Imposter Syndrome..

I've just started a new job. My first job in 13 years actually. Not only did I think I'd never ever get a job with my past, or be vaguely capable of it but now my mental health experience is being used to help others who are now going through the same thing!

  

I've never really had a job before. Well..that's not strictly true...I wouldn't count the 6-week supermarket job (which I apparently loved, but have no recollection of) or a boring summer stint as a changing room assistant when I was 16. But at the age of 34, I find myself feeling totally unprepared for life in the workplace. 

My university degree was music..and let's face it, it's one of those degrees that you can't actually do very much with outside of the music world, plus I don't really remember that much of it anyway.

Looking around me when I was younger, a job was a thing that grown-ups did which they hated, left them exhausted, paid them very little money, and left them no time for their families, so why on earth would I want to get one? I have no idea where this mind-frame came from because I knew people who did love their jobs, and were very happy, but they were a minority. 

Naturally as time went on, a job was built up in my mind as one of those unattainable things - like sex before you have it. 
I went straight from school, then uni, then in to "the system" and as years and years went by the thought of getting one of those things seemed a million miles away and virtually impossible.

But I got one. And I got it sort of by accident and very unexpectedly..but that's another story!

The thing is (if I'm completely honest)..I feel a total fraud. I haven't got a scooby as to what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm naturally quite shy, and find the public aspect of the job very challenging at times - They must have made this huge mistake in hiring me, and will very soon be asking me to leave!

I confessed all to a colleague and was stunned to find she felt the same way despite being there years, and from asking round various friends and acquaintances it seems I'm not alone. 

There have been several times where I've taken fright and thought of giving it all up, but after years on benefits dreading very nosy taxi drivers, it's kind of nice to be able to say "I do this..I work for this organisation"..It really makes all the fear worthwhile...plus the feeling of self-respect and of finally having a place in the world..it's indescribable!

I'll stick with it and give it my best shot. I can't do any more than that. I'm guessing a lot of it is fear of the unknown, and a misconception from childhood that stuck with me. All I need to do is build up the confidence to take my first shaky toddler steps on to the ladder..but I'm sure I'll get there in the end - one step at a time.

Oh!..If anyone's interested - those nosy taxi drivers? I used to tell them that I was a pole-dancer which shut them up pretty quickly!

Kerry.