First off, what is Imposter Syndrome? Well, at its heart, it’s a feeling that one doesn’t belong in a given community, or at the level they are operating in a given community.
Diagnosis, Gatekeeping, and Imposter Syndrome
Diagnostic questioning of self as autistic has been conceptualised as part of a “reflexive project of the self” (Giddens, 1992), involving “reflection, doubt, evaluation and uncertainty” (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, 2012, p. 124). One of our interviewees described this diagnostic doubt as a form of autistic “imposter syndrome”. This diagnostic self-doubt has received limited analytic attention. Punshon and colleagues (2009, p. 274) reported that one of their late-diagnosed participants felt constantly anxious that his Asperger’s diagnosis would be revoked while Autistic activist Jim Sinclair (2010) noted that autistic heterogeneity can lead some autistic people to question their own or other people’s status as autistic. While autistic people may often reject self-understandings framed within a model of pathology (Botha et al., 2020), some of our interviewees suggested that negative framings and perceptions of autism can make them doubt their own diagnostic status as well as that of others as either too successful or too “normal” to be autistic. This internalisation of stigma sometimes coexisted with a rejection of stigmatising attitudes towards autism as individuals navigated complex feelings and reactions to late-diagnosis.
My favourite thing is when I’m questioning whether I’m really autistic (“What if I just made everything up?!”) while literally stimming.
— Fochti
Imposter syndrome is technically when someone who has knowledge on a subject doubts their knowledge because they now realize how little they know on said subject.
This phrase is often used in the autistic community to describe when an autistic doubts they are autistic. This can be because they have been hanging out in autistic spaces (with or without realizing it), and think, “I’m like everyone else.”
This can be remedied by going to a stressful space/situation and recognizing that you are autistic.
First off, what is Imposter Syndrome? Well, at its heart, it’s a feeling that one doesn’t belong in a given community, or at the level they are operating in a given community. Whether as an employee at work (some managers and higher-ups can experience this), a performer in school or the arts, or, IMHO, as a suspecting EDS/HSD patient or autistic person.
Yes, I feel strongly that our community is prone to Imposter Syndrome around having a form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) or Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD), and also around being autistic or not, especially in the late-diagnosed. And I also feel strongly this lends to further gaslighting and denial of both conditions in some folks.
Gatekeeping by members of both communities doesn’t help – that is, saying “only the select few who jump all these painful hurdles I had to jump and pay enough money to get diagnosed can be allowed in this club”. Ouch. Please check your privilege. I’ve seen this a lot in both communities (which often overlap, we’re now slowly realizing). Diagnosis is still a rare privilege not all can afford easily yet for numerous reasons.
Stereotypes and Imposter Syndrome
For almost a century, we’ve only described a few stereotyped signs of autism in white cis-het boys and men in Germany back in the 1930s. This led to dismissing and failing to recognized better masked and different signs in not only all other genders, but even some other boys and men who didn’t closely match this small, stereotyped subset of signs.
(Please avoid gendering autism – this can lend to further imposter syndrome, and gender dysphoria in those who share many signs, but not the same gender as your description, right?)
The DSM is based on mostly white people’s opinion of what constitutes a psychological condition or developmental disorder and who has it. And this colonization of western medicine has continued to further pathologize autism in Black and Brown people, and dismiss it in anyone but those cis-het white boys and men who fit the original stereotyped descriptions back in Germany.
Black boys are often misdiagnosed with behavioral disorders and sent to detention and/or jail instead. (Or killed, as happened to Elijah McClain.) For some of the same autistic behaviors as their white counterparts.
So, of course, a good number of folks who don’t match the present stereotypes are going to have imposter syndrome as they aren’t represented in medicine or Hollywood, who helps gel these stereotypes.
Accessibility and Imposter Syndrome
As a dyslexic student, the neurodiversity paradigm helped me shake off the embarrassment and imposter syndrome I often felt. For example, it helped me overcome the feeling that I am a fraud when using proofreading or text-to-speech software to assist me with my research and written work. Furthermore, as there is a strong correlation between artistic ability and dyslexia, my animation practice, which informs my professional identity and self-worth, is inseparably linked to my neurodivergence.
Embracing schizoaffectivity through the neurodiversity paradigm by Alex Widdowson – Asylum Magazine
Tokenism and Imposter Syndrome
Tokenism comes with a host of complexities, one of which is Imposter Syndrome. Many “high performing” Black people are plagued by Imposter Syndrome, questioning their own competency and self worth; “Have I gained entry, or simply been allowed entry?” White people have deliberately set the bar low, yet maintain that allowing BIPOC entry is what lowers it. How, then, does one perform under the pressure of the notion that they will never be seen—that they will never be perceived as good enough even by the mediocre standards set forth? And further, at what cost—what is the cost of entry?
Black Excellence and the Low Expectations of White Supremacy
