E4 – Imposter Syndrome

Julie and Jel discuss Imposter Syndrome – what it’s all about and how it can play out in the lives of those with ADHD.

What triggers their Imposter Syndrome and feeling like a phony? They candidly chat about how doubt, inner strength and belief, and the complexities of managing Imposter Syndrome with ADHD.

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • The definition of ‘Imposter Phenomenon’ aka imposter syndrome, and how it relates to ADHD brains.
  • Imposter syndrome experienced during/after the ADHD assessment and diagnosis process.
  • The juxtaposition of the co-existence of self-belief and self-doubt. 
  • Self-taught and high achieving individuals without tertiary qualifications.
  • Is imposter syndrome self-imposed, or do others play a part in triggering this doubt?
  • Correlation between imposter syndrome, self-criticism and self-identity.

Key takeaways:

  • While initially the original 1978 study focused on high achieving women, anyone can experience imposter syndrome. 
  • Even those awaiting an ADHD assessment, or those recently diagnosed may feel like an ‘ADHD fraud’, that maybe they’re just lazy after all, when comparing themselves to others with more severe ADHD symptoms.
  • Self-doubt, despite being successful achievers, can have crippling effects when it comes to careers, promotions or even taking a compliment.
  • The generational differences of ‘learning on the job’ vs ‘university qualified’ can result in a disjointed view on capability and talent, lending some to doubt their abilities regardless of experience.

Links:

Julie is the author of THE MISSING PIECE:  A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD (Harper Collins, 2024).

Transcript:

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of ‘The Missing Piece’ and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.

JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55

JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode we’ll be talking about Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome actually first started out in around 1978, it was first called imposter phenomenon [imposter] Imposter Phenomenon. It was regarding high achieving women in a way that they felt phony despite their high achievements and qualifications and hard work. They’ll feel as if it’s all down to chance or luck. Now, this isn’t just an ADHD thing by any means, nor women. Everyone can experience Imposter Syndrome but today we’re talking about how it relates to us. We have ADHD and how it can affect us and perhaps some of the reasons why that’s the case.

JEL: Absolutely. I’d say of all the various aspects of ADHD, the older I’ve grown the more the Imposter Syndrome, we’ll call it that for the sake of this episode, that’s really started to play on me more and more, as I complete and come to the end of some of my careers. In both our cases we’ve had very successful careers and done some probably quite clever things, and neither of us have university entrance exams. So, we don’t have degrees, or college for you guys in America, so we’re not actually qualified in anything other than our life experience and working in those environments and teaching ourselves as we went along.

JULIE: Which is quite common, I think, for many people our age, or even older, where you’d work and you’d learn on the job. For me it just seemed common sense to observe, a lot of self-teaching too about a subject. In a situation where we haven’t gone to university, and as senior managers, for example, feeling like we have achieved great things and a simple comment such as “Oh which university did you go to?” is enough to just see us crumble because we haven’t. So, are we phony? Does that undermine all the hard work and achievement that we’ve done in our lives. And, I think it impacts upon us with ADHD because it’s hard to moderate those feelings of emotion, or how we deal with criticism and rejection, so it all kind of piles in together to make Imposter Syndrome quite an interesting thing in our lives. For those that are looking for an ADHD assessment, or perhaps those who have just been diagnosed, it’s quite common for them to also feel like a bit of an imposter as well. They may compare themselves to others with ADHD and despite getting a diagnosis, through a professional psychiatrist/psychologist they’ll still think “Oh, I don’t know. Was I … do I really have ADHD? I’m not as bad as some people out there,” and they begin to doubt themselves as well. So, it’s all about doubt, isn’t it?

JEL: The perfect conflagration I think is the word.

JULIE: Oh, my goodness.

