I heard a word...

Y'all just don't know...

The very bright, the brilliant are susceptible to a crippling fear: failure.
Academics are grueling and when you're bright, you believe that they aren't supposed to be. When you've been smart all your life you're unaccustomed to facing academic challenges.

And then one comes along.

And it puts you in the bed. Literally.

Why? Because your expectation is to perform brilliantly at all times. Or at least mine is.

Truth? I'm about to tell y'all some.

Somewhere something happened for me that said "What you do is WHO you are."

I'm not afraid I actually won't do enough. You know why?

I work. Not like I go to my job and work. But I work until I'm physically unable to work any more.

I've only be drunk from alcohol twice. But I have been so tired that I might as well have been drunk in the lab. I have stumbled over stuff, fallen into walls, and used walls to literally keep me upright. Why?
Because I had so little energy that what I did have had to be routed to my brain so that I can accurately do my job or my hands to execute the job. I have worked until I couldn't quite feel my hands. <---Hands or thumbs going numb is the point at which my days have to end. Otherwise your experiments will be messed up. That's nuts...but its how I've lived.

When do I stop confocalling? (laser scanning confocal microscope requires the utmost in ocular precision and it drains your eyes like none other)  When I can no longer focus my eyes. That's when I get in my car and DRIVE 80 miles home. Safe? I think NOT!

But I've done it.

I've had DMSO running down my arms because I needed the data.
(DMSO is toxic and can get into your blood stream through your skin)

I've been sprayed in the face with acid and stayed right there in the lab because I needed the data.
(acid....is acid.)

And y'all I'm not that dedicated. Its not about the work for me. Its about me for me.

I'm not afraid I won't do enough.

I'm afraid I won't be enough. 

I'm afraid I'm not enough. 

Its about who I am.

I'm afraid not only that you will find out that I'm not enough but that's actually true.

I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm enough.

Do you see how that kind of burden could be insane for someone? Its serious.  It's a weight that you can't explain. It's why not getting into med school last year nearly killed me.

It felt like proof that I wasn't enough.  The thing I'd be working so hard to make false was true. The failure I'd been killing myself to avoid being crushed by landed squarely on my head.

This thing I've just described is called Imposter Syndrome.
I have it.
I have it deeply in my spirit.
My mentor gave it a name.
My Love loved me through on of the toughest battles I've ever fought against it.

And now....now I'm working on believing I'm enough within myself.