Imposter syndrome. Have you ever read something in a mag and thought OMG that's me!

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

Especially if you don't normally take any notice whatsover about these things. You'd normally suggest it's cod psychology or some such.

I would never normally read health pages of magazines, nor would I usually do the questionnaires, you know, where "mostly As" means blah, and "mostly Bs" means ...

But I did today and it's so true.

Imposter syndrome. Have done a bit of googling and it just rings so true.

And I apply it to friendships as well. I genuinely think that people don't really like me and that it's just luck anyone talks to me. And obviously that's causing quite a few problems.

Question is, what on earth do i do now?

Anyone else ever heard of this?

yep, me too. And the minute I heard about it I also had a lightbulb moment and thought yes, that's me,

Always waiting for people to "see through me" and find me out.

The answer? Well, for me it was discovering that actually I really was the person I thought I was pretending to be - the person who I thought I was, was my insecurity. How I found all this out was training in NLP - neuro-linguistic programming - and discovering that I'm ok actually, and other people really believe that too; and accepting that other people aren't that thick that I can pull the wool over everyone's eyes, I have to give them some credit for having functioning discrimination!

It's quite an egocentric position to be in - it is similar to that level of paranoia where you hear people laughing as you walk past and immediately assume they are laughing at you.

So - doing a bit of self-esteem work should help enormously - and accepting that other people are not that easily fooled helps too!

Thanks thumbwitch, glad I'm not alone.

I know it all sounds a bit self help but I really like having a label for it, so that I can understand what's going on.

I thought about it today at work and it made a huge difference.

LOL at your comment about giving people credit for having functioning discrimination. You're so right - other people aren't thick are they!?!!

I've done a little bit of NLP - mostly in terms of how to influence people (i'm in a sort of selling job). What did you do? Was it a private course?

yes it was - the college I used to work for (and still do occasionally) ran the courses for the students and as a lecturer and mentor, I was able to do the full set up to Master Practitioner at a subsidised rate - it was brilliant! Because to do it that way, you have to experience it - and some of the methods are hugely helpful to really sort your head out.

my boss there was the one who really made me feel like an impostor - she was so sure I could do all this stuff and I couldn't understand at all how she thought I could - but mostly she was absolutely right!

Mary - sounds like me too! what mag was it in??