tell me more about imposter syndrome....

[chrispackhamslovebunny]

i think i may relate to this, i am on the verge of giving up my job because i dont think i can do it, i think i am in it because of some sort of fluke that no one has ever found me out yet.

i feel crap at it despite a really long drawn out recruitment process.

i cant do it. i go home every week feeling like crap and wondering what people are saying about me.

i feel like a total failure.

Ok and thank you, I'm being over sensitive perhaps, Ill check those links out, thanks.

Don't understand why you're getting a kicking op.

Anyway, you sound very anxious over it all and perhaps you could go see your gp? I have ocd so everything i post is through that lens i'm afraid, not trying to diagnose over the net i promise but the constant worrying and anxiety and intrusive thoughts about are you doing your job correctly sound like ocd or a general anxiety disorder. Your gp could help with medication or counselling perhaps.

Either way, I hope you feel better soon xx

thank you - i suppose i am a worrier. i used to have crippling anxiety issues but the older i got the more i overcame them, but being a sucker for punishment i have thrown myself into a career that involves lots of stress, and im probably navel gazing in a way that isnt healthy - i try not to and and i do have good days where i think "yes, i got that absolutely right" - i need to work on being assertive and i suppose i forget that i dont have to do everything on my own, colleagues are never that far away if i get into real strife.

up until very recently i used to get a very nervous stomach at the thought of going to work because everyday was bringing another unknown, but i realised last week that mostly the horrible stomach churning has subsided.

im suprised because i don't take my work home with me - i don't usually sit and worry about it when im home, and i love my time off (its a relief). Having said that i do enjoy my job, just not certain aspects of it and people kept telling me that i would change due to the job - i havent changed at all, and on one hand thats probably a good thing on the other i just feel it should change me, in fact i was banking on it, but im still just me, and i dont feel like me as i am is good enough.
im not very feisty and acting tough doesnt come easy, fronting people up feels alien to me. People tend not to get too arsey with me, and i am quite a calming influence and i find i can talk myself of corners, and im very persuasive, but i need to know for myself i can hold my own and protect others if it comes to it. I also realised the other day that i am always putting myself down, or making jokes about myself - its not me being humble - its my self esteem thats at rock bottom. - i feel like they must see me as dead wood that they have to drag about with them, because in a new situation im clueless and they have to tell me what to do.

i just keep expecting to get found out. Like im waiting for someone to tell me it was all a mistake, I watch others wade in without a thought and i wonder how they do it. I m on my own soon. i suppose that will be the sink or swim moment. sometimes i have no idea why i did this, its like i found the thing i would find most difficult and made myself to do it.

i know from speaking to colleagues that everyone has a wobble, and most people ive spoken to have said they teetered on the brink of leaving for a good while before settling in, and thats the only thing that keeps me hanging on in there, that and the hope i will feel differently some day soon.

I've been watching and thinking (and missed the initial slating and wasn't sure if you'd be back once I'd caught up) and while I don't know a huge amount about imposter syndrome I do know a bit about people and a bit about people at work.

IME the ones who don't worry, who don't question, who don't wrestle with the enormity of their position (when it's a very responsible job) are more likely to be doing a bad job because they are complacent, arrogant, bored or under-utilised.

The day you stop worrying is the day you stop improving. You'll either have done everything you wanted to achieve or you've hit burn out. Either way it'll be time to move on. I don't think from what you've said you're even close. Especially because it's the police where praise is often less forthcoming but if you cock up you'll know about it.

It takes about 2 years to start doing a new job adequately and have built enough experience to have made some sort of track record. Give yourself a break. It's still relatively early days.

I also wonder from looking back at your posts if you're a "talker"? Someone who needs to verbalise things to make sense of them. I am a talker. I don't even need to have feedback, nor does the person I'm taking to have to have any understanding or the situation; it the process of verbalisation that is important.

