Kanne 2

Alexis Kanne

07/30/2021

Personal Memoir: Imposter

To have a feeling of being an impostor in your skin is the state whereby an individual feels to be inferior, which makes one feel not to be competent like what people tend to perceive one to be. The people can see the individual’s potential, but they do not know the possibility in themselves. The situation usually leads to a condition called impostor syndrome, which, according to psychiatrists, may require therapy sessions to try and focus on oneself and work towards achieving confidence in oneself. This led to this paper’s inception, which focuses on explaining a personal memoir that will illustrate a situation whereby the story will explain feeling like an impostor in your skin.

In a small village characterized by slow economic growth and few populations was my origin. I had to interact with people from other towns, especially in the school and church institutions that gave me a different experience in life. Knowing how my village was, I felt inferior compared to my fellow students, which gave me the chance to be disapproving of me all the time. The students from other villages are smartly dressed in a fitting set of uniforms. Every beginning of the semester, it called for renewal which left me the odd one who had to use my set of uniforms for a whole academic year. When it came to carrying snacks in school, I depended on the food provided in school since it was a luxury act in our village. The oversize uniform was the way since it was economical in case of rapid growth, you know? Anyway, it is also sensible when my parents did this. I came to realize later on after studying biology. It illustrated that, at the childhood stage, a person is characterized by rapid growth. This would make it costly and useless to buy child-fitting clothes, which will leave them new as one transition from them and maybe not be practical since it is school uniform or how do you view it if it were you? I could not understand the status difference in the early childhood stages that we were in the village, which made me furious about my life and how my parents had brought me up.

Joining high school was the worst stage of my life since adolescence started hitting hard. This stage was when I began having an inferiority complex towards everything that I participated in school. It was at this juncture whereby people’s backgrounds matter. Students used to group themselves according to their status so that those who believed to come from higher backgrounds of life considered themselves highly compared to those who came from lower life backgrounds. When it came to school trips, it was evident when you could see the students from higher social status carry large backpacks that contained a lot of shopping, yet; the trip did not need that much. Even though I was from a lower social status background, my friends and I did not care how things were being carried out. We had some of our friends whom we used to help with class assignments which made them consider us friends and went an extra mile of sharing what they had with us. Even though they did it out of their own will and heart, it still appeared to be like we are working for that. Annie and I had to assist them with their homework or help them with school activities to gain that closeness that we needed to make us appear to be on the same level as the rest. If we were of age, we could realize that we are doing ourselves more damage than good.

I think it is at this point that I felt like I should seek approval from the people around me before doing or saying something, which made me have low confidence when doing things independently, even if I am capable of it. I remember a day when I participated in the music festivals, and the instructor asked if there is anyone who can perform a solo verse and has enough confidence. Before then, I used to feel like I am not fluent enough in English which made me hesitate to raise my hand. This student was called Lerin; she is from a wealthy family, which was evident by the different types of vehicles that her parents used to pick and drop her from school. She raises her hand, and the instructor picks on her and asks her to try and recite a short verse to ensure that she is capable before starting to train her. She narrates the poem, and the whole crowd is impressed. As she was reciting the verse, I felt like I could do the verse better, but I hesitated. The chance slept off, and the solo verse was given to Lerin. As time went by, the instructor in one of the rehearsals came with another poem to request another person. This time no one was confident enough to take the verse. I decided to give it a trial. I raised my hand, and when Talin and her crew saw my hand up, they giggled. This killed my morale to the extent that I hesitated to step forward.

The instructor was not aware of why people giggled in the room. It reached this point when I decided to gather courage and decided to do the poem. I am handed over the pamphlet to read through and get to know what the poem was about. Skimming through it, I realized that the poem’s content is familiar to me. I used to read it during my free time when am done with home chores which made it easier for me to understand the required emotions and facial expressions that I am required to use while reciting the poem. I did a short repeating, and the whole crowd went silent. I do not know if you are getting the point when one is underestimated in doing a specific activity and when given a chance, it creates shame to the people who were despising you. The whole room is filled with pin-drop silence after realizing I can be fluent and recite the way it is supposed to be, even if I am from a small village compared to the rest. At this point, I even saw the instructors conversing about Lerin’s poem, which appeared like they were considering changing the poems since I brought out what they expected. I rejected the idea since I felt inferior to not competing with Lerin, so I had to convince them that I was comfortable with the one they had assigned me, leaving Lerin to handle the other one. I managed to recite the poem according to the judges’ expectations which led to me being applauded. Even though this event occurred, I still felt inferior despite my courage being pushed to higher levels than before.

This feeling was not enough. Joining college is when I started feeling it manifested entirely at this point. Students’ status used to be displayed clearly whereby it used to challenge me. Still, at least I used to know how to draw the line between the different social statuses, and in this manner, I was able to work on my courage and self-identity. Do you understand how young age is characterized by partying, relationships, and making new friends? Now picture that and compare the situation that I am in whereby I tend to feel inferior because I am not confident in what I decide, making me be in a position that I cannot decide by myself. I used to follow what my friends did, which resulted in adopting new behaviors against my principles. I was not brought up to the kind of lifestyle that I loved to remember. I am from a small village that is not conversant with the activities done in the developed towns. My grades started deteriorating, which gave me a wake-up call later on when I was close to completing my degree. I started focusing on my studies, which kept me busy from the outdoor life that I spent most of my time not concentrating on my classwork.

In this regard, I started realizing how I used to view myself was doing injustice to my identity. I started having courage in whatever I did and felt confident in the decisions that I made. In self-realization, an occurrence occurred in college which made me think of an impostor in my skin. During my internship, it was assessment time whereby the instructor used to come to the institution that a student is placed in to ensure that one is learning something from the practice. I dared to face the instructor, but I felt it was not enough to answer the supposed questions in the session. The supervisor that I was assigned opened the session by describing me as a new person who did not expect me to be told the way he did. At first, I did not understand the perception that he viewed me until his colleague joined in and commented about my capability before the instructor started asking me questions. It created a lot of tension in me that made me start to think of myself differently. I attended the session, and afterward, the instructor was so impressed with how I answered the questions that he questioned me why I am not always active in class, yet I have what is required. I felt happy but still unsure if the person in question was still me. I started feeling confident about myself, which acted as a turning point that made me the way I am currently.

Work Cited

Hoffman, Julien I. E. “The History of the Microsphere Method for Measuring Blood Flows with Special Reference to Myocardial Blood Flow: A Personal Memoir.” American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, vol. 312, no. 4, 1 Apr. 2017, pp. H705–H710, 10.1152/ajpheart.00834.2016. Accessed 13 Jan. 2020.

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