JEL: It just rolls itself into a big snowball. Round and round and round all the aspects of this and the snowball gets bigger and rolls down the hill. What happens then, I don’t know. For me it started at school. I was good at school and then going into university A Levels, they call them in Britain … I was a smart kid and in the A stream, so I guess I was just destined for university and one point I was told I should become a scientist, thankfully I didn’t. But I just couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t focus.  My ADHD … there’s no way I was getting through those A Levels. I failed them all. I just could not give it that level of concentration. But I’d self-taught myself electronics and to play an instrument. But the electronics, in particular, was a fascination I had from about the age of 11. And, it was just so challenging, you know. It’s infinitely challenging and it’s fascinating for an ADHD brain to take on that challenge and all the complexities. For example, that led me eventually, after about five or six years of leaving college, to end up working in the space industry building space satellite … well not really satellites, instruments for planetary landers and satellites … a higher level of technology as you can work in. And, I just don’t know how I ended up there. One job led to the next and, you know, it was good. I was good at it. I had a great … it was a great team I was in. It was just fantastic. It was a heck of a thing to do, to work for the European Space Agency on some incredible projects. And, then later that led to working on a team developing the transmission system for the Bugatti Veyron which, at the time, was the fastest super car in the world and so that was pretty high-level stuff. And, you know, I was given a lot of autonomy there to set up a testing department. No qualifications, none whatsoever. None at all. After that I decided I wanted a career change by perhaps age 30 or so. So, the internet was starting out … a lot of people didn’t even have an internet connection. So, for the next 20 years I self-taught myself to become a web developer and run a successful business. No qualifications, none whatsoever, just self-taught. In fact, I’m just still doing that now to some degree. And, in parallel to all of that, right from the earliest days, I taught myself to become an audio engineer, and now a music producer, and have and own a recording studio, and everything that comes with that. So that’s briefly the examples of stuff I think that’s pretty high-end. And yourself, Julie?

JULIE: I’m just going to ask more about that Jel.

JEL: Okay.

JULIE: Because you were clearly doing great work and you weren’t fooling your employers. No. They knew what your experience was and you were doing the job amazingly well … and they asked you back several times once a certain project had finished, as well. So, you weren’t an imposter. When did that … when did you feel the Imposter Syndrome, despite your high achievements? When did that kick in?

JEL: So, it comes as you get older. For me, as I got older and you look back, and you find yourself explaining … some people ask “What have you done then? What’s your career been?” and you explain your careers and you think, I’m making this up. This is ridiculous. How … you know, to achieve in the electronics alone at that level of work is one thing, but then in the web development … it wasn’t just the guy down the road wanting his plumbing business, it was working at the top end of the music industry, in the classics and jazz sections of the biggest labels in the world … on the biggest artists. I look back and I don’t believe I did it. I just feel like I’ve been an imposter because I don’t have any qualifications. And it’s been two or three different careers.

JULIE: Interesting, because that is not self-doubt. That’s almost doubt creeping in from other people and when it comes to stand up for yourself and say “No, I did all of those things,” that’s, you know … The doubt didn’t stem from you, but it was almost introduced by other people questioning you. And one thing for sure that we struggle with, with ADHD, is criticism and rejection. And so I think if we’re questioned about something that we’re clearly passionate about, you know, it shakes us up a bit … going “gosh is there something we’ve missed?” You know, perhaps you weren’t worthy of working on all of those projects. There’s a doctor in the US called Dr William Dodson and he’s a psychiatrist. He had reported that, by the age of about 10, children with ADHD would have received around 20,000 negative or corrective comments. And when we look about that age between, you know, 7 to 10, that’s our informative years when we’re building up our character and our self-esteem … certainly starts to grow at that point in time.

JEL: It’s the self-identity years.

JULIE: Correct.

JEL: Around the age of seven is when you become self-aware that you’re a separate person to everyone else.

JULIE: I’m sure there’s the element of self-doubt is there from the very start and so, you know, catapult that 40 years on, like ourselves in our 50s, sometimes that just doesn’t go away and we think … are we worthy of being the professionals that we are? I was at a book fair the other week and I introduced myself to another author as I’m an ‘accidental author’, which sounded a bit apologetic. It’s not. I’ve been writing all my life. Have I written and a published a book before? No, I haven’t but gosh I’ve been writing for years. I’ve been writing for magazine and newspaper.  I’ve been blogging. I’ve used it in my contracting, all throughout my careers, and it’s interesting that I’m almost apologetic.

