Imposter syndrome vs. "reality"

In my post of last week, I talked about imposter syndrome: what it feels like, how it affects me, and its impact on my writing. From the Caltech Counseling Center:

The impostor syndrome is associated with highly achieving, highly successful people. This makes impostor feelings somewhat different from the concept of "low self-esteem" because there is a discrepancy between the actual achievement and the person's feelings about the achievement that may not be present in low self-esteem. People in different professions such as teachers, people in the social sciences, people in academia, actresses and actors, may all have impostor feelings. It was originally associated with women but recent research indicated that men suffer in similar numbers.

That bit about women is no joke. If you do any Googling about it, you'll see that a lot of discussion about imposter syndrome focuses on successful women, within the context of feminism, how women function in the workplace, and so on. 

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a man, not a woman. If my talking about imposter syndrome seems strange, makes me look weird or makes you uncomfortable, I encourage you to go read my book instead. Its got explosions in it.

Anyway, several people responded to my post with variations of, "But you HAVE professionally published stories. You HAVE written and published a novel. You HAVE been paid for your writing. Those things are real, not fake. End of story." My response was cogent enough that I'll reproduce it here:

I wish it were that simple. The issue is not the facts before me - those are incontrovertible. It's my reactions to those facts that are problematic. To rewire my mind so as to have a different constellations of emotions triggered by a given set of stimuli would be a great trick. I'm not bothered by spiders, but I've got a serious thing about stinging insects. Why can't I just rewire my mind about that stuff while I'm at it?

Emotions are not automatically translated into actions, however. One's emotional response can be controlled through will and intellect so that it doesn't become the primary driver of behavior. As an adult, I've learned to not freak out and start swatting at things when faced with a wasp at eye level. That doesn't mean I'm not still really bothered by them.

Similarly, although I feel like a tremendous fraud as a writer, I know that my next book is waiting for me when my current hiatus is over. I'll feel guilty for putting another one over on you, and afraid that the reaction will be, "When will he realize that we all know he can't write?" Those are emotional responses. As a rational adult, I'll try not to let myself be driven by emotions alone.

That's kinda how it is, how it always has been, and, I suspect, how it always will be.

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