Finally, I am acknowledging my well-developed “imposter self”. This is enabling me to re-connect with my recalcitrant reality. It has taken years to confront my well-honed imposter syndrome!

There was a time when all compliments directed at me (You look beautiful…that was a great job…I’m amazed by your courage…creativity…ability) engendered a negative “innerspeak” in me.

The judgmental and insecure Linda would quickly relegate the “complimentor” to one of three boxes:
Box 1: The person was a liar.
Box 2: The person was stupid.
Box 3: The person was tricked—by me.

Here’s a story---possibly with a lesson or a moral.

Almost fifty years ago, at the very beginning of my so-called career, I scheduled a trip to New York to meet with a prestigious gallery director. I purchased a designer suit---“Dress for Success” was a slogan that held considerable sway for this inexperienced girl-of-the-desert.
Ready, get set, go!

I was eager to be seen as a player in the mysterious and addictive world of contemporary Art---not knowing how steep the learning curve would be. My immediate goal was to appear polished and professional.

Alas, I was neither!   

I booked a room at the sophisticated (read expensive, uptown) St. Regis Hotel. When I gave my name to the (snooty?) reservation clerk, he asked, “Is that Miss or Mrs.? I wondered…Is he asking if I’m married or single?

My response? “That’s Doctor.”  Ha! What a good way NOT to answer his question!
From that first impulsive utterance of the unearned (imposter) honorific, I embraced the theatrical role of “Dr. Durham”.  It served me well for decades.

Caution: If you choose to use this confidence-creating trick, be sure to have an easy response in case you find yourself in an emergency situation.

For example: a distressed person needs immediate medical attention. You’re on a plane, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean or on a remote atoll far from civilization and you hear frantic calls from nearby witnesses, “Is there a doctor here? Can anyone perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on this dying man?”

Perhaps all eyes seem directed at you, Pretend Doctor! May I suggest a possible lawsuit-avoiding response. “I’m an entomologist---not a medical doctor.” Said apologetically. Feel free to use it.
 
The moral of this story could be: If, in making it, you use a strategy of faking it, you may end up breaking a bunch of rules and being seen or mis-seen as nobody’s fool---except your own.
​
Many times, I felt like my own fool.

Linda: For me, it's telling the truth., finding or knowing the truth. For me, truth is so
powerful, freeing, enlightening, and so entertaining. All of those things that I really like.
I think, when the truth is spoken, it hits the air in a whole different way than a lie. It
sounds different, feels different. It smells so much better than bullshit.
I used to tell my kids that the bad thing about lying wasn’t that if you get caught lying
you’ll get in trouble. The bad thing about lying is that it pollutes. You know? A lie goes
out into the room or the air...and it pollutes everything.

Sparkle: Yeah.

Linda: ...it has a kind of sick energy, and it flits around, and pollutes the environment.
And, I'm an environmentalist! A communication environmentalist. I mean, I want to clean
stuff up. Get rid of the lies. In my earliest days, I bordered on being a pathological liar. I felt totally insecure about who I really was and I wanted desperately to be something other than that. So, I invented a more interesting family and a more impressive educational background. I’m almost sure I stopped doing that a long time ago. Maybe not. I’m still trying to prove
something, or do something, or be something more or better than I am—even just in the
eyes of strangers. I’m coming to understand what that's about---that what you start out
wanting to do or prove is always different than—and not necessarily as good as---what
you end up doing or figuring out…That’s my story.

Sparkle: I found out that a lot of my problems, a lot of the reasons that I ended up doing
drugs and alcohol, had a lot to do with the fact that so many people expected so much
from me. Like you said, "Oh, Sparkle, you were always, you know, up there!"

Linda: It's true. You know, you were the beautiful, sparkling, super woman.
No one sparkled like Sparkle.

Sparkle: Right. And it's like, God, I just wanted to take a break from that. I wanted a
breather. I didn't want to have to prove myself to anybody. I didn’t think I had anything
worth proving. Not really. Nothing real. It was so much easier to be down there with
street people drinking wine under the bridge and not having, you know, not having to
prove myself or impress the other homeless people because, hey, I was just there under
the bridge drinking wine just like them. I didn't ask them if they had once been a
congressional candidate or did they ever do real estate... And they never asked me
anything like that. So, they didn't expect anything. They didn't expect anything from me.
And I could cruise I could just take it easy. I could do nothing. I didn't have to do anything.
Or be anything. Or show up all Sparkle-like.

Linda: (imitating a pretentious voice) "Oh, Sparkle, your outfit is adorable! We must have
lunch soon."

Sparkle: Right. and nobody would say, “Gee, what are you doing with yourself these days?”

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: And no one saw me or looked at me like, (imitating a haughty voice) “Gee, isn't
it a shame? Remember what she used to be?” And especially I didn’t want to see you, Jill.
I didn’t want to see you. Because when I saw you—you, of all people, knew what I could do.
​So, I couldn't see you. Because then, geez, you know, I'd be really depressed for days after that, Jill. You know? And, now I don't feel that way, you know. Now I don't feel that way at all.