work on both days physically and mentally drained from the struggle with these feelings but the positive I have found from both experiences is that I am still doing them, I’m still being supported and part of me is driven to work at both – my anxiety is my biggest weakness but perhaps it is becoming my biggest strength.
For now, my impostor and I will have to coexist and perhaps we always will. My impostor may be part of the reason I may feel like I everyone around me who has brought amazing things into my life will realise I am not who they think I am and take these things away from me, but that impostor is also the reason I strive to prove that I am. What I need to work on now is finding a way to enjoy my achievements. One step at a time.
The Anxious Extrovert 