Today has turned out to be a pretty big stress day for me. The actual events of the day, not so much, but rather the day when my body and mind have decided to just surrender to the ongoing siege that life has decided to conduct on my psyche over the last few weeks and months. I don’t quite see the end coming, certainly not on the schedule I’d like to see, at any rate, and the eventual resolution I’d like when it does end feels further out of reach all the time.

I don’t feel particularly in control of my life, at any rate, and if you know me, you might have some idea about how this sort of circumstance works toward grinding me down.

If there’s one thing I can maybe hang a slightly tarnished silver lining on, it’s the fact that at least some of the expectations piled on me are self-inflicted, and if I can convince myself to just let go of a few things, at least temporarily, it might take the edge off, not all of it, but a little bit.

Most of this stuff is work stuff. Without getting terribly specific, I can safely say that my expectations of myself are significantly higher than anybody else’s in my workplace. I can’t move some of these projects along fast enough to satisfy my own ideas of what should be done. However, the fact that I’m moving things along *at all* has, in more than one instance over the last month or so, made me the office hero for the day. However, in my own head, it still doesn’t feel like I’m pulling my weight, and there’s the constant fear that eventually, someone’s going to realize that I’m in way over my head, and they made a terrible mistake adding me to the team, because I’m clearly not qualified…

…which, as you may be aware, is the textbook definition of Impostor Syndrome, and I got it bad.

As for why I feel this way, I don’t know for sure: low self-esteem due to lingering effects of past rejections from corners where such things really hurt, social anxiety stemming from an awkward, socially difficult childhood, or the fact that despite the fact that I seemingly manage to project the image of a competent, good, and generally pleasant (if a little shy) person, deep down, I know that I’m barely keeping it together, and more than occasionally have feelings and impulses that I know aren’t remotely good or pleasant.

You know, just like everyone else. But given that I only see the outward projections of other people, and not their dark, tormented interior monologues, it’s hard to develop a reasonable comparison, even if I logically *know* that the feelings my brain is conjuring are distorted and not entirely rational.

It’s nice to know that other people have similar feelings and inclinations. My friend Ryan recently wrote something along similar lines, and I highly suggest reading it because it’s awesome, inspiring, and familiar to any of us who have dealt with this sort of thing, particularly in terms of body image. As I said, go read it, but I wanted to quote this little bit, because I appreciate the wisdom contained within:

It’s a powerful lesson that our brains, though powerful machines, can be our worst enemy. And sometimes our thinking can’t be trusted.

I need a reminder that my perception of reality can be distorted and that I need to reach out to check my perception with trusted others… And it means trusting that other’s perception of reality may sometimes be more accurate than my own.

Sometimes, you have to know when to stop trusting everything your mind tells you, because, despite the commonly administered advice about going with your first instinct, that instinct can sometimes be self-defeating.