JEL: I just want to pause you there a second Julie. In your careers … Now I’ve had a quick overview of mine, and yours? Your careers?

JULIE: I’ve had lots of careers and we will talk about careers in another episode, because there’s more.

JEL: But for the sake of the Imposter Syndrome, some of the achievements you’ve had? 

JULIE: I’ve been given some high accolades for some of the work that I’ve done, which has been in marketing … has been the major career for me for over 25-30 years. And, I’ve achieved some great things and I’ve been given employee of the month, and pay rises, and promotions, and the whole lot … but because I have this sense of almost I was an ‘accidental marketer’, I don’t feel … or I didn’t feel, worthy of those things.

JEL: Julie, you’re never very good at, you know, singing your own praises. So, you started off when you were young as a runner in your 20’s or so, as a runner, and very quickly became a production manager, in TV or film was it?

JULIE: Yeah, yes yes yes, but I … no, I didn’t have any training for that and I learned on the job. And I think … I did a couple of days and then I was employed in full-time, and it was a beautiful several years in the film industry. But I didn’t have any training. You’d need to be there at a certain time. You’d do it and you’d do your things, and you’d run around and you’d problem solve. It all seemed perfectly natural. I didn’t feel that I needed to go to a college, or some sort of workshop, to … 

JEL: As you did not train in acting and became a professional actor. As you did not train in professional voice work, as a lot of people do, and spent 25 years as a professional voice-over artist on some of the biggest brands you can imagine. And as you worked as a contractor on some of the biggest brand names in the world, in various capacities, with responsible roles so … This is the thing, isn’t it. I think your Imposter Syndrome sometimes is slightly higher than mine. I think you’re very sort of, almost coy about mentioning these things because … Don’t you think perhaps, when you look back, is how on earth did you do all of those things and did they really happen?

JULIE: They did. My self-belief and what I know I can do is high. I can just walk into a job and just absolutely hit the ground running and do amazing things.  And, I know I can do that. I’ve proven it so many, so many times and so I know what I’m capable of. It’s just the backstory, I guess, isn’t it. It’s like, well again, did I accidentally do this? 

JEL: So how does this relate to ADHD? Well, that’s a rhetorical question … so, I think neither of us really followed a standard education path. I don’t think either of us would have coped with it too well, back at that time. And, we’re just driven by … I for me personally, I think it’s a dopamine hit. Always coming back for me, what gives me the dopamine? And, for me it was always learning learning learning, an inquisitive mind. My word, put me into the world of electronics, one thing, but heavens. When the internet came along and there was a box in front of me, excuse me, and I could learn everything about anything. It just … it was the world’s largest library. I didn’t see it as a big social media network. At the beginning, it was the most incredible library. And, so I would be downloading screeds of papers, white papers on the theory of how CD burners worked, and all sorts of things, and just deep learning. That is my dopamine hit … is acquiring knowledge because knowledge is power. Power means you can make things, do things, change thing. How does a recording studio work, you know. Someone looks at the studio … they walk in. “My, where would you start?” It’s a complex system with simple parts. “How do you know?” I learned, and the dopamine is constantly getting fed that way.

JULIE: Yes. When it comes to Imposter Syndrome, for me too, and this is again after 25 years of marketing in senior positions, I was working and specializing in the digital side of things, which I’d learned myself. I learned through trial and error through my own passion projects, outside of work hours, and I became a specialist in digital marketing. Now I hadn’t gone to university and I just felt this pressure that maybe, maybe that’s what I need to do to try and shake off this feeling of an imposter. I’ll go to university. So, while I was working full-time I managed to sort of rearrange my hours and went to university, and did a couple of papers. It didn’t work for me because what I was learning I had learned 20 years ago, or it was common sense, you know what I mean … I wasn’t learning anything new and I didn’t get a dopamine hit at all. I got A’s. It wasn’t that I had trouble with it. I took it very seriously but I just struggled in that environment.

