Hannah Rose, a counselor, explains imposter syndrome and how wearing different masks at work and in personal relationships fragments your sense of self. She explores why people feel inauthentic and disconnected from who they actually are.
We fear what other people are going to think of us if they get to know the real us. And often this can manifest in what's called imposter syndrome. Now imposter syndrome can manifest in a myriad of ways. So when I first started being a counselor, I felt like, oh my God, how am I in this position? You know, what if they know? Know what? I don't even know. It's just like I was starting a new profession and I felt like an imposter. So in your current relationships, do you feel like, why is this person with me? Do you feel like, well, if they knew the real me they wouldn't like me. That's still some imposter syndrome, and it's this belief that we need to put on different masks with different people. And often when I bring up the masks, people say, well, who you are at work is probably different than who you are with your friends because you need to have boundaries and be professional. And for a while that was true, right? I've kind of felt like two different people, but I found that that wasn't me living authentically. You can see that that kind of living can lead us to feel fragmented or fractured, like, who am I really?
