The Importance of Language: Arguments Against Impostor Syndrome

"Alright everybody, raise your hand if you've ever experienced Impostor Syndrome! All of you without your hands raised, you're a liar." During my freshman year of college, at least three of my classes included this exact conversation. Everybody being told that everybody feels like they don't belong, and that they should publicly declare this feeling of not belonging with the world. 

Even before my autism diagnosis, I found this tendency frustrating even though I couldn't explain why at the time. Now, though, I have quite a few opinions about the use of this label with this diagnosis in mind. First of all, I want to clarify that I'm not against the idea of people feeling like they don't belong; that is a very real feeling that people experience. My biggest issue is with the naming of "Impostor Syndrome." 

According to google, a syndrome is "a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms." In other words, a syndrome involves having a diagnosably different experience characterized by specific symptoms for people with these conditions. Syndromes are very real, and they can significantly impact the lives of people who experience them, and their struggles are different from other people's struggles because of how society puts people with that syndrome at a disadvantage.

Before the DSM-5, Autism was categorized into a couple different categories, including Asperger's Syndrome. Technically, this is included on my own diagnosis paperwork alongside Autism Spectrum Disorder. That diagnosis was the result of more than 20 years of culminated social and experiential differences in my life, six months of pursuit of a diagnosis, and nearly $3,000 before I was given my "syndrome" diagnosis. This lack of that diagnosis resulted in significant mental health consequences for me, as it has for many others.

My younger siblings also share this "syndrome" label, and throughout their schooling they've been actively discriminated against in class and they've been told that they were unwanted socially. They experienced a lot of really hard situations because people made assumptions about them due to their mistaken perceptions about this label. 

With all the negative social ramifications that exist for people who struggled to receive the label of a diagnosis, being told that everyone has Impostor Syndrome feels like a cheapening of my struggles, and it minimizes the things I had to experience to get my diagnosis. If everyone has Impostor Syndrome, then everyone has a syndrome. And if everyone has a syndrome, does that diagnosis really mean anything? In the words of everyone's favorite supervillain, "When everyone's special, no one will be."

When it comes down to it, the naming of Impostor Syndrome is meant to recognize the fact that everyone struggles with connecting and belonging, and I would agree that a lot of people do struggle with this need to connect and belong, especially in places like higher education. However, I feel like my struggles with a "syndrome" are different than those with just "Impostor Syndrome," which is why I had to put so much time and effort into a diagnosis, and why I receive classroom accommodation because of those differences. However, being told "we're all in the same boat" when it comes to these feelings can be more than frustrating.

Some people might say, "This feels like gatekeeping. A lot of people feel like they don't belong, and who's to say that my feelings without a diagnosis are any less than yours with a diagnosis." And this is a valid argument, but I would also bring up the fact that there is a difference between feeling like you don't belong and actively being told by others that you were unwanted, which is what happens to a lot of autistic people who struggle to fit in socially. That confirmation can be seriously harming, and it doesn't happen nearly as often for people without autism diagnoses or other diagnosable syndromes.

For me, being told "Everyone has Impostor Syndrome" is a little like being told "Everyone is a little autistic," to which I would respond, "No, they're not." One of my favorite comebacks to this statement was an info sheet done by The Little Black Duck. Here's a picture of their post on this topic, but I'll write it out for accessibility's sake. 

"Myth: Everyone's a little bit autistic. Autism Fact: By using this expression, you are dismissing and diminishing the reality and struggles autistic people experience in their everyday lives. Not everyone is "a little bit autistic." Anyone can have autistic traits like sensory differences, anxiety, or being introverted, but having autism means there is a very specific way that you think about pragmatic language."
"It's like being pregnant. You either are or you aren't, there is no "little bit." Sometimes we have pregnancy traits, like lower back pain, tiredness or swollen feet, but it doesn't mean we're pregnant."

To summarize, you can have one or two traits associated with autism without being "a little autistic," and claiming that everyone is a little bit autistic can have the effect of dismissing the reality and struggles of autistic people. Just like a person can't be "a little pregnant," a person can't be "a little autistic." This is a really good argument, and it ties into my thoughts on why people can feel like they don't belong without needing to call it a syndrome. 

So far we've talked about the ramifications of the name "Impostor Syndrome" because of how it minimizes and negatively reflects on the experiences of people diagnosed with syndromes, but we haven't talked about how this label negatively reflects on people without syndromes. 

Syndromes, as I stated before, mean that there is something significantly and diagnosably different about a person, and it says that their needs are different than other people. Using the term "Impostor Syndrome" to refer to people who feel like they don't belong means that we are calling this feeling atypical, unusual, and diagnosably different. By using this label, we are essentially pathologizing the feeling of not belonging, and we are saying that people who feel this way are different, alienated even, from those who do feel a sense of belonging in their new space. In other words, telling someone they have impostor syndrome (and thus a syndrome) can have the effect of telling them that they, as a person with a syndrome, do not belong in the same way that everyone else does. 

Basically, Impostor Syndrome is a catch 22 in my opinion, and by giving a diagnostic label to social alienation, it actually results in social alienation for both those with syndromes and those with what we call Impostor Syndrome. 

What do we do with this situation? Is there any good way to talk about these feelings of loneliness and alienation without minimizing these experiences or the experiences of others? I've been told that a lot of people appreciate learning about Impostor Syndrome because it makes them feel like they're not alone, and this is a great result, but I feel like it can still happen under a different name. Maybe a term like The Alienation Effect or the Impostor Effect, even, would better help differentiate between the experiences of people with disabilities and the experiences of a new employee's first day on the job. Having social groups for new hires, community engagement opportunities that connect experienced coworkers with their newer peers, or other ways of combating this feeling of not belonging can still be amazing and effective ways to decrease these feelings, and all of these actions are possible without the name "Impostor Syndrome." 

If you have any other thoughts on this subject, feel free to let me know!

Sources:
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https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.lE3J2iUpe5McUxb4HsIqcAHaE8?pid=ImgDet&rs=1
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