As seen on Twitter!

If you're struggling with imposter syndrome, it's ok. It happens to a whole lot of people. You are not a fraud even if you feel like you are out of your depth. You may have some inexperience or tons of experience but that feeling is still there. And that's ok. 

Because imposter syndrome is often a sign that you're moving forward in ways that you are challenged. It comes a lot with growth experiences. Growth experiences can be scary and imposter syndrome can be a manifestation of that fear. It's ok to be afraid sometimes. Life is hard.♥

I've been struggling with a depressive episode and heaps of imposter syndrome lately. I sit down and attempt to make art. A wave of feelings of inadequacy rolls over me and, next thing I know, I am putting all my art supplies away and fighting off the urge to start crying. It happens to me when I'm trying to write too. It's been pretty awful. I keep trying to take each day at a time.

In an effort to attempt an end run around the imposter syndrome, I've started an art journal. I have only a few pages partially done. I start with an idea and then I give up because I worry it is not going to be good enough. It's been rough for the last month. I keep doing my morning pages. And I am attempting to edit some of my work but I'm in a bad head space for anything other than line edits for grammar and punctuation.

I worry that people are going to find out that I am a fraud. That I'm just a housewife. Then I stop and say to myself, how many other mere housewives are out there making things happen? If they can be activists and entrepreneurs, I can be a professional author, right? I worry that people are going to find out that I'm a fraud because I am a solid twenty five years out of college and I haven't done a thing with my degree. Then I stop and I say to myself, how many people go to college and get a degree in one thing only to wind up working in an entirely different field? I worry that I am a fraud because I don't have anything in a publishing contract and I haven't entered anything into any literary magazines.

Then I stop and ask myself, "Are these what makes someone a writer?" Then I look at the debacle of the one author who has been exposed as a fraud. He had publishing contracts and made a good deal of money. And he attempted to pass off complete fiction as truth. I'm an honest person. I don't need a publishing contract or publication in literary magazines to make me a 'real' writer. If you write, then you are a writer. If you make art, then you are an artist.

Publishing contracts and having your work win some prizes are good goals to have, but they're not benchmarks of success. Imposter syndrome sometimes makes me forget that. My success is in the fact that I am writing and making art. I want to do it more frequently. I'd like to make some money doing it. But the fact that I am doing it (and knitting stuff for charity counts as art as much as baking pies or sculpting things; it is all art.) means I am valid and legitimate. The fact that I am honest in what I am doing means I am not a fraud. I just have low self confidence moments and issues with depression getting in my way.