This is Interloper Syndrome, Imposter Syndrome’s Cousin
“I feel like I don’t belong here.” I tell my therapist. “I feel like it’s only a matter of time before it turns out I have to leave.”
I haven’t changed my location on any of my social media accounts or on my business cards. I only changed in on LinkedIn because, well, I have job up here now. So, why haven’t I changed it? It’s because I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The one that says I couldn’t hack it out in Boston and should have just stayed in NYC or, worse, should’ve just ended up (as I believe I inevitably will) back in borderline Appalachia.
Ever felt like that before? Like you didn’t belong, despite sometimes living in a place for…forever? Welcome, my friends, to Interloper Syndrome.
First, a Primer on Imposter Syndrome—a silent epidemic
Imposter Syndrome is a common and fairly widely known phenomenon, even though it’s not in the DSM, the APA acknowledges its prevalence. They briefly describe it as such:
“…someone with imposter [syndrome] has an all-encompassing fear of being found out to not have what it takes.” Even if they experience outward signs of success…they have trouble believing that they’re worthy. Instead, they may chalk their success up to good luck.”
They also note that “imposters” will exhibit two reactions when it comes to their feelings of unworthiness. They will a) procrastinate, because they believe anything they do will not be good enough or b) they will over compensate and go unnecessarily above and beyond, to the detriment of their health.
I have been on both ends of this coin. I nearly failed out of high school and then, conversely, graduated Summa Cum Laude from college—despite suffering more than one mental breakdowns.
“Someone with imposter [syndrome] has an all-encompassing fear of being found out to not have what it takes.”
Imposters often grow up in high-achieving families, or families that put immense weight on “achievement”. Usually this achievement is visible, such as grades, awards and wealth. Additionally, our society is very much the Cult of the Entrepreneur. We worship the likes of Elon Musk and Richard Branson and we subconsciously compare ourselves to them. It’s as if we aren’t making the next Tesla and launching ourselves to Mars, we’re failing.
Introducing: Interloper Syndrome
While I have always been aware that I suffer from Imposter Syndrome, I only recently realized that I also suffer from, what I’d like to propose to call, Interloper Syndrome—the feeling that you don’t belong in a place and it’s only a matter of time before you’re “exposed”.
A lot of times, Imposter Syndrome goes hand in hand with feeling like an “interloper”. When I walk into a room, I walk in with my head down. I don’t want people to notice me. If they notice me, I fear that they may see that I do not belong, that I will never belong and that I’m kidding myself.
A Tale of Two Cities—Belonging and Interloping
While I eventually learned to coexist in New York City, it ultimately didn’t jive with my soul self—though that full story is complicated and for another time. My feelings about the Big Apple can be summed up by Patti Smith:
New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there’s always other cities…New York City has been taken away from you. It’s still a great city, but it has closed itself off from the poor and creative burgeoning society. So my advice is: Find a new city.
So, I moved to the city where I was born: Boston.
Without going into too much detail, coming to Boston always felt like coming home. I have felt called to New England since I left it some 18 years ago. My relatives are here, familiar and familial ghosts live here. Every visit was like returning home, despite living nearly my whole life in another state. Ironically, it felt more like home than my actual house.
So the one thing I didn’t expect to feel was that I didn’t belong.
I call it “The Great Inevitable”. This belief I have that I can’t hack it way up north. That I’ll go broke and let everyone down. That I’ll never have an apartment and I’ll never be reunited with my cat.
It’s different than how I felt in New York. To me, New York felt wrong but up here in Boston, I feel wrong. I love the city, so how did this happen?
Imposters, Interlopers and the Intersection of Trauma
I grew up in a religious high demand group(sometimes, colloquially called “cults”). After a very traumatic falling out, I fled when I was 18. I was not given the tools to survive anywhere but tightly interconnected evangelical communities. I was told that I was “not of this world”.
Spending 18 years learning that, and it’s hard not to believe it, even now. I felt like I didn’t belong in college, I felt like I didn’t belong on social media, I felt like I didn’t belong in New York, I felt like I didn’t belong in X or at Y or within Z. The problem was not actually that I didn’t belong anywhere, the problem was that my definition started and ended solely with others.
Conclusion—A Proposed Definition
I’m way too scatterbrained and exhausted to create anything other than some slapdash bullet points, but here are my notes on the matter:
Interloper Syndrome
- A marked distress in new places, caused not by logistics such as train schedules, street names, etc., though these can contribute.
- Rather, this distress is caused by a certain sense of paranoia. That the locals are “watching you” and “judging you”.
- You believe that their judgements are facts, regardless of your having a job, apartment, commuter rail pass, friends, arts involvement, etc.
- This distress may last anywhere from months to years to decades. You may never feel like you belong. (Case in point, I grew up in rural PA. Never once felt like I belonged.)
- You always feel like you are avoiding the inevitable. That with just “one wrong move”, your fears about unbelonging will be proven right.
- Everything else is just “buying time”.
Afterword, an Antidote by Horace
So what do we do with this? It’s a complicated question and the answer is dually simplistic and complex.
Wherever you go, there you are.
I have struggled with my feelings of being an “interloper” and an “imposter” my entire life. It’s not something that will go away so easily. I can begin to reframe the way I talk to myself. The way I pride the opinions of others (many of which I invent in my head) over all else.
I went and I am here. That can be enough.
