‘I Need an Adult!’: Why We’re in Our Thirties with Major Imposter Syndrome

By Sara O’Rourke

I’m teaching twenty-eight fidgety ten-year-olds to add fractions when, suddenly, another teacher, older and more experienced, marches in to correct my method, condemn my planning and take over the session because the education of these children is just too important to leave to a joker like me. Or rather, it felt like that when a fellow teacher appeared in my classroom. I was, in fact, a very competent teacher, but I couldn’t see it. I felt like a fraud. I knew I was doing a good job but could never shake the feeling that I was playing at it, the game of being a proper grown-up. Sound familiar?

The idea of imposter syndrome has been around since the seventies. It is not an official condition but a collection of bad habits, like perfectionism and valuing yourself by your productivity. In these enlightened times, we know that good mental health should be a priority in the workplace. Yet more than ever, women are struggling. Whenever I discuss feeling like an imposter, so many of my girlfriends casually report the same, as if these feelings of insecurity are just part of the deal. What is stopping us from believing in ourselves? I wondered if our generation has a unique set of circumstances whose intersection causes us to undermine our successes as adults.

We were distanced from our parents by technology; our children have inherited this quality. We had a new language it would take our predecessors some years to learn. Even today, too many older professionals, computing is seen as something you’re ‘good with’ or not, despite its prevalence in our lives. This divide gave parents a sense of being left in the past. Ironically, it was us that was left relatively unskilled in functional tasks.

Domestically, we make it up as we go along. Our mothers were taught how to keep house, our fathers how to do manual maintenance. Due to wanting to subconsciously distance ourselves from the former and not being afforded the other, we ended up without the useful skills traditionally associated with either gender role. The simple tasks that form our domestic lives make us feel sceptical about our self-sufficiency because we’ve learned them through common sense and experimentation rather than being taught by an expert. I am not a natural housewife; I have other interests and aspirations, but I do have that guilt in my subconscious telling me I should be better at keeping my whites white because I’m a woman, I’m thirty-five, because I’m a mother and because, well, capitalism.

We enjoy consuming media whose fashionably ironic humour is reinforcing our collective negative self-image. Are we still buying that all-prevailing myth of the 1980s that we can have it all – super-duper mum, full-time professional, a homemaker with Pinterest-worthy décor and low cholesterol? Our media feeds can become toxic unless we curate carefully because the patriarchal nonsensical expectations were just rebranded for a new audience. The unhealthy messages of old are deeply embedded in how we view ourselves and our success.

We have a lifelong feeling of being a student. One of Tony Blair’s platforms was that half of all school leavers should access university. Some argued this stance would mean a proliferation of less-than-useful degrees. The new grants system did mean uni life was a viable option for more eighteen-year-olds, but the trouble is the way student culture can linger well into professional life. The media reinforces the stereotype of the twenty-something graduate, the creative and aspirational intern paying their dues. This can quickly become old when you realise that you are on your own. The transition into responsibility can feel blurry – many roles still require training on the job. The first year feels like you’re still a trainee, so naturally you are always waiting for validation.

It isn’t news to anyone that the world at large is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. Negativity is reflected at us through our phones, ranging from major atrocities and natural disasters to social issues and generally cynical attitudes online. Yes, every generation does expect Armageddon, but never has so much hard news been so ubiquitous. It can be hard to stomach. It’s a big bad world out there, that we witness in high definition and in real-time. As intelligent and caring beings, we automatically drink this in.    

The biggest factor in the daily war of the imposter is our mental health. I have had major anxiety and depression since I was a teenager, and during that time was often told to ‘get a grip’. As you can imagine, I could barely understand what was happening inside my head, let alone interpret that. The previous generation was encouraged to ‘crack on’ and suppress what worried them. Parents’ remembering their upbringing as something to be endured gives them a weird sort of martyrdom that widens the psychological gap further. This amounts to a lack of authentic understanding or a reluctance to engage. We can’t criminalise this generation with its own context, but it leaves millennial women in constant survival mode, looking for their own way out.

We are living through a moment of realisation when it comes to poor mental health – there is a crisis at hand. Employers know how important good mental health is for a productive workforce but there is no real infrastructure in place to safeguard it. It adds another level of pressure to your working day, when every person is struggling because you feel there is no room to have your own moment. The pressure builds because you are less likely to release pent-up emotion in a regular and healthy way. What are you supposed to do when the wonderful members of your support system are feeling like fakes too?

Millennial woman, you are a rare and beautiful beast. We are the big leap – the biggest change from one generation to the next – and we recognise the worlds behind and in front of us. Yes, our education was inconsistent; we were banking on our phones before we knew we ought to pee after sex, but we are the warriors of our time, the loudest changemakers and best equipped yet to help our successors.

What do we do now? Revel in the incredible uniqueness of our moment, breathe deep and be reassured by the knowledge that we are survivors of a bizarrely tough upbringing, a social and technological soup where we built the road we walked on. Remember that you don’t need to ‘arrive’ and are allowed to simply ‘be’. Give yourself permission.

For many, life is waiting for the next step: babies, promotions, buying a home. It feels like the real destination is never reached. Well, with that pattern of thinking, it never will be. No one has the answer and we’re all a mess. Perhaps this is real ‘mindfulness’. Bill Hicks said, ‘It’s just a ride’. Enjoy it, and I’ll do my best to, too.