According to my close friend Wikipedia, impostor syndrome “a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a ’fraud’.” According to my brain, however, impostor syndrome is something much more than that. It doesn’t just consume you. It becomes you, slowly taking over until you are clouded, and feel like you can no longer do what you’ve fought so hard for.
I’m a freshman in college. It’s my first semester. It’s no lie that this semester has been hard for everyone, despite where you come from. However, I do notice that many of my peers are having a better time than I am. At first, I asked myself what I was doing wrong. I wondered how having done well in high school translated to college being full of bad grades, frustration, and countless mental breakdowns. I felt so defeated. I was so confused. It wasn’t until I looked around in my classes, and I was the only one, who looked like me. A Mexican woman. I’d never in my life been the only one in a room to come from where I do, but I realized that this was affecting me even if I didn’t know it was what was happening.
This very realization made me wonder so many things. “What if?” I kept asking myself. “What if I don’t belong here? What if I don’t succeed? What if I’m meant to be somewhere else, where more people resemble my background? What if I got in by mistake? What if I’m not good enough?” These questions, these thoughts, soon became all that was on my mind. My interest in school, which was once my everything, diminished. I felt like I didn’t belong in my own group of friends, who are the sweetest people I’ve ever met. The hardest part was when my mom, who had worked so hard so I could be here, would ask me how things were going. I was lying to her every time I replied with “They’re great. I am so happy.” I couldn’t help but feel defeated.
Feeling out of place in one you’re trying to make your second home isn’t easy. The truth is, however, that my attitude wasn’t helping. My feelings were justified because they were what I felt and that’s okay. However, your thoughts don’t just consume you. They become you. That’s scary. College is scary. Mindset matters, however, what you put out into the world is what will come back to you.
I kept thinking back to 4th grade me, a little girl who so strongly wanted to be a lawyer. Then, I thought about 7th me, who said no matter what she’d be the first in her family to go to college. I thought about high school me. The one who would stay late, to do all of the extracurricular activities making sure that I was more than prepared for that. The same one who studied for weeks on end to keep my GPA high, and that way I could get into college. I thought about all of the times where I did well, and I realized that this isn’t a mistake. I’ve worked hard to be here. I then thought about college me. The same girl who belittled every bit of effort she put in. I questioned how I could question that, and I realized that those emotions were important.
