Breaking My Silence: The Science and Soul of Imposter Syndrome

I am breaking my own rules today. Stepping outside the carefully curated boundaries I've set for this blog to share something raw, something real, something that nearly broke me. In my reflection of 2024, as I dove deep into the archives of 2023, 2022, and back to 2021 - the year my notary career began - I encountered a voice so toxic, so persistent, that I have to give her a name. Let's call her "B" (and yes, if you're wondering, that stands for exactly what you think it does - I typically keep my language clean on this blog, but sometimes only sailor-worthy vocabulary truly captures the essence of our demons).

What I discovered in this reflection should have been a highlight reel of triumph. The scientific part of my brain knows this. Since 2021, I've built a thriving notary practice, mentored others, created resources, built communities. The rational evidence is overwhelming. Yet instead of celebrating these victories, there was "B," whispering a single word that would echo through every accomplishment, every milestone: Fraud.

The irony doesn't escape me. As a notary, my entire career revolves around verifying authenticity, preventing fraud, ensuring truth. Yet here I was, letting this voice convince me I was the very thing I worked to prevent. Scientists call this cognitive dissonance - the psychological stress that occurs when our beliefs conflict with our actions or evidence. In this case, the evidence of my competence was at war with a deeply ingrained belief in my inadequacy.

Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes first identified this phenomenon in 1978, naming it the "imposter phenomenon." They found that high-achieving individuals, particularly women, often failed to internalize their accomplishments, attributing their success to luck rather than ability. What they discovered happening in our brains is fascinating - when we're in the grip of imposter syndrome, our amygdala (the brain's fear center) activates as if we're facing a physical threat. This explains why "B's" accusations felt so visceral, so threatening.

With each accomplishment I listed - every client helped, every mentee supported, every resource created - "B" remained unmoved. "You are a Fraud," she repeated, a broken record of self-doubt. And here's where I made my crucial mistake: I accepted the label. I took ownership of it. That's when the real death began.

Not a physical death, obviously - I'm here writing this. But something equally profound: the death of hope, of drive, of creativity. Everything that made me uniquely me began to wither under the weight of that single word. Fraud. I sat in my own nothingness, lost in a void of shame and confusion. Some of my mentors had said imposter syndrome isn't real, but if that was true, what was this emptiness consuming me?

Here's what I've learned since then, what the research actually tells us: They're right, but not in the way I initially thought. Imposter syndrome isn't real not because our feelings aren't real, but because the fraud label itself is the lie. It's a cognitive distortion, a glitch in our mental processing. The neuroscience backs this up - there's actually no correlation between competence and confidence. In fact, the Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that truly incompetent people rarely experience imposter syndrome because they lack the expertise to even recognize their limitations.

The truth is, my accomplishments exist independently of my feelings about them. They are objective facts, documented realities that no amount of self-doubt can erase. The clients I've helped, the lives I've impacted - these aren't matters of opinion or luck. They happened. I did them. The signatures are real, the gratitude is real, the impact is real.

Understanding this has been key to my recovery. "B" isn't actually me - she's a collection of internalized messages, a fear response triggered by success rather than failure. Each time she speaks now, I recognize her for what she is: a protection mechanism gone haywire, trying to keep me safe by keeping me small.

But I wasn't made to be small.

So I'm rebuilding, piece by piece. Hope, drive, creativity - they didn't really die. They were just waiting for me to recognize the truth: that the real fraud was the voice telling me I was one. Every time I choose to create despite her whispers, every time I help someone despite her doubts, every time I celebrate a win despite her attempts to diminish it, I reclaim a piece of myself.

And maybe that's the real reason I'm breaking my usual rules to share this. Because if you're hearing your own version of "B," I need you to know: The voice lying to you about who you are isn't the truth. The truth is in what you've built, who you've helped, what you've achieved. The truth is in the impact you've made, whether you feel worthy of it or not.

You don't have to feel qualified to be qualified. You don't have to feel confident to be competent. And you absolutely don't have to feel real to be real.

You just have to keep going, keep creating, keep serving. The rest will follow.

And "B"? She still shows up sometimes. But now I know - her presence isn't evidence of my fraudulence. It's evidence of my growth, my ambition, my refusal to play small. And that's something worth celebrating.