Comment by lhorie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lhorie | Hacker News Reader

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Here's an unpopular opinion: this whole thing about impostor syndrome honestly seems like a thinly veiled humble brag. The narrative seems to be "nobody's perfect, but I am aware that I have imperfections so brownie points for me". IMHO, there's no real correlation between confidence and ability.

There are extremely capable athletes with terrible ego problems and there are people that legitimately fall into death spirals. There are those that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, as well as those that quietly sweat away in their pursuit of mastery.

Lacking confidence in something, judging oneself, etc are just being human. Pretty much everyone goes through that. Sure, some might project confidence in the face of the unknown, but that's just one of many coping mechanisms we have. "Laughing to not cry", screaming in fear when startled by a spider, YOLO, panic lies, etc are other similar mechanisms where we do seemingly illogical things in response to the respective stimulus.

And of course, people are multidimensional and topics/disciplines are multidimensional. You can't possibly be great at everything, but most are certainly capable of getting very good at something (even if that something is being a generalist in software engineering - which is itself a form of specialization in the grand scheme of society). And you might experience impostor syndrome at work but still be one of those people that think they're above average drivers or some such. Or you might experience it and be confident about your looks. Etc.

When you consider that reality isn't a flat 2D grayscale spectrum, it seems fairly normal that one would experience discomfort with their lackings when compared against one of infinite arbitrary scales.

This opinion is comparable to saying: "Depression is not real, everybody gets sad sometimes" or "ADHD is not real everybody gets distracted sometimes".

Just because some attribute exists in normal doses in most people, does not mean that it can exist in debilitating doses in a minority.

Of course, a big difference between imposter syndrome and the aforementioned illnesses is that imposter syndrome is not in the DSM-5. But if you look at the history of the DSM-5, you will notice that adding a new illness is a very slow and politicized process. And a large number of psychologists are treating it a bit to seriously for it to be just a "humble brag".

That doesnt mean everybody talking about their imposter syndrome would really classify as having it. Similarly people who checked webmd and now believe that they have cancer, also do not necessarily have cancer. That still doesnt mean that every cancer-sufferer is a fraud.

I'm not aware of impostor syndrome being considered anywhere on the same level as actually diagnosed depression/ADHD by physicians, nor of it being considered for addition into the DSM, slow and bureaucratic as it may be.

The variety I'm referring to is the one that comes from people like the one I originally responded to, who, by all accounts, is a successful functioning member of society. So, yeah, I think it's fair to say "claiming impostor syndrome is just describing a normal feeling" in contexts where the person is clearly not overwhelmed to the point of dysfunction.

Even if there is such a thing as actually crippling impostor syndrome, that's not what I see being brought up in these kinds of discussions.

If by "this whole thing about imposter syndrome" you are referring to people talking about imposter syndrome the way your parent comment talked about it, than yeah I agree completly: its just a humble brag, nothing else.

I originally understood your comment to mean impostor syndrome is never used in a valid way. I have seen these statements being made about mental health disorders, including very serious once like depression. I think they can be really damaging, since they convince people not to seek help. This is why I disagreed.

Ah, yeah, sorry for not being clear. I completely agree that downplaying serious mental disorders is a problem.

I guess anyone can interpret it however they want. If you’re challenging yourself in your career, you will eventually find yourself in a position where you legitimately don’t know what you’re doing, and people are depending on you to figure it out. Early in my career I thrived in these situations, because they mirrored my experiences in college. Later in my career, the problems got bigger and I found myself wondering if I would ever figure these things out, saying to myself, maybe I’m actually not smart enough, maybe I took the wrong career path? But, if you keep your composure, read the docs, ask the right people for help, you figure it out and move on. I always assumed that’s what people meant. Seems like young people today have much more anxiety that we used to though, so maybe the definition has shifted.

I think your description seems pretty spot on. But the way I see the term being used sometimes, it seems some people take it as some sort of shame-but-actually-pride badge (the connotation being that if you have the syndrome, then you're secretly not an impostor, hence a "humble brag")

IMHO, you could leverage that uncomfortable feeling positively (e.g. seeking the right people to help you, etc as you said), negatively (e.g. give up) or in a beside-the-point way (bragging about the cup being half-full). None of this has really anything to do with acting maliciously/destructively like the article seems to suggest, though.

That's not imposter syndrome though. That's fear of failure, self doubt concerning your success of accomplishing some new challenge.

Imposter syndrome would involve feeling like all your past achievements were pure luck, you have no merit, and your collegues were going to find out.

There's nuance to the definition; people use the term like they use the term OCD. Not understanding what it actually means. Vanity.

But most people with imposter syndrome don't talk about it I assume? And the people who do are mostly just trying to say that it is normal to feel like that.

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