Do I Belong Here? Struggles With Imposter Syndrome, Part 1

Yesterday, my friend who I’m doing this 31-day writing challenge with decided to write a reflection on her experience with imposter syndrome. After reading her (better-written) reflection and realizing that I, too, had dealt with it, I decided to do some reflection of my own. When, if ever, had I struggled with imposter syndrome the most? What effect had it had on my life, if any? How did I end up overcoming it? And lastly, was I still struggling with it? All these questions were ones I asked myself, and that I had to find the answers to.

As it turned out, my first run-in with imposter syndrome closely mirrored hers: experiencing it in high school robotics. As a budding high school freshman, looking for new hobbies to get into, robotics seemed like the absolute perfect club to join. I’d get to help code cool robots that fought each other and finally get to meet some people who I could nerd out with! To my 14 year old self, that seemed like absolute heaven, if you could put it in a club.

But that wouldn’t last: when I joined the club, I quickly realized that I was in over my head… *really* over my head. There were so many moving parts to the team: programming, mechanical, electrical, fundraising, and more, and I couldn’t keep up with any of them for the life of me. Even programming, which I thought I would love, turned out to use a language I neither knew nor wanted to learn (LabVIEW), which quickly pushed me down the path of my first gleeful run in with imposter syndrome.

It turned out that I had nothing of use to offer to the team: my programming skills weren’t a fit, and I had not a single bit of interest in mechanical or electrical. In another world, I might have fit in well on the business, outreach, or awards teams, but to my high school robotics team, these things didn’t matter. I quickly settled into an awkward position on the team where my only contribution was to *look like* I was helping with programming, and not make any ripples on the team that’d cause undue drama. But oh, drama would ensue.

I never gave up the team, despite my failure to contribute anything of use. I would attend meetings at our workshop, sitting around and trying to seem useful. I’d fix up our team’s computers, installing LabVIEW and upgrading them to work with our team’s robot. I’d organize the workshop, making sure that everything was tidied up and in the right places. And despite all my effort to look like I was doing something, I didn’t do anything aside from dragging a couple blocks around fruitlessly on a screen.

Competition season rolled around, and at that point, I was seriously considering just saving everyone some frustration and leaving the team. But going to my first competition — and I know this is a cliché — changed everything. I reveled at competitions: I had the chance to meet so many new people, have so many new experiences, and nerd out in peace without anyone judging me for it. I got into shirt trading, amassing a collection of odd, strange looking shirts that I grew to love for their sheer nerdiness. I talked to teams about how their robots worked, their community impact, what they did to fundraise, and so many other topics that intrigued me. I joined in with the shitty dances, making a fool out of myself but having fun all the while.

I didn’t give up on the team, even when I should have.

Coming back from competition, I was overflowing with ideas for how to improve our team. I wanted us to write award submissions; begin community impact projects; have a clear cut structure for our team; write and follow a predefined business plan. I wanted us to bring our team to the next level that I’d seen at the Pittsburgh Regional, to push us to succeed and get those blue banners I’d drooled over. But the team rejected it.

The team didn’t like change. The mentors who were in charge of the team had a way of doing things, you see, and they didn’t see a need to fix what wasn’t broken. The team leaders saw it much the same way: robotics was a way to have fun designing and building a robot, and learn new things; nothing more. They had none of the ambition, none of the desire to push our team the way I thought it needed to go, and I hated that with a burning passion.

I began pushing for change on the team, stubbornly believing that I was the catalyst the team needed. I would argue with others for hours, not willing to give up, before eventually relenting and settling on a compromise. I had an entire position on the team made for me: Team Administration Lead. I honestly don’t know how others put up with my bullshit sometimes. Because I didn’t know where I fit on the team, I overcompensated for it by trying to fit on the team so much that I ended up grating on people hard.

It became a horrible cycle: I thought I had some wonderful, ingenious idea for the team, and would push for it incessantly. When given laissez-faire to pursue my idea, I found out that nobody wanted to work on it with me, because I was the only one who was quite that ambitious. I would ditch that idea or half-ass it, then go onto the next one. Rinse and repeat. I’d like to think that we did make some progress overall, especially with our previously-abandoned awards submissions, but overall, I was still dissatisfied. And I still didn’t fit.

I would oftentimes wonder why my ambition never seemed to catch on within the team. Was it because other people were complacent? Was it because others had their own agendas? Was it because I annoyed people? Was it because I just didn’t fit in? The seeds of doubt were sown in my brain, and imposter syndrome slowly began crawling into my brain. Did I contribute nothing to the team? Did I hold no value? I was never sure about any of these things, and looking back, I’m sad that I was a naïve sophomore who didn’t realize that overambition often kills otherwise good ideas.

In my frustration towards my team, I’d gone so far as to make a FIRST Robotics server on Discord, a new chat platform I’d discovered at the tail end of my sophomore year. I wanted to make a difference, damnit, and difference I made: the server had more than 2000 members within months, and I was able to revel in the fact that yes, my ambition did belong somewhere. But even this wouldn’t last: my inability to not screw up bit me, and I was eventually ousted from my own server for trying to stage a coup… on my own server. Overambition kills things, but man, imposter syndrome really fucks people up.

Even as I was enjoying my newfound influence as the person who brought thousands of robotics addicts together online, my experience with the team went downhill. Despite my claims that I was “good” at programming, I still had to fake it, eventually dragging a middle schooler onto the team a year early to help with a transition from LabVIEW to Java while I stood by and watched. I’d try to push people like chess pieces into places so I could look like I was doing something, and so I could have people who looked up to me, but a chessmaster I have never been. Conflicts between me and the other leaders skyrocketed, and even those who I thought were people I’d helped get into leadership positions ended up working against me.

At the end of junior year, I made my mind: I would run for team president, and everything would be great again. I’d finally have leeway to push through changes I’d been advocating for for years, and I’d finally be respected by those who thought I was an idiot for wanting to change so much. To my deluded 16 year old self, this was my final chance to redeem myself and show that I belonged…

Part 2 Coming Soon

Day 7/31