Impostor Syndrome

[RyanNoelle]

I've been having doubts. Logically, I know that I have fibro and I have symptoms. It's hard to realize when I feel like I'm doing it for attention. My brain fog is real, but I feel like I fake it. I say I can't remember words but I do they just won't come out. I know what I need but I can't seem to get the word from my head to my mouth. It makes me think I must be lying. I just feel like I made it all up. It doesn't help that I'm a young diagnosis so I don't 'look' like I have fibro. I feel like I'm lying and I've done it so long that I have myself convinced. I already have so much but now to feel like I've faked a whole diagnosis, it's hard.

 

[JayCS]

Hi RyanNoelle, now that's an interesting new one in this severity. We all have it a bit of course.

And "young diagnosis" is one of many possible reasons - it's actually impossible to "look like fibro", you'll know. D'you praps have some kind of concept of what someone with fibro looks like? Do you realize that you will likely not recognize me or most/allof us here as having fibro?

Is it possibly connected to social communication, self-consciousness, social anxiety, self-doubt?

Maybe even if taking your focus away from your self-image etc. is too hard,
taking your focus away from the diagnosis might help.
I'm not sure if you're say it isn't just the diagnosis (like the pix for comic relief & understanding attached).
You've mentioned it happens with the symptom "brain fog" alone.
But I'm wondering if this isn't normal brain fog. I'd be interested what others think.
Cos I get this when I have a focal seizure, which originates from my speech centre.
When I have brain fog, I can't find a word at all or I just say something from the top of my head and my wife laughs and shakes her head - sometimes she understands, often not. But I say what's there, but my mouth does what my head/thoughts want.
But when I have a "speech seizure", there's many different levels/types of broken communication:
I think things which I wasn't planning to think, like words just appear and confuse.
Also my thought/head can't get any word out, the right word out, a similar word out, totally slurs everything, however close it is to what my thoughts intend. My mouth definitely does not do what my head/thoughts want - neither my head knows exactly what it wants, nor does my tongue, for a few seconds in each seizure it seems to have its own will.

So my suggestion is the part of you thinking this is not brain fog is right. It's not conventional brain fog. And to me it seems neurological, so I'd suggest it definitely needs sorting if you haven't told a neurologist this yet.
But if they say they don't find anything, then you can decided yourself what it is. Either you say it is your specific type of brain fog. Or a sort of brain /nerve derailment or something like that.
Even if others do now say they have this and call it brain fog, the word fog doesn't fit, and if it's confusing you I wouldn't use it.

Praps this is the core of your fibro doubt. So I wouldn't just treat or consider it "psychologically" and work on it using mindfulness (concentrating on what is, not what you think it is). I would take it seriously your way and say it's not fog if it doesn't appear to you as fog. What is it for you? Call it that. - You do it your way!

But I'd be interested if you have any other symptoms that you doubt, I have tons.
So I'm very used to adjusting the vocabulary I use.
I have only 10-20% activity energy, yet I can do 20 push-ups any time 24/7, 30 "if pushed" . Call me a liar! So I don't use the word "fatigue" unless forced to by a pigeon-hole. I call it "quick exhaustibility".
And I manage to get my local pains down to pretty much zero. So I haven't got fibro? Or might someone even all that "recovered fibro"? I really don't care what anyone calls it. It is what it is. And if someone cares they'll realize, if they don't then I don't either. The diagnosis is for paper work and finding this place, occasionally treatment/supp information fro websites & studies, but even there it's usually the actual exact symptom description that helps, not the label.

Praps you need to de-convince" yourself first that you have fibro, let that doubting part of you have it's party, and then start again bit by bit, symptom for symptom, just what you really "know". And when you've done that maybe you'll call it a different name, your own name. It's your body, your mind, your condition, you can call it what you like.

Essentially what we are doing is screwing any pigeon-holes and labels, but honestly and authentically calling it how we sense it to be.

Maybe at the end of all that you'll re-discover what your fibro is and be able to call it fibro for short. And always remember there is no "general fibro", it's a very broad spectrum, and the condition you have is at most "your fibro", or it's just "your condition".

 

[RyanNoelle]

I think I really needed to hear this. I struggled with doubting my disability for a long time. I went 3 years with no word for what I was going through, what had changed my life so drastically. I think I'm still holding a lot of that doubt. If I'm not sick 100% of the time, was I ever sick? I didn't know what exactly fibro meant when I was diagnosed. I'm just now learning that my symptoms aren't crazy. I think it might help me to look at things differently like you said. Thank you for this, I think it will help.

 

[JayCS]

They have their name for it, now you make up your own name for it, for each symptom if necessary.
If not sick 100% of the time, off and on sick, or off and on symptoms.
The symptoms "are" pretty crazy (invisible, hard to grasp, off and on/varying), but you're not.

 

[cookiebaker]

If I'm not sick 100% of the time, was I ever sick?

welcome to Fibro... this is the way it goes.. good one day, lousy the next.. somewhere in between the day after that...

I could show you a picture of 3 people, and tell you 2 of the 3 have fibro, and I bet you could not identify both of them with any certainty... Luck alone would get you one of them...
The point is, there is no "look" to fibro - we look like anyone else - but what we feel is vastly different.

 

[sunkacola]

I think self doubt is part of the psychological makeup of fibro for many of us. Especially as many of us are people who were accustomed to doing a lot before fibro came along. Rest assurred, your feeling that way doesn't make it so, and you are in good company.

 

[Auriel]

RyaNoelle, you know there's something going on with you, and none of us actually "look" like we have fibro cos there's no real look to it (we might be seen as struggling a bit sometimes while walking, or getting up ) but there isn't a look to it?, I'm wondering if someone as treated you in a way where something was going on with you in the past and you were made to deny it? (like I know my family has denied me things in certain ways, so I've questioned myself) also age shouldn't be an issue (people can get things usually assumed in older people at young ages) maybe it would be a good idea to see a gp to see if you could get a neurology referral (if you've not had one already) but please don't deny what's going on with you, it is what it is, your experiencing what your experiencing

 

[Badger]

Great advice above, it's a horrible feeling and can hold you back. One of the cruel sides of Fibro is the psychological side. The stress can really throw you off. Atb

 

[Auriel]

Oh my goodness @JayCS
This should be put in public areas, (especially near disabled lav's), whatcha reckon?

 

[Badger]

Definitely, feels like I need a sign around my neck sometimes

 

[Auriel]

for

 

[Auriel]

@JayCS, 2nd idea (oh they're coming thick and fast today), have this PRINTED ON A TSHIRT!, it'll be handy for those who can't, won't, don't, understand it

 

[JayCS]

@JayCS, 2nd idea (oh they're coming thick and fast today), have this View attachment 4121 PRINTED ON A TSHIRT!, it'll be handy for those who can't, won't, don't, understand it

Hmm, I'm beginning to wonder if it may be misunderstood as a feminist slagging off of men...?

 

[Auriel]

No, no it's not that Nooooooo, (picture representation for us, our condition, and people with a similar thing), nooooooooooooooo, not a men bad, ️️

 

[Auriel]

But then again jay, I think it would be a bit funny brought in by a female in a comedy sketch (maybe it's already been done ) all in all though it OURS (and for people like us )