Imposter Syndrome - What am I?

My brain is a tad foggy the last two days. I believe I must be getting ill or something. I have missed no medication, and my diet is normal. My thoughts consistently slip away, even while I'm diligently trying to hold them. Everything I look at feels "off" in a way that I cannot seem to explain. I can see fine, but, it is almost like being dizzy. The visual effect of the room spinning, yet nothing is spinning. Everything is just a bit confusing. I thought it could be fun to seize the opportunity to try and write something while in this state.

The Imaginary Crisis

With the edges of everything so blurry, it is a fine time to ruminate on my identity. Here, the edges always feel particularly blurry. I often become worried that if I express an interest, someone will mistakenly infer understanding or abilities I don't have. Well. So what? What does it matter really what someone else does or does not assume, which they never share with me anyways? It is a rather trivial matter that I can never be certain of any how.

Well, within my own mind, this is seen as a major violation of ethics. If I can spot where my actions or words may lead to a misunderstanding in my favor, not acting to correct that feels like willful deceit. Now, I do realize that this largely lies in the realm of irrational thoughts, and that is not lost on me. Knowing that, however, does not seem to change the ruts my mind becomes stuck in.

The result is that when I perform tasks, or make something, or fix something, or explain something; I feel a compulsion insisting I must clarify the limitations, lest they believe I am smart. The issue being that it would be dishonest, when I know that I don't know things they may infer from the prior information. There is a cacophony within my mind rapidly sifting through points and counterpoints, trying to evaluate the rationality of what I'm worried about, trying to evaluate how socially appropriate it is to address, feeling intense guilt for something I can not confirm has even happened. I am spiraling. I am spiraling so often that there is often no observable cue for others.

Let me give an example.

Here is a photo I took of a yellow jacket. I like to take close up photos of bugs with a hand-me-down camera my sister was nice enough to give me.

After taking the photo, I try to identify the insect as accurately as possible and share it on iNaturalist.org. The identification is "European Paper Wasp(Polistes dominula)"

On a whim, I may post this photo somewhere, because I like it and simply want to share the sense of, "Isn't this neat!" And, all is fine. However, once someone comments in any way, the spiral begins. It could be as innocuous as "That's neat!" Internally, the race is on.

• It's not a real macro lens I used. It's an adapter. Macro lenses are expensive and I can't afford one. Please don't think I imprudently spent money on one.

• It is a nice camera, but I did not buy it, it is old and it was given to me.

• I don't truly know how to use the camera. I'm trying to learn, but most of it goes over my head.

• I'm not a photographer. I am not trained. I just have one and take pictures and some turn out okay.

• I'm not an entomologist. I looked up the identification. I don't truly understand it.

• I didn't wait patiently for a good shot. I literally just ran up to bugs I saw and took a bunch of photos with different settings in hopes some would be cool.

And so on, in that manner. Sometimes, I cannot help blurting the things out, even if I perceive no one wants to hear it.

Since I dabble in many things, this spiral happens quite often.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Per Wikipedia - "Impostor syndrome, also known as impostor phenomenon or impostorism, is a psychological experience in which a person suffers from feelings of intellectual and/or professional fraudulence. One source defines it as "the subjective experience of perceived self-doubt in one's abilities and accomplishments compared with others, despite evidence to suggest the contrary".

Those who suffer from impostor syndrome often doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments. They may have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck. They may think that they are deceiving others because they feel as if they are not as intelligent as they outwardly portray themselves to be.

Impostor syndrome is not a recognized psychiatric disorder and is not featured in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) nor is it listed as a diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Thus, clinicians lack information on the prevalence, comorbidities, and best practices for assessing and treating impostor syndrome. However, outside the academic literature, impostor syndrome has become widely discussed, especially in the context of achievement in the workplace."

Since it is not a recognized diagnosis, analyzing it becomes a bit less concrete. We can say it is a phenomenon that is not uncommon to experience, and may be the result of many contributing factors. I wonder how closely my experience resembles other's experiences of it?

I wonder how much is distorted by my underlying disorders, or in fact, attributable to them?

Those questions do not have answers. Any answer to them would be unfalsifiable, but also unproveable. Therefore, it avails me nothing.

What am I, then?

I can reject through confusion, but do I not have to somehow define what I am in order to give any relevance to what I am not? Saying what something is not does not resolve the question of what it is.

"I think therefore, I am." - René Descartes

I had always imagined this statement, which I had heard quoted throughout my life, as a declaration of existence. A tone of defiant autonomy. Recently I read Descartes' Discourse on Methods and Meditations on First Philosophy. I learned that the quote comes from Part Four of the Discourse. The actual title being "Discourse on the Method for Conducting One's Reason Well and for Seeking the Truth in the Sciences."

