#7 Imposter Syndrome and the burden of masking
How ADHD masking and imposter syndrome holds up back from having a life.
Drop your ADHD masks now, scan titles, and scroll down to the bottom for the takeaways. As of this writing heading hyperlinks are broken. I’ll update it when fixed.
Part 2 of 4 in the Imposter Syndrome Series
Part 2 - Being able to identify what you like to do and how you succeed is a strength, not a weakness.
Part 3 - You feed your imposter syndrome monster when you over-attribute your success to luck.
Introduction
Maintaining your imposter syndrome requires work. You have to create, maintain, and reinforce your imposter to keep it alive. Last week’s discussion of emotional and professional isolation touches on both the maintenance and reinforcement of our imposter monster. Today I talk about how you create your imposter monster and the ADHD masks that weigh you down from being who you really want to be.
Damn, imposter syndrome, how’d you get here?
I’m not sure how my imposter syndrome was born.
I can’t pinpoint a specific age or event from which it sprang to life. It’s like a product feature that has your name on it but you don’t remember how it got there.
It’s weird if you think about it.
For something that can cause so much fear and anxiety, to not have a concrete origin story.
The best image I can conjure is a monster that blinked into existence from my own failings and it levels up in inflated proportions to any of my experiences. The more I do, good or bad, the bigger it gets.
It seems counter to the reasoning that if you accomplish more, the more confident you become.
I’ve met plenty of people with a high degree of confidence and ego disproportionate to the accomplishments I was aware of.
Do they have imposter syndrome?
If they do, damn they hide it well. Why are they so damn confident, over so little. Why aren’t I like them?
I have a theory, my ADHD masking creates the roots of my imposter syndrome.
ADHD masking and the burden of being normal
ADHD masking is the behaviors, tendencies, or personas that one creates to “hide” their ADHD traits in order to appear “normal”.
Examples include showing up inordinately early for a meeting to counteract the habit of being late, not speaking up at a social event out of fear you’ll offend or speak too much, or not asking someone to repeat themselves when you haven’t heard them (polite nodding despite not having any idea what was said).
My personal top masks are:
Not asking for someone’s name again even though I don’t remember it. I ask them to text me their full name to mask it.
Talking quickly or changing the subject to avoid discussion of something I think will be uncomfortable. If we never talk about it, you’ll never find out I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
Telling myself I’m a lazy person even though I’ll work myself to physical exhaustion and illness.
The Life of the Party persona - “I tell the jokes, you laugh (with me, not at me) and you won’t notice my mistakes. The Life of the Party loves the limelight, when the response is positive, and people don’t see the clown crying inside.” - from 7 Masks We Use to Hide Our Faults
I didn’t know about ADHD masks until I started researching this story. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out my masks. At the end of my reflection, my main thought was “Man, I’ve spent a lot of energy building and maintaining these masks”.
I wonder what I could have done or been like if I didn’t have these masks. Maybe I would have saved myself from painful experiences that stem from these masks. Maybe I’d be happier not having to work so hard being someone I think I’m supposed to be.
Regardless, my masks all come from a core need to avoid shame and pain. The same feelings that my imposter syndrome holds over me. It creates the foundation and amplifies the imposter prison I’ve created for myself.
Now that I’m aware of my masks, I need to figure out how to let them go.
Focus on what you can control
There’s no guaranteed way to prevent the greatest fears of your imposter syndrome or ADHD masks from happening. You ultimately don’t have control over whether or not you’re going to fail in a job or find ultimate happiness.
You could be doing great a job and still get laid off or managed out. You can make every right decision and still lose; such is the nature of life. So what can you do?
In this case, you can apply some product management skills and focus on taking action on the aspects you can control. In your journey to defeating your imposter monster and finding happiness, there are two key things you can control.
Listening to yourself, in order to be aware of what you want.
Ignoring or denying what you want and choosing an alternative path.
Between ADHD shame, anxiety, hyperactivity, imposter syndrome, and masking, it’s very easy to lose our sense of self. To get so caught up in thoughts on what could go wrong or what you should do.