JEL: I do recall you went on a couple of Facebook courses run by Facebook, not a third party, a couple of quite high-end courses in Auckland where the knowledge was cutting edge and there and then, and what was happening then. And, you did hugely benefit from that because it was on the crest of the wave. It was what was relevant then, which was several years ahead of what university were teaching. Oh yes, yes. So, you were getting your dopamine hit from that. That training worked. It was expensive training it … you know, I think one two-day course cost about the same as a half a semester at university, it was yeah very expensive but that’s where we sat wasn’t it, in those spaces.

JULIE: Yeah, it’s almost like a master class. Sort of cramming in at high levels and yeah, rolling over the mundane, getting straight to good stuff. But for us it’s all or nothing, isn’t it. It’s … if we go and commit ourselves to learning something, or a career, we just go 100% into it. There’s no doubt. So, the Imposter Syndrome again comes in when we glance over our shoulder and go “How the heck did I get here?” but we actually have gone there through very proper steps, maybe fast tracked, but very capable. Yeah. It’s an interesting thing.

JEL: I like that concept. Yeah. Absolutely it’s all or nothing. I will keep bringing it back to this ADHD thing and for me it is on or off, on or off. Shades of grey … uh boring … that shades of grey. It’s like go go go. We do it, do it, do it. Get the dopamine. The further up the chain you go the bigger the dopamine hit, the more yeah … But what happens then you look back, and I said at the beginning now we’re older, you look back with this Imposter Syndrome and you say … “Well maybe I … did none of that really happened. Maybe I just dreamt it all. Maybe I don’t know as much as I thought.” Now, the other key thing for me is always being around people that are much smarter than me. I always look towards those people that know more than me and are smarter than me because you learn from them. There’s no point, at any point, saying “Oh look, I’m halfway up the mountain I’m awesome. Look at you lot down there at the bottom.” Saying, “You’re not as good as me, haha. It’s all about me look.” No! When you’re halfway up the mountain you look to the people at the top of the mountain and you think “Wow, how did you get there? Like, you’re ahead of me. How do I get higher?” and that’s what’s driven me, all the time.

JULIE: Another example is actually the house that we are currently in. It’s a beautifully restored farmhouse. We absolutely love it and, at times we’re sitting here at night, in front of the fire these days, and thinking “Wow, how did we get to live in such a beautiful house?” Well, the fact … for the past 12 years we’ve been renovating most weekends. That’s why. It wasn’t accidental. It didn’t … it wasn’t handed to us on a plate. We’ve worked very very hard and sometimes we forget about those steps. Yeah. We sort of fast track to the end and go “gosh” and look again, look over our shoulder, thinking “How did that happen?”

JEL: That reminds me actually, a couple of times I think, we’ve had professional painters come into the space and ask who painted your house? It’s not “Who painted your house for heaven’s sake,” it was “Who painted your house?” Like, have I got competition? Yeah, you have, me. I’m not a professional painter but I made sure I did it how a professional painter does it, you know, the right way. And, that’s a silly thing. I mean that’s not a super duper skill, the only difference between me and a professional painter is they do it twice as fast. So, they’re really cool and awesome. And, that reminds me of another mantra I’ve always had, is ‘the definition of an expert is someone who has done it once before.’ I know that sounds silly but …

JULIE: Well, it is to someone who hasn’t done it before.