Descartes makes this statement not in confidence, but in a desperate realization within existential crisis. He had chosen to disregard and question literally everything, in pursuit of verifiable truth. On this mission, he had argued his way down to doubting the existence of anything, even himself. But, his realization that he thinks, therefore something must exist to do that thinking was the branch he caught before he hit the ground.

"But immediately afterward I noticed that, while I wanted thus to think that everything was false, it necessarily had to be the case that I, who was thinking this, was something. And noticing that this truth -- I think, therefore I am -- was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.

Then, examining with attention what I was, and seeing that I could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world nor any place where I was, I could not pretend, on that account, that I did not exist at all, and that, on the contrary, from the very fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed very evidently and very certainly that I existed; whereas, on the other hand, had I simply stopped thinking, even if all the rest of what I had ever imagined had been true, I would have had no reason to believe that I had existed. From this I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is simply to think, and which, in order to exist, has no need of any place nor depends on any material thing. Thus "I," that is to say, the soul through which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body and is even easier to know than the body, and even if there were no body at all, it would not cease to be all that is."

I chose to include that lengthy excerpt in order to allow Descartes to speak for himself.

My search today is looking for something less metaphysical. I am merely trying to ask what I am in a sense of drive and purpose. Perhaps it will help me to go through a list of the most common things I fear being fraudulently attributed to myself.

• I am not a musician - I can play guitar well enough. I cannot keep a beat, nor seem to obtain a firm mental grasp of it. Also, I don't know any music theory.

• I am not a painter - I paint paintings and I even paint houses as vocation, but I would consider myself as a painter for neither. I can use a brush, fine or broad. I can create as well as mimic. But, I have no identity in it.

• I am not a welder - I can fuse metals, and love to do so. I'm not certified, not well trained, and not paid to do so.

• I am not a linguist - I study several languages and work diligently to scrutinize translations of Hebrew and Greek, but I have never been able to learn a language other than English. I have made efforts to learn several.

• I am not a writer - I write, and brevity is not my gift. I do not write with any real intent or goal, however. I cognitively offload. I like to articulate thoughts and stories. I have no true audience though.

• I am not a mechanic - I have fixed on different cars: Control Arm replacement, A/C condenser clutch replacement, brake caliper replacement, tie rod replacement, brake discs, rotors, bearings, master brake cylinder replacement, and many more.

I could go on, but the pattern seems present to me. I fix things, make things, analyze things, study things. I want to understand.

In the simplest sense, I suppose that is the closest I can come to an identity. The common thread throughout the non-exhaustive examples given is that I want to understand. When my grandfather asked me if I could replace the Control Arm on a Nissan Altima, I casually answered, "Yeah, no problem." Then, I went and googled it to see what a control arm was. My motivation was, "I don't know what that is... but I want to..."

Yesterday, a contractor messaged me that the welders didn't have power at one of our properties. I just got up and went, with no lack of confidence, but no idea what could be the issue. I only knew that my desire to understand what was observable would lead to an answer. When I arrived, the welder told me she had an adapter her foreman made her plugged into the 240v outlet for the dryer, but her welder wouldn't turn on. I checked a few obvious things, then observed. I looked at the adapter that she had said was made for her, and the extension cord plugged in. I wondered, "converting what to what?" Taking them apart, I saw, oh, it's a 4 prong outlet, and the cord is a four prong minus one removed prong because there is no neutral. Looking at it, I wagered, "I bet one of the leads is connected to where the prong is removed. They likely held both, copied what they saw, and didn't consider when they flipped the plug over to insert it, it would be mirrored." Opened the casing. I was correct. I quickly fixed it. Told them all was fine, and left very happy. I wanted to understand. Solve the puzzle. And I did.

I have exposed myself to so much that my experience and absorption of information combined with decent recall ability and generalization allows me to solve puzzles quite efficiently. I have fixed things I have never seen before. The reason is, I have seen so many things, and taken so many apart, desiring understanding, that I have a vague sense of how something should be. When something is broke, it is a game of find what looks wrong. Correct it. Often, I am not certain what caused the issue, nor why it matters always.

Example, replacing a capacitor on a fridge compressor. I narrowed down the location of the issue. Tested the microfarad reading with multi meter, compared to label. Okay, it's bad. Replace. It's working. Reality, I don't know what microfarad is measuring. Nor what a capacitor does. I didn't need to.

If someone were to observe this, my spiral would immediately start. I would want to declare that I am not an appliance repair person! I am not an electrician!

So, what would my identity look like? What can I call myself without starting the imposter spiral? I am curious. I want to understand.