I was on a call. Professional, routine, nothing unusual on paper.
And somewhere in the middle of it, something changed.
The other person had a certain energy — confident, sure of themselves, the kind of presence that fills a room.
And I just... shrunk.
Not visibly. But internally, completely.
What followed was familiar and annoying in equal parts. The quiet voice that says: they’re better than you. They’re more. You’re less.
And before I could catch it, I was already someone else — trying to sound more certain than I felt, saying things slightly louder than necessary, nodding like I understood things I wasn’t fully tracking.
Imposter syndrome is the word everyone uses. But it doesn’t quite capture the specific texture of it.
It’s not just I don’t belong here.
It’s something more like — I don’t know who I am in this room.
The frustrating part is that by most external measures, I’ve done okay. Good education. Decent career. Started something of my own. If a stranger read my CV, they’d probably think: she’s got it together.
And yet none of that was available to me in that call. It just wasn’t there.
I’ve been thinking about why credentials don’t travel with you into certain rooms. Why confidence disappears so suddenly.
I don’t have an answer.
I’m just noticing that it keeps happening.
And wondering, not for the first time, if this is just me?
