Most of what I have read about Impostor Syndrome refers to workplace performance. I was effected in my work life, but more and more I have this encroaching on just about every aspect of my life.
I learned to drive when I was 46. I had tried throughout my adult life, but each attempt had ended in disaster. My first attempt to learn to drive was when I turned 17 as is the usual for young soon to be adults. I did not feel like my ambition was fully supported and feed back from my parents was that I was not to be encouraged. After 20 paid lessons with an instructor I was told "Don't worry 'bout it luv, ya useless!"
At 21 I tried again. An old manual car and with an impatient husband. First lesson took me to a fairly major arterial suburban road. Impatient instructions such as "put it into third! put it into third! cant you hear the engine? THIRD!" lead me to such anxiety straits I could barely function. The elderly car did not help when my panicked attempt to go into third saw the gear stick come away in my hand at which point I gave it to my husband crying "there is no third", stopping the car and never getting into a driver's seat until my 44th year.
When my marriage ended it became apparent I had no one to support my mobility and that the time needed to invest in public transport as a single parent of 3 boys working full time was excessive. I once more got a learner's permit and began to pay for lessens, now with the added burden of a crushing anxiety disorder and PTSD. I could not seem to get through roundabouts without a panic attack and even an automatic transmission was too daunting for me and I despaired of ever being able to direct my own motor ambitions or driving my own destiny.
A couple of years later it became needful to move away from the suburbs to a coastal regional location. This, from a logistics point, raised many issues, one being access to specialist medical care. The idea that I should learn to drive once more raised its unsettling head. I engaged an instructor, made him aware of my mental health issues, and proceeded to learn, one meltdown at a time, how to drive.
I bought a car, my first car. Not a small, economical, automatic wee model like I have been learning on ... NO! A great, old, 4 wheel drive, manual beast of a vehicle, and so had to relearn how to wrangle this monster and still pass the test.
It took three attempts to pass the test and get my license, but I did it. Sweat, shakes, sobs and tears, but I got it.
I was told driving got easier and that soon I would wonder why I felt so unequal to the task, a task that just about anyone else could do without even thinking about it.
5 years later and I still feel like I am going to be found out. Someone is going to pay attention and notice that I should not be driving. I can't drive to a major city, 2 or 5 hours away, with out succumbing to tears, giving in to fears, fears that including injuring my own loved ones.
I hate that I cannot feel safe or capable doing something everyone else feels is so simple. I have to cling so hard to lists of what to do and how to do it that simple things will undo me and leave me flustered and on the edge of panic. The sound of a horn or a siren creates so much panic and paranoia that I am so tense and rigid I can barely breath.
I find myself holding my breath.
I feeling that I am going to be caught, dragged out of the car and punished for the audacity that I even thought I could drive, that I shouldn't be there with people's lives in my hands, being responsible for obeying laws and not harming and maiming people. I constantly see me in the middle of chaos, the cause of injury and disaster.
I become consumed by a sense of guilt and shame that people will see me being a fraud who thinks she can drive.
This is my life as an Imposter, waiting for the gavel to fall for all to know and laugh and point ... how did she ever think she could drive? ... wasn't she listening when she was told how useless she was?
Yes. Yes she was ... and that, dear readers, is the problem. I heard those words, at the tender age of 17, and learned, hard etched into my soul, how useless I was. A lesson learned and made more indelible within a framework of discouraging words and actions by loved ones surrounding me, not intentional, but permanent in it's harm.
I drive. I will continue to drive and sometimes I even get to a place where I enjoy the process, the challenge of driving well. This complex set of feelings is not constant, sometimes it is in the background and sometimes it's in my face. Some days it is harder than others. People will tell me I am a good driver, but a part of me will always feel that I will be caught out and shown up for the Impostor I am.