JEL: Yeah yeah, it’s like, well you know, you should learn the first time, mistakes, and all. So, knowing that we are more liable to fall into this Imposter Syndrome, what can we do to protect ourselves, knowing what we know? No, that really yeah triggers a thought that the other side of this, the yin and the yang. So, listening to this we sound like perhaps a couple of people skiting. “Aren’t they lucky,” well not lucky, it’s just lots of hard work. “Well done, well done, marvellous.” No no no. There’s a lot of negative sides to this because, first of all, if we were now … if there are certain jobs we wanted to go for now, like if I wanted to get a job sat in an office as a web developer, which I don’t but if I did, the qualification list would be too long for me. My life’s experience, well 20 years’ experience, wouldn’t count and I would be very … I would look at the people in that office and think “You’re all better than me. You all know more than me. You’re more up to date with the current standards and the coding and so I’m just going to be rubbish at this so, boom, I’m no good.” That’s the Imposter Syndrome kicking in big time. I don’t have that level relationship with it where I can be reasonable with myself. As we have faked all of it, almost? You could almost say because we don’t have degrees, did we fake it all in the years?

JULIE: No, we didn’t because we had years and we’ve had decades of experience.

JEL: Well, there’s Imposter Syndrome. I must have faked it, I’m not qualified.

JULIE: Ahh, it’s alive and well.

JEL: Yeah, so there it is. I don’t have any qualifications so there’s a part of me, I use that word … it’s quite a strong word, but I must have faked it all. But no, because I was employed by people, got references, they were happy. Everything was good but it feels like I faked it all. It feels like you know, if I were … say as a music producer, now if someone said to me “Here’s $10,000, please can you produce an EP for me?” I’d be really reluctant to take that money no matter how good that EP could be … is because I’m not qualified, and I don’t … I’m not super famous and successful so I must be a fake, you know. It is a very negative …  it can be quite a damaging thing. And, I don’t know how … I don’t think having any qualifications from day one would make any difference because if you … I couldn’t have had a degree 35 years ago in web development. There was no internet. It was impossible.

JULIE: It didn’t exist.

JEL: So, the Imposter Syndrome can take you down a spiral of self-doubt and that’s anxiety and even depression and worthlessness, can actually, is a very bad place you can go if you allow it to. But, you end up propping yourself up with that. You have to prop yourself up and believe in yourself because a lot of other people will look at you, even at this age, “Where did you go to university?” We’ve mentioned that more than once. “What did you study?” What on earth has it got to do with anything. Yes. You know, it’s …

JULIE: Or even, maybe it does come back to education. Even filling out the census. “What’s your highest level of education?” School cert, but we’ve done so much. We’ve done so much. You know, that shouldn’t …  I don’t know, it’s almost like a label isn’t it, just reminding you even at the tender age of 50 plus, just a reminder that’s all you achieved.

JEL: What’s your occupation? Every census we change it just for fun, don’t we? But we’re very much into genealogy so we know it’s quite important that in a 100 years’ time, for the great grandies and so forth, to find out what we’re up to. Yes. To piece up together our lives, but we do change it each time. And, I remember writing down music producer, and I thought “Oh, I must have been really famous. I wonder who they produced?” Well, a few artists but largely myself. We make money off music, don’t we, get paid royalties … so we can’t be that bad. But, you know, I’ve read a lot of biographies of musicians who don’t actually believe they’re real either. They just can’t relate to it. You can relate to connecting with one person through your arts but can you connect with half a million people in a stadium, or fans you’ve never met? Or that, you know, I almost imagine if I’d been in that … professionally in that side, at that level of that career, I probably wouldn’t have made it to this age. My ADHD and mental health wouldn’t have survived it. No no no. Quite sure about it actually. But it doesn’t take away from the fact I still value it as a deep part of who I am, and I still want people to enjoy the music we produce and be recognized for it. But it’s such a risk to put it out there and push yourself forward, isn’t it. It’s like going for that job interview.

JULIE: Despite Imposter Syndrome, and you’re hearing it now, and the examples that we’ve given, we still strive and go forward regardless. So, it hasn’t hindered us all our lives. We at times, just go “Let’s put our blinkers on,” and go forth anyway and not listen to other people.  Just go forward because again, with this criticism and potential rejection, it’s … we’d rather not know about it and just go on. What drives our passion, and our dopamine, and what we’re good at … and just go forward.

