I have a vague memory of my high school English teacher telling us to never start an essay with a definition but she’s not here to give me a grade and this isn’t an essay. I had to google imposter syndrome before I started writing and my findings confirmed what I suspected, that imposter syndrome is exactly what it sounds like. “A psychological pattern in which people doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent, often internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.”
Everyone will tell you when you start coding that this is extremely common with beginner programmers, if not universal. It’s a phrase I’ve heard thrown around a lot and seen featured in articles circulating in the desperate landscape of online beginner programmer circles(of which I am a proud member) but I didn’t give it too much thought until this week.
To be a programmer you have to learn a lot, and you have to keep learning. It’s a world that is constantly evolving and is growing exponentially. I consider myself a person with above average self-confidence. I know I’m smart, I know I’m pretty, I know I’m capable. Sure, I know I mess up all the time, and yet nothing seems to shake the fundamental way I view myself. I will never forget a male ex-coworker that could not believe and would not accept that I dared to acknowledge my own abilities, especially my looks while having a conversation with someone else. “Oh my gawd” he mocked, “I’m so pretty.” Yeah, bro. I am. I have a mirror. I’m not a model, but I was born with a symmetrical face that society has deemed attractive through no fault of my own. It actually has very little, if not nothing at all, to do with me personally and I don’t need that male validation to timidly accept that I might be worthy of being found attractive by some random dude thank you very much anyway every catcaller of every day of my (and basically every woman’s) life. I know what I look like.
This is all almost entirely beside the point and really to say that that guy sucked and I never thought I would be susceptible to doubting myself because the way I feel about my appearance is the way I feel about the rest of who I am. Yet, the more I think about it the more I realize I am full of self-doubt, but it doesn’t present how I thought it would. I thought it would look like not believing that I could do it. Giving up, not trying hard enough. Needing external validation.
But it has been there from the very start. When I was preparing to take my course and I had to start explaining to people why I wasn’t going to be socializing for the next 6 months, I had no vocabulary for the world I was about to enter. So when people asked, I would throw out words such as “full-stack,” “Python,” and “Command Line Interface” and people would nod enthusiastically and be really impressed and excited for me. Maybe they would throw out some other potentially related seeming words. I could tell that they didn’t know what I was talking about, but did they know that I didn’t know what I was talking about?
I think one of the best reasons to take a coding bootcamp and not learn everything by yourself is the comradery. There is someone to your left and right that is equally lost and confused so you don’t feel so alone. And although I am taking a course, I am taking it remotely. So all I see are the back of people’s heads that could be tilting to the side with a lack of understanding or a sense of awe-inspiring comprehension, I really don’t know.
I felt ok for the first couple of weeks, then blindsided by the past couple. Last week was project week. Highlights include being in charge of the database and asking myself questions such as, wait, how do I make a database that’s not stored on my computer(if this seems like the most basic question you can ask, that’s because it is), and spending eight hours over two days for my instructor to help me redoing everything I had already done in 30 minutes.
But the good thing is that I was able to actually talk to my teammates in real time, and everyone could commiserate that this was hard. There was also overhearing random people saying the same thing. And yet, even when I know that we are all more or less in the same position, I don’t want to look stupid in front of my team. I don’t want to ask questions. I don’t want to be the girl that doesn’t know how to code. So instead of asking a question someone might know the answer to, I will try to do something on my own for hours. Feeling that I don’t belong, that I’m behind, that I’m an imposter.
What has been interesting about this past week is that I have started to realized this feeling carries over to all the other things I care about. Most importantly, dance. I’ve been dancing for almost two and a half years and I feel like a fraud. Ever since I started partner dancing I knew that I loved it, I was good at it, and I wanted to make it my life. I wanted to teach. I’ve always thought that I will never be the best dancer, but I can be a good teacher.
The dance world is plagued by amazing dancers that are terrible teachers and when a good one comes to town it is like the heavens open and I feel that I can become the dancing queen of my dreams. But these are too few and too far between. And so I started teaching. But I feel like a fraud. I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t have enough experience as a dancer or enough technique. When someone allows me to teach at their event or even asks me to teach I am always surprised. All I see in videos of me dancing are how I messed up a step. Or how I’m not wearing the right clothes, or how I should smile more, and what kind of internalized misogyny is that?
And I think this is why it’s so hard to go for what we truly want. It’s hard enough to try something, but when you’re fighting yourself, it can seem impossible. The act of failure is the act of being exposed. It’s easier to do something you don’t care about and walk away than to try something that you’re invested in. And, who among us has not been beaten down by life? If you haven’t, please contact me, I will pay you to know your secrets. When it doesn’t seem possible to actually achieve what you want to do, the best case scenario becomes being ignored and the worst is being revealed as you see yourself: an imposter.
However, understanding this negative feeling has created something good for me. Seeing myself as not enough is also what keeps me improving, practicing, and getting better. Wanting to become a better dancer has even led me to exercise regularly, of all things. Wanting to stay ahead in my class forces me to do extra coding challenges and work on personal projects. And even on my worst days, when I can’t dance, I can’t code, and my inner monologue keeps me reminding me that I’m a fraud who hasn’t accomplished anything, realizing this connection if nothing else allows me to be kinder to myself.
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