Maybe having a mentor or coach you can unload to would help? Or keeping a private diary? Or just talking at someone. My dh is my sounding board because when he gets in from work he just wants to sit. No conversation, no interaction... just sit for hair an hour. I use that half hour to unload. It works well for us because he's not even listening but i get it all out and he gets his rest.

lettheslaughterbegincognito - thank you for those links. ive just read them both, and i feel that what they are saying is very familiar. it was good to read the first one, that feeling like this may not always be a bad thing.

and thanks katie - you reaffirming what my head is telling me - i just wish i could believe it. i dont want to become another cynic, and i do really care about my job, i often say or do things that colleagues then groan at because i make more work for myself - i dont always seek out the easiest thing for me - more the best thing for a victim and sometimes that might mean more work for me, but i care about what im doing and i treat people how i would want to be treated, the danger in this job is it becoming just a job and some aspects of any job can be seen as a pain in the arse....the way i see it is im getting paid no matter what - so i might as well be doing something as doing nothing.

some people do try your patience and sometimes you want to tell people to grow the fuck up..ive just got to find a balance and find a place where i can feel ok with it all and i hope that day will come where i stop feeling like i got this job by accident. i wish i could feel more confident, more able, more like i belong, i look the same as everyone else, i have to start acting like everyone else.

god yes im a talker....thats exactly how i work things out, and im of the moment too, i can work through most things if i can talk about them. i think thats what ive found so hard with this - i cant fess up to anyone how i feel.

just realised - thats what im doing here. talking. on paper. to total strangers.

don't - it helps to talk to anyone, and it's easier to tell the whole story if you're doing it to total strangers.
You're making sense of your own thoughts.
that's invaluable.

That's ok - it's what this board is for... having a good talk! I've tried talking to inanimate objects but it doesn't work nearly as well.

It is tough feeling different but that's how progress is made. You are the future. The old school lot will eventually become the minority and there will be more people like you. I'm sure much of the problems the police force has faced in the past have been down to the culture. Traditionally the police has had a "masculine" culture. What you describe is more typical of a "feminine" culture (nb nothing to do with men/women but a theoretical concept). People like you and your ilk make all the difference when it comes to changing negative behaviours and old fashioned cultures that harbour prejudice and prescribed ways of doing things.

Is there an internal mentoring scheme you can join? Or another officer who you admire and respect who you could ask to be your mentor? I think you might find it tremendously useful. True innovators and progressives often have a mentor because they're breaking new ground, as do leaders who might not have a suitable superior to bounce ideas off.

there is some sort of mentoring thing but ive no idea what its about - no one really does. im also not sure what they do - i remember somewhere in the recesses of my mind hearing something in training but they said if you use it you have to know exactly what you want or something to that effect....no one ive known so far has used it, and im not sure exactly what i want.

ill have a look on the works internet pages just to see whats out there. Some days it feels ok, but like yesterday i started off by answering some one elses sign so was (ive been the same sign for weeks and they changed it yesterday) and it just went downhill from there, and ive realised it does make a difference who im put with to work - some people i feel more confident with than others and some i gel with better, some put me at ease and others make me feel a bit stupid. its probably more to do with them than me tbh.
i do get on with everyone and i can have a laugh and joke with them all. Maybe when im working alone ill find my confidence more without people always looking over my shoulder and feeling under scrutiny.

thanks again.

Having read the whole thread and then gone back to your original post OP, I can identify with some of your thoughts/concerns

If you do the sort of job I think you do - probably similar to me, its is the norm to be cynical and if you do appear to "care" about a client/patient, then colleagues comment.

I personally love my job, love the satisfaction is knowing that I've made a difference and that I've listened yet get crippling anxiety worrying about "have I made the right decision" - I get very little feedback on the outcome of my decisions

Professionally I have the respect of my manager and I know from performance reviews that I'm doing well but I often feel that I'm out of my depth and that my colleagues wonder how come I have my job (I'm very young to hold the position/type of job I do - 10-15yrs both age and career experience less than most of my colleagues).