JEL: Yeah, there’s a classic full circle. So, if we were to push our music it into a larger marketing space, where more people could hear it, we run the risk of getting more negative reviews or criticism, and that then takes you straight back to when you were younger. That’s a classic ADHD, not coping with that too well. It’s a dopamine gamble. It’s like going into the dopamine casino and putting it all on red 16. That the dopamine that could come back from lots of great reviews would be awesome but it also … you could lose the house. We put it all on there. It’s all gone. And, so my reaction to that actually is okay, I get dopamine other ways.  What should I do? I go write another song. I go record another song and then another album. It’s like …

JULIE: While you don’t want to anticipate rejection, because you know the hard work and the hours and the skill that has taken you to put a track together, for example, you’re also quite bashful when you do get compliments. Oh yeah. Aren’t you?

JEL: And that’s such a funny thing, isn’t it. Your dopamine is wanting to get all this wonderful praise back, and in my case, it very much is about being recognized as a song writer, it’s not about earning money. It really, honestly, genuinely isn’t, and I know there’s plenty of musicians out there that listen to this say “Oh well … it’s not about art. Well, it is about art for me, it really is. Then someone will say “I’ve just listened to the album. You guys … that’s fantastic,” or “a particular song brought me to tears, it’s amazing.” It’s like, and then I just completely crumble. It’s like, no no no no no no no honestly, I can’t take … I can’t take the praise. And, I don’t know what that’s about. Is that Imposter Syndrome? Back to what we’re talking about it’s like, no no you can’t mean that praise because I’m not real. I’m not really a musician. I’m not really a producer.

JULIE: How interesting. I was listening to you Jel but I’ve just thought of another situation. As 20-something year old, I really struggled to take compliments. Full stop.

JEL: You still do, still do.

JULIE: And, even though, you know, something as simple as “Oh they’re beautiful shoes.” And, I’d look down at my feet and sort of, you know, kick my boots and go “Oh oh these old things? Oh, yeah, they’re comfortable.” Why couldn’t I take the compliment? I was wearing them because I loved them myself. I should have, could have, said “Thank you. I’m wearing … I’m very proud of these shoes. Thank you. I appreciate you making that observation,” but I couldn’t. I don’t know. I really … So, we’re looking at Imposter Syndrome. That it’s not just for ADHDers, no. It’s all genders and age groups, and the lot. It is about, despite achieving highly, just having that element of phoniness. We know that it does impact those waiting for an assessment, or those newly diagnosed. That colourful array of emotions around that time self-doubt can kick in. But also too, to be aware that it does have an impact on our work, and we haven’t even touched hobbies at … you know, proper hobby hobbies. It can impact us and it’s a real thing.

JEL: I just thought of another one.

JULIE: Go on then.

JEL: Photography.  Yeah. You’ve been doing photography for years and you’ve been paid to be a photographer. Yes.  Yeah, I just remembered that one.

JULIE: Yeah, but I’ve never been to a photography class in my life and …

JEL: I think you had a book once. You looked at but you don’t read instructions. So yeah, I think this Imposter Syndrome, yeah maybe you know, being philosophical it could be almost a good thing on some levels. It could be a hand-break from an overinflated ego that then takes us into places demanding even higher levels of dopamine, which can bring us crashing down. Now that might be the very tiny tiny percent of us who do become very successful in perhaps acting or music, and you see these great rises in their careers and these massive crashes. I’m not saying those people have ADHD in every case but I am saying that they get … you can get into a place where you lose perspective on everything. So maybe Imposter Syndrome is just a slight perspective. Brings you back. But it’s a constant balance and I do honestly think those of us ADHD are more susceptible to it. I do think we have higher risk of emotional dysfunction because of it. And, I think every time that we try to put ourselves out there, we are running a bigger risk if it backfires. 

JULIE: It’s a careful one to juggle, isn’t it.

JEL: Yeah, so that’s our thoughts on Imposter Syndrome.

END

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