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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask if you feel like a fraud in everyday life?

38 replies

FallenThroughTheRabitHole · 21/05/2015 15:19

If I'm being truly honest I always feel a bit of a fraud. Not because I'm lying about something but because I have no idea what I'm doing be it at work or at home. I'm always just acting in the situation with no strategic insight.

I've read a lot on 'Imposter syndrome' and that's not what this is as at least imposters have somewhat of an idea it's just they think they shouldn't be there but are coping. This isn't an issue about anxiety or confidence either. It's just a case of not really knowing what the hell you are doing but acting in the moment with no real insight or plan.

Does anyone else go through life the same? With parenting or work or relationships. Not quite here nor there but somehow just surviving because that is at least our basic instinct?

OP posts:

TTWK · 21/05/2015 15:26

Yes, but that's because I am a professional con artist.
Now, does anyone want to buy timeshare in Spain?

Bonsoir · 21/05/2015 15:30

If your thoughts and actions are habits embedded from childhood training rather than the product of your own independent analysis and decisions - yes, you will often feel like a fraud/imposter.

MrsFrisbyMouse · 21/05/2015 15:33

I'm still waiting to feel grown up.

woowoo22 · 21/05/2015 17:23

Yes
Yes
Yes

Bonsoir - I can relate to this. Sometimes I get a feeling of elation in the supermarket because I can buy whatever I want?! And no one can say no.

Original poster

FallenThroughTheRabitHole · 21/05/2015 17:33

I wasn't posting for facetious comments. I just wanted to know if others could relate.

OP posts:

SylvaniansKeepGettingHoovered · 21/05/2015 17:35

I sometimes think this way, e.g. I can't believe that I'm allowed to decide what we are going to have for tea, or a random thought when mopping the floor/putting clothes away/doing the shopping, I sometimes can't believe it's me doing it.

But for me it's more of a 'wow, how did I get to this age and have two children', not so much that I don't plan or that I don't know what to do.

MrsTedCrilly · 21/05/2015 17:44

I agree in some ways! I just want to live a peaceful life with my family not taking anything too seriously, just chilling out.. But everyone else seems to have such structure to their lives. Kids activities, birthdays, events, savings, holidays, sporting things, sponsored this and that, career planning, birth plans.. It's like no-one can let themselves just 'be'.

Mrsderekshepard · 21/05/2015 17:46

I do most days. I don't feel ' grown-up ' enough to be making some of the decisions I have to make.

ALittleFaith · 21/05/2015 17:48

I do. It's all a show. One of my junior colleagues said recently how she admired me because I cope so well in our stressful work environment. It's all a show. I'm on anti-depressants and a couple of weeks ago I had a panic attack in a bathroom! I'm waiting to see if I'll be assessed as being ASD (I requested the referral) because reading up on it, lots rang true.

FannyPlant · 21/05/2015 17:50

I don't think anybody knows what they're doing. We're all just winging it!

FirstWeTakeManhattan · 21/05/2015 17:51

Similar to Sylvanian, I get really excited and slightly baffled that I'm allowed to book holidays and that I get to take my family wherever we want.

The fraud-in-your-own-life thing has struck a chord and I suspect I have a touch of it. Will be reading thread with interest.

GlitzAndGigglesx · 21/05/2015 17:57

Not so much a fraud but as others have said I can't believe I'm a parent and have to make all these life decisions and work and have someone dependant on me. I think it's partly because most my age have finished uni and are holidaying with friends or still living at home and don't have responsibilities as such. That's not a dig btw at fellow 22yo's!

emwithme · 21/05/2015 18:05

Oh fuck yes. I'm all "fake it till you make it" except I've been consciously faking it for at least 30 years now (I'm 38 and can remember feeling like this in Mr P's class at junior school) and I still haven't made it.

I feel like a fucking child still but people see me as a fully-ish functioning adult. WTAF is that all about?

Other people seem so much more in control, but maybe they're ALL faking it too. Bit like swans...all calm and serene on the surface but paddling like fuck underneath to stay afloat please tell me other people are like this

6monthsin · 21/05/2015 18:09

I think I know what you mean op.

I feel like other people are far more clued up than I am at this funny old game we call life. I wish there was a manual sometimes!

WhenMarnieWasThere · 21/05/2015 18:12

Oh definitely.

I wonder how the heck I managed to get married and buy a house.

How I managed to keep 2 children alive for over 14 years.

How I managed to get my degree and land a teaching job.

With every lesson observation and and inspection I think 'Phew, they haven't rumbled me'.

(I know that I'm a good teacher and enjoy my job but still feel this way).

ShatterResistant · 21/05/2015 18:13

I read somewhere once that it's very common for women to feel like frauds, particularly in the workplace. I know I do. Men, conversely, often have a misplaced sense of self-belief. It contributes to the salary gap, apparently.

HamishBamish · 21/05/2015 18:15

Definitely, especially at work. I often have people coming to me for advice and I think 'why are you asking me'?

TheoreticalOrder · 21/05/2015 18:19

I'm fine at work, and at home. It's the school gate I'm Mrs Fake.

Pipbin · 21/05/2015 18:21

I am a teacher, a proper real grown up job. I do, of course know what I'm doing, but I don't feel like a proper grown up.
With every lesson observation and and inspection I think 'Phew, they haven't rumbled me'. Exactly this. I have to go to meeting and talk about stuff like I know what I'm talking about.

I don't (can't) have children and anyone with children is a real grown up in my book.

I did see a FB post a few days ago about that moment when something happens and you look for a grown up to sort it out, but then you realise that you are the grown up.

Pipbin · 21/05/2015 18:23

I love this:

To ask if you feel like a fraud in everyday life?

headinhands · 21/05/2015 18:24

I felt like this when I was voting the other week like someone was going to intercept me and escort me out of the polling station for 'pretending to be an adult'. I'm 43 and have voted in every local and general election since I turned 18.

headinhands · 21/05/2015 18:25

Oh and when I drove on motorways. I feel like I shouldn't be on them and that motorways are for real adults.

PearlNicholas · 21/05/2015 18:27

I'm like that at work, I've landed a really good professional job but feel like I'm going to get found out any minute, , like someone is going to come along and say sorry we've made a mistake, I sometimes feel frozen with fear at the responsibility and this is despite me getting good results and clients saying I'm ten out of ten

SnowieBear · 21/05/2015 18:30

Who said "everybody is leading lives of quiet desperation" or such like?

It terrorises me I'll get found out and exposed for being other than I appear to be to others. Inside, I remain 16. Outside, I've got the high powered job, the big car, the project of a house , the lovely 9 year old I don't quite believe I deserve to be a mum to. And the utterly non-functioning alcoholic husband to add spice to my life.

Right now, I'd like to crawl under the duvet and hide there, ask an adult to take over and deal with it all as I most definitely am not one myself. But I cannot. There's noone else.

And if not me, then who? Fake it till you make, yup...

Coincidenceschmoincidence · 21/05/2015 18:35

This is funny, we were just chatting about this today at work. Three of us, all in our 30's with lots of qualifications and work experience between us all said the same.

I had to do a talk to some students today where I was very much portrayed as the "experienced employer" and it felt really bizarre.

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