Impostor Syndrome

It’s been roughly 5 years since I began showing symptoms of depression, hence, the name of the blog. 2015; year one. I was ignorant and unaware of what was happening inside of my brain and what my brain was projecting outwards, into my everyday life. As my depression increased in severity, I started to lose the things that were most important to me. It was like watching water trickle through the palm of my hand. The harder I tried to grasp it, the quicker it fell. Frustration and exhaustion eventually consumed me and there was no more returning to a state of normalcy. As one year passed, then another, and yet another, depression was all I knew. It ate at me in every waking moment, as well as in my sleep. One day, I awoke from my 24-hour pity party, and there it was, in permanent marker across my forehead; “DEPRESSED.” It became my new identity.

If you’ve read any of my original posts (like, 5 Years in Purgatory, or A Lone Wolf is a Dead Wolf), then you know the route I took with drinking, self-destructive behaviour, apathy, isolation, and so forth. These actions only reinforced and solidified the descent into my new identity. Like a chameleon, I transitioned and changed skin almost effortlessly. The things that I hated about myself were impatiently waiting to show off their skills, like a minor league goalie, just itching for an opportunity to play in the big leagues. And when you lose the things that are most important to you, the things that keep you stable, motivated, and inspired, your glimpse into happiness, your world explodes with a thunderous crack and all that remains is a smoldering pile of ashes that was once your life. Now, in any typically redemptive story, this is probably the point where the shimmering Phoenix should gallantly rise from that pile of ashes, but not in this story. Not just yet, anyway. No, I gave up. I relinquished all goals, motivations and responsibilities to lay in my self-made puddle of failure and self-loathing. I wasn’t, by any means, content in that state, but I sure as fuck wasn’t willing or capable of putting in the effort to get out of it either. Depressed. This was me.

2016- A year of fear-induced anxiety, crippling panic attacks and apathy through persistent exhaustion. I felt completely alone and isolated for the first time in years. I was alien to the people who knew me, and completely foreign to myself. I wandered, deaf and blind to the world around me. I existed only in a state of grey, an out-of-focus nightmare. My mentally ill identity; further reinforced.

2017- Hijacked thoughts, viral attitude, parasitic brain. My depression took the helm and my anxiety was a daily poison. I gave up again. I had enough. I stopped caring. The suicidal thoughts had dug too deep and I felt unrecognizable. Late in the year, I quit my job and disappeared to South America with no plans of coming back.

2018- My mental afflictions ran hot and cold like when my brother would turn the kitchen faucet on while I was in the shower. I returned from South America with clarity and gratitude for what I had. I took my time, I cared for my mental health. The good days: I ran for charity, helped friends with their own anxiety and depression. I found new career paths, faced challenges and confronted fears. I left my comfort zone, met new people, learned new skills, and broke my self-imposed barriers. The bad days: I withdrew into isolation again, I questioned my progress, gave up sobriety. I wondered why I was even bothering and when would it all end. Back and forth I jumped from relatively healthy and aware, to broken-down and fed-up. From this point forward, is where my impostor syndrome became most noticeable.

2019- When all you know is pain, it’s difficult to conceptualize pleasure. As I learned to fight against my anxiety and depression, inevitably, I got stronger. But in doing so, I started to lose that depressed and anxious identity that I thought made me, me. I didn’t know how to act. I was reluctant to embrace happy feelings because I didn’t feel like I deserved them. I thought that if I let myself feel happy, I’d only be setting myself up for future let-downs. Part of me even thought that if I was no longer depressed, would I be capable of writing, and would it even be any good? Letting go of a perceived identity is like opening your basement door every night to see a demonic figure on the other side. Without fail, the demon is there with fiery eyes, torn flesh, and devilish fangs, waiting to clench your life in its grips and drag you to the depths of hell. Then suddenly, one night you open that creaky basement door and there’s nothing there but some old chairs and cans of beans. You don’t know how to react. You become suspicious, like that demon must be in there somewhere. You’re so accustomed to the hellish apparition that you feel a little lost without it. It was a familiarity, almost a friend. The only consistency in a life of disarray.

Truthfully, I still get this feeling sometimes. I inhibit my own progress by fearing that success will only lead to an equal or greater failure. It’s that head-shy feeling again. Like you don’t want to take too much from the cookie jar, or the universe is gonna slap the shit out of you.

February 2020; Now. The past three years have confronted me with the greatest challenges of my life, and the greatest threats to my life. Panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, and severe depressive episodes. All of these things grabbed me by the back of the neck and shoved my face under frigid water with no plans of letting me up for a gasp of desperation. And although I’ve lost things that I sometimes wish I could get back; I realize that sometimes you have to lose things in order to find yourself. I’ve learned more about myself in three years than I did in the other thirty. I’m more aware and conscious than I’ve ever been. I know that I deserve health through mindful choices. I deserve success through hard work. And I deserve redemption through lessons learned and effort given. I understand that my imposturous feelings are just a fear of losing the depressive identity that I clung to for so long. As I work harder to obtain a life that I can call fulfilled, I scrub and slowly wash away the “DEPRESSED” nametag that I pasted on myself five years ago.

It would be an assumption for me to say that everybody has or will reach this point in their depression. Everybody’s journey is different. But if you do, you’ve been given a raw and direct glance at the dichotomy or duality of life’s highs and lows. You’ve felt the pain of momentous loss, the nakedness of mental poverty. You’ve consumed darkness that would make interstellar views look like bottled lightning. Your ship has crashed on little-known shores, on an island inhabited by many, but understood by few. Your task is to learn how to repair yourself, leave that island and rewrite your story. Often times, you’ll realize that you’re not who you think you are. You’re something much greater.

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