I am assuming that the posters who have made unkind comments don't work in this kind of environment.

If, at the end of the day, you enjoy your job, stick with it. I have tried to console myself that a little anxiety/concern keeps you on your toes and stops you becoming complacent.

OK. Some people I know in the police (which if not your specific profession is I suspect related):

No 1. The toughest nut you will ever meet. Nice, kind, but tough. The one you know you can trust your life to. The one everyone wants to partner with. Now I know that when he came back from 7/7 he sobbed his heart out to his GF. It took him weeks and weeks to get over the 'clearing up' that he had to do. It made him doubt that he had the backbone to do the job and he nearly quit. In the end he switched to a specialist area as it was the only way to 'calm himself down'

No 2. The joker at work. Always seems calm and chilled. Except he has black black phases where he cannot sleep because he relives again and again the times he thinks he got it wrong, and all the 'consequences' that he seems to take personal responsibility for. Never mind the 10 years of getting it right, all he can think about are the two or three marginal cases where he thinks he maybe called it wrong.

No 3. The one who goes to work every day praying that he won't encounter a certain category of crime, because he dealt with a case so severe that he physically shakes when he meets perpetrators of the same crime (even minor versions), and he fears that one day he will thump the shit out of a suspect and he knows that if he does he will lose his job/career/pension

If you were ever able to scrape under the skin of your colleagues, you will find that many of them feel exactly as you do. The three examples I have given you are of people in their late thirties who are comfortable enough in their own skin to know that they are able to do their job brilliantly 90% of the time and that is good enough. They've pretty much got past the stage you are at, but they all went through it. I only know the details above because they have been confident enough to confess it - you can bet your life that in their first few years in the force wild horses wouldn't have dragged that stuff out of them.

Whether you love the job enough to persevere, only you can tell, but I lay money on the fact that nearly all the people around you feel exactly the same as you do. Do they all look like failures to you?

I'm sure if you went to some of the more active boards seeking opinions from people in your exact profession you will get more reassurance on this.

oh god thank you.

yes its police. front line.

Superb post anewnamechanger.

Just wanted to say, i'm not a person who usually has much to do wtih the police (thankfully) but if i did i would probably be extremely stressed about whatever was happening and you would be exactly the kind of person i would most want to be dealing with me.
i totally understand your feelings at work (i'm a bit like that myself) but i think you should hang in there.
try to remember, even write down, positive things others have said about you and your work and read them through occcasionally.
i think it will get easier - like others have said 2 years in for any job is probably about right.
i suspect it's a working environment with a lot of bravado, no need to compete imo.

I think you're fantastic, and just what the police as an organisation need. You're not typical (certainly don't seem to be) and thank goodness for that.

When I started at Uni I was convinced there'd been a mistake and I spent the whole of my first year waiting for the tap on the shoulder and the words "Sorry, Jux, we didn't mean you, we meant a different Jux, off you go now". This, despite the admissions officer on our first day, telling us that not one of us was there by mistake; that he didn't make mistakes; that every single one of us was there because we were entitled to be there, had passed all the tests required and were wanted there.

I finally admitted it to some friends sometime in my 3rd year. Every single one of them had spent their first year thinking they weren't really meant to be there either! These were confident, obviously highly intelligent people. We were all in our 30s.

The point is, that you may feel you aren't up to it, but no one else thinks that. You'd soon know about it if they did. And you have no way of knowing whether they don't all feel that they are lacking and not up to it, either.

I think that just by doing the job, you will prove to yourself that you're fit for it. What you may need to decide (a bit further down the line) is whether it is fit for you, whether you find it satisfying and challenging enough for you, whether it is good enough for you, whether you want to do it or want to do something else.

That all comes later, though. In the meantime, continue to do your job, continue to show yourself that you can do your job; tell yourself that most likely a lot of the others feel the same as you. They may put on hard fronts, but I bet loads of them are jelly underneath.