From Authenticity to Impostor: Your Bargain for Survival

It is often said that the greatest thing you can do for yourself and for the world is to be “authentic”. Yet, so many people report feeling like an impostor – having the fear of being “found out” as a fraud. While you may believe you are being genuine or “authentic” most of the time, you’ll be surprised to learn no one is. So, is it any wonder that there is much written about “impostor syndrome” and “becoming your authentic self”? How did you become an impostor anyway?

Let’s start with what it means to be “authentic” and an “impostor”. The word “authentic” comes from Greek words, meaning "original, genuine, principal," and "acting on one's own authority". So, the authentic version of you is your “original” Self who acts from your own instincts and convictions without influence from others. Additionally, the word “impostor” comes from Latin words, meaning "a deceiver," and "to place upon, impose upon, deceive”.

Surprisingly, the transition from being genuinely authentic to a “deceptive” impostor could have started as early as when you were in utero. Based on attachment theory, this is when you could have begun developing a collection of “inauthentic” behaviors and beliefs. Continuing into infancy, you were helpless and relied on your parents or caregivers to survive.

As a baby, you were very in tune with your natural instincts for survival. For example, when you were hungry, cold, sick, or needed a diaper change, you instinctively cried to alert your caregivers you needed attention to stay healthy and alive. The interesting thing is, even if your caregivers responded to you promptly and appropriately, your baby brain may have perceived they didn’t respond fast enough, caring enough, or in ways you expected.

When following your instincts by crying or making noise didn’t get you the attention you felt you needed, you adapted. You changed your perception of the world along with your behavior to keep your caregivers emotionally attached to you. For example, instead of crying, you may have perceived, “I’m uncomfortable in this wet diaper, and no one is comforting me. I must not be worth it. I’ll just ignore the soggy discomfort.”

Consequently, you traded being finely attuned to your own needs, instincts, and intuition (aka your “authenticity”) for different behaviors to maintain the vital attachment to your caregivers. In the end, you layered these adaptive coping beliefs and behaviors over your authentic behaviors, like stepping into a protective suit to keep you safe and alive. Thus, your ego developed as you created a story about yourself and your world and began losing touch with your authentic self.

In effect, you cut yourself off from your original instincts and began acting like a distorted version of you, an “impostor” version based on what you thought would keep those closest to you attached. Psychologically, this distorted, “impostor” version is called your “persona”, which means “mask”. This is also your personality. As such, your persona or personality hides the real, “authentic” you. You’ve been hiding so long under your personality you think that’s the authentic you, instead of the genuine “you” at the core of your being.

In short, in early childhood, you cut yourself off from the authentic parts of you in favor of a new personality made of beliefs and behaviors that kept you attached to those who were important to your survival. This may account for why you feel like an impostor sometimes.

Thus, it seems to be part of the human condition to be walking around as fakes. As Carl Jung said, “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” It’s not about becoming authentic as though you never were. Rather, you started out authentic and somehow lost touch with that original, genuine part of yourself. Therefore, it’s really about uncovering and peeling away protective beliefs and behaviors that have been hiding the original “real” you.

Now that you know that you developed your persona’s beliefs and behaviors to keep you safe and alive as child, you can choose to let go of what doesn’t work for you anymore as an adult. It just might be time to return to more of your original authenticity by stripping away aspects of your persona.