You start creating an image of what you should be. (Oh hey, my imposter syndrome monster might have an origin story.) The solution is to listen to what our body and feelings tell us it needs. But our ADHD brain loves pain, so we choose to bury our feelings deep down and make the wrong choice sometimes.
The cost of ignoring ourselves
Ignoring or repressing ourselves can come at a great emotional and physical cost. I’m paying this cost currently in the form of a lack of self-confidence as I look for a new job.
I worry I may not live up to the expectations of what is to be a product manager or not make it through a product interview. In fact, I’m holding off on responding to an invitation to interview as I write this story.
I fear I’ll fail at another PM interview. My imposter monster tells me, “You just failed at one on Monday, why should the next one be any different?”. My feelings tell me I want this job. My thoughts tell me I can do it.
A little voice inside me says to run away and hide though.
Further fueling my imposter monster that people will find out the fraud I really am. We bury our needs and wants so deeply that we don’t realize we’re suppressing our greatest asset and connection; ourselves.
It’s easy to give up and walk away
As I was writing this, I walked away and thought about all my self-doubt and why I hadn’t responded to the interview. 3 hours later I came back to continue writing.
My ADHD brain likes to think and do stuff. Might as well lean into it.
I physically ran around the house and took my ADHD meds. (Tip, exercise, or take your meds before wrestling with your inner self.) After some procrastination and impulsive eating, I realized I need to answer some key questions about this job for myself.
I asked if this was a role that I was really interested in. Is this a challenge that engages me? If it is, then I should accept the offer. If not, there’s no shame in saying no to something you don’t want.
I used my hyperactive brain to think about all the ways this role might challenge and entertain me. I use the term “entertain” as a way to gauge how much my ADHD brain likes something.
Framing it as a source of entertainment changed my mindset from “I need to get a job, don’t fuck it up” to “What are some fun things I can do as PM of X?”. Other fun examples or questions you can ask yourself in this exercise:
Did I continue thinking about this topic off and on over the last few hours?
Would I still think about this topic while on the toilet?
Am I excited about this job or product enough that I would share it with my wife and friends?
Is it a topic I would still enjoy talking about after hours with peers in my domain?
These are all fun ways to ask yourself the question “what do I want” in ways to circumvent your anxiety and engage your hyperactive brain.
If manage to find something where all the questions above get a resounding yes, you’ve found a positive loop.
That ruminating, hyperactive brain should be throwing out some excitement and happiness vibes. Use those feelings to take action and leave your imposter monster by the wayside.
If you find yourself not engaged with the role or the topic, then you have your answer. Move on.
What you need is a place that engages that beautiful, supercharged brain of yours. You deserve to be in a role that’s a good fit. You deserve happiness. The first step is beginning to listen to yourself and define what is the ideal fit for you.
Let the masks go and have a life
You’ve just read a nearly real-time experience of how hard it is to listen to oneself and take action. It’s really hard for me to do it.
Sharing my fears and masks, however, help me begin the process to forgive myself for the shame I feel from my masks. It also helps me forgive myself for those I’ve wronged through my words or actions related to my ADHD.
In doing so, I hope it enables me to share who I really am with others. To live and share my life the way that is true to who I am. I have life, I should share it. I hope you offer the same kindness to yourself.
So did you reach back out to that job?
It took me about two hours after walking away from the computer earlier to reach back out about that job. I decided I was interested in it and my fear and can fuck off in this case. Granted this is after sitting on the message for 24 hours. I may write an advice blog about ADHD but I still struggle to act upon my own ideas. The person I reached out to might even read this one day. I hope they get a laugh out of this. Who knows, maybe they have ADHD too.
Takeaways
ADHD masking creates more burden for us and amplifies our imposter syndrome.
When we don’t acknowledge what we want or who we are, we create a prison of shame and imposter syndrome.
When in doubt, exercise or take your meds before wrestling with your inner self.
Recognize your masks and begin to release them through self-kindness.
Next week
A story about how finding success is not just luck. It’s a whole lot of you and luck.
Glad you’re busting through your imposter syndrome by being real with all of us!