Hello, my name is Impostor.

[inkative]

Hi all,

I guess I'll just jump into it.

I realized yesterday -- all of a sudden -- that my impostor syndrome extends beyond what I do or don't do for a career. I consider my entire existence mistaken, fraudulent, undeserving. It's why I think I'm in trouble every time my boss (who thinks I'm a great employee) calls my name. But it's also why I'm occasionally stabbed by jealous insecurity despite years in a fulfilling marriage with a kind man. Some people have tinnitus, but I live with the unbroken background noise of my frantic inner critic. I'm not a real employee, cook, gamer, housekeeper, fan, professional, wife, mother, friend...

Maybe I realized I've spent my life feeling ashamed of myself for being here. Existing where I wasn't wanted, where I made myself an inconvenience and caused my parents pain.

Does this sound familiar? Does anyone remember feeling this way and can tell me how beautifully they feel about themselves now? (Please?)

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome! Wow, that sounds like a heavy burden. What have you tried so far to work on yourself? Have you spoken with a counsellor/therapist about that?

This forum here is a place where people who have persons living with Personality disorders in their lives share their experiences, give support and information. 

[inkative]

Oh - yes, I should actually introduce myself and my background. I'm sorry, I was overwhelmed when I posted last night and wasn't very clear.

My parents and I lived with my paternal grandmother for most of my childhood. I can't guess what personality disorder she had but she loved triangulating people and she especially loved getting me alone and being cruel to me in the absence of witnesses. She was amazing at turning a situation around and make herself the victim when, in reality, she had been the abuser.

My father, also undiagnosed, has many of the behaviors of narcissistic personality disorder. I only know this because ten years ago I dated a man who was a lot like my father, and a lot of the red flags didn't trigger warning bells for me because they were so familiar. After I left him (a feat in itself), I began researching and learned about personality disorders. That's when I made the connection between the narcissist I'd escaped and the narcissist who raised me.

My mother...I don't know how to categorize her. We were fellow prisoners when I was growing up. She wasn't allowed to have friends so she confided in me. I know now that this was parentification, enmeshment, something other than the mothering she should have been doing, but I still hurt for her. She's an abused wife and feels trapped in her marriage because of her religious beliefs.

Early on, my mom told me she had been considering leaving my dad right before she found out she was pregnant with me. She had already been a single mom with my older brother and she didn't want to take me from my father. Logically, I don't think my unplanned existence is why she stayed with him, because I'm 42 now and they're still together. But for most of my life I've carried the burden of forcing my mother to stay with that man.

My grandmother resented having my mom and me in her house, and was vocal about it. So I grew up hearing her make the distinction that it was her house, not ours, and so I always felt homeless. I was staying someplace I wasn't wanted but I didn't have anywhere else to go.

My dad liked me sometimes when I was performing for him, and other times I disappointed him and he gave me long lectures about his disappointment and about my superior older sister. Then he put me back up on the shelf, as if I were nothing more than a music box, and went back to spending time with his mother, his first love.

There was a weird dynamic in our house where my grandmother and I competed for my dad's attention. My grandmother usually won; they have history, after all. I've learned you can't fight a person's history.

So now here I am. In romantic relationships, I've always felt like a placeholder. Like I had no business being there in the person's life but was stealing time with them until I let them go back to their lives. In my career, I just took whatever entry level positions would pay the bills until I lucked into a boss who urged me to get my degree. As a mother of three, I stumbled my way through, feeling like a hack of a parent and so relieved when they all made it to adulthood and don't seem horribly scarred by my ineptitude.

I guess I want to rewrite the narrative that I don't belong here and don't deserve any of my relationships. I feel like the world is my grandmother's house, and I'm practically living out of a suitcase in my own home. So, that's me and that's why I'm here. And thanks for your patience with my inarticulate first attempt at introducing myself.

[inkative]

Oh, and to answer your question, I've been in therapy off and on for years. I have a good support system. I go through self-help books like water. And it all reaches me logically, but somehow my core belief system remains unchanged.

[notrightinthehead]

Gosh, I am really sorry for what happened to you. You seem to have amazing self awareness and you seem to have come to a place in your life where you have reached a comfortable existence, at least externally.  And yet you feel detached from yourself.  When you could be happy with what you have achieved.