Imposter Syndrome and Disability

Expert Voices Interviews

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Show notes/Transcript

Host: Tas the Artist

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Welcome to today’s talks. In today’s episode, we will be discussing the topic of imposter Syndrome as it relates to my lived experience as a disabled professional. Trigger warning for this episode. If the topic of ableism in the workplace and medical settings is triggering for you, please for your own mental health, skip and catch me on the next episode.

Well, without further ado, let’s get into it.

When you grow up as a disabled person, no matter if you’re neurodivergent or you have physical disabilities, there is always one thing that most people in my communities will experience, which is not being believed to in. This ties directly into imposter syndrome the feeling of inadequacy, the fear of someone not listening to what you’re saying or believing you right

So I’ll give an example. I had endometriosis when I went to the first doctor. I was 12 years old. They didn’t want to test anything. They put me on birth control and said that should fix it. Well it didn’t. When I was 16, I went to another doctor. They said, you’re too young to have any issues like this.

Just deal with it. So when I was 20 years old, I went to a total of six doctors before they would test me for endometriosis because they said, you’re probably exaggerating.

It’s probably not as bad as you think it is, right? Well, it was bad. I had a hysterectomy at the age of 21, which is very young, and it’s not common for doctors to be willing to do that procedure unless there is a strong medical reason for it.

And my endometriosis was fully progressed and I will never regret getting that done when I was 21, because life with endometriosis, for those that suffer with it, is one of the difficulties that you will face, especially when it comes to being believed. I was raised as a cis gendered female. I’m a fab. Not cis anymore, but the environment is always second guessed.

What you think, what you feel, what you do is constantly critiqued when you are raised in certain environment, and that doesn’t end. And that leads to a lot of insecurity in professional spaces.

It just does your bosses questioning you. There’s always that stress. I know that supervisors not knowing if they’re being honest with you, if something does go wrong, will air believe you.

There’s this constant stress when you’re interacting in the workplace because of it. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s solely imposter syndrome. I think it has to do with society’s view on gender and the way that people should act if they are assigned to certain genders, but not being believed because of your age, because of your disability. That is just a common experience that a lot in the disabled community have.

Is there a way to change that? Who knows? It’s the human race never learns. It’s a repetitive cycle of the same mistakes, and ableism is one of those mistakes that has never gone away.

The lack of education on different types of disabilities, the lack of willingness to learn about them. If I had a dollar for every supervisor that did and understand that autistic people can talk, I would have a lot of money right now.

I have so many interactions in professional spaces with the most inappropriate questions or statements. I think back to a time when the nurse on call for a company I worked with was in the break room, and it was my lunch break. This is pre-COVID, before lockdown, and I’ve always been very vocal about my disabilities and sharing my experiences.

It’s just part of the advocacy that I do. I’m in a position to speak about my own experiences, so I do it. And she came up to me and said that she’s so blessed to not have a disability.

Now, the insult that she just said, did she even know completely, genuinely thinking that what she said was a compliment and a good thing.

And that’s what we live in. So navigating professional spaces is forever complex and stressful. How do you navigate these spaces successfully? That’s the question. And one of the things I’ve learned is authenticity with transparency, but also demanding respect. I posted on LinkedIn last week about an experience I had where the person completely disrespectful to me as a professional in my time.

Is it because I’m disabled? I don’t know. Is it because I’m freelancing? Probably because freelancers notoriously do not get treated the best. And on top of that, any type of marginalized identity, it just gets worse. I think people need to challenge their perceptions of disability and not buy into the propaganda of it. To realize that being disabled isn’t the end of your life.

It’s a new way of living, and I think people need to stop asking. Stop asking questions and saying things like, think about it. Think of the microaggressions. Think of how you’re saying things. I had that same thing happen with last one. I think it was last month. Honestly, where someone actually told me in an email they were canceling like 30 minutes before, an hour before the appointment, something like that, because they had other priorities that they had to do.

So my time isn’t important. That is what that saying. It’s not respectful of my time or anyone’s time to do that. And part of that is the stigma around disability, the view of lesser, the view that stays in the workplace and in higher education. It just exists and it’s not challenged enough. So part of what I am doing with my advocacy is speaking on it, and I stand up for myself.

People, you got to stand up for yourself. If you don’t demand respect, no one’s going to give it to you. And I don’t mean demand respect in a caring way. I mean in a calm, logical manner, advocating for yourself and not letting people push you around. It will only get worse the older you get and the more jobs you have.
You’ll learn as you go, but stand up for yourself because you deserve to be in a safe place, and you deserve to have what you need at a job.

And you deserve to be believed. You deserve to be believed. Well, that’s the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed. Please leave a like leave a comment, do a do a sub on my YouTube channel at the real task.
The Real Tas The Artist and I will catch you next time.

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