If you constantly feel like an impostor or a fraud in your own life, left believing you aren’t good enough to accomplish the things you have, then it’s likely you are dealing with impostor syndrome. And if you are, you aren’t alone, as many great women have, but it isn’t technically a diagnosis yet, leading to even more confusion.
Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou and even Tina Fey have all suffered from feeling like they are a total fraud, or someone that doesn’t deserve to be in the positions they have achieved. If you are suffering, don’t suffer in silence. Suffering quietly can make it all the harder to deal with in the long run, as it can cause the following illnesses to ensue, and wreak havoc on your health.
Extreme depression.
Feeling worthless, and hopeless to the extent of feeling like a fraud can leave you beyond depressed. And this extreme level of depression is never good for your health or career.
Social anxiety
Those dealing with impostor syndrome often get lost in social situations because they are constantly comparing themselves to others, or trying to get a sense of who they are in any given social situation.
It leaves you feeling as though you are never good enough.
If you don’t believe you deserve the things you have worked hardest for, then what will you believe you are good enough for?
It leaves you chronically stressed.
Striving to constantly prove your worth will leave you never feeling satisfied and thus allowing you to get lost in the constant and never ending wheel of attempting to fill this shadow.
Overworking to a fault.
Getting hung up on trying to prove your worth will leave you scrambling to do more and more work until work is all you do. Don’t get stuck in this cycle, as it will only add to your levels of stress.
It ruins relationships.
Oftentimes, in turn, we will idealize our careers over the people we love most, as we continuously run away from what we believe we are: failures.
Eventually, if left untreated it will impact your career.
If you believe you aren’t good enough, you may begin to self-sabotage, and without help, you may sabotage your own career.
You will doubt your own intuition.
Not believing in yourself to the point of feeling like an impostor will eventually also tear away at any intuitive knowledge you may have. In turn, you will doubt everyone, because if you lack belief in yourself so deeply, who can you believe ?