Working Class Imposter Syndrome
My daily struggle!!
You’d think that after earning both a bachelors and a masters degree, after years of sitting in lecture halls and engaging in intellectual circles, this gnawing feeling of inferiority would fade. But it doesn’t. I still find myself wrestling with Working Class Imposter Syndrome (WCIS). It’s not about doubting my achievements—it’s about feeling like those achievements don’t really count, like you’ve slipped into a world that wasn’t meant for you, and it’s only a matter of time before someone notices.
Coming from a poor, working-class background, I wasn’t just the first person in my immediate family to go to university—I was the first in our traceable 250-year family history. No one before me had even studied for a degree, let alone earned one. School was something you endured, not a stepping stone to anything bigger. I left before my 16th birthday with no exams, told by teachers that I was only good for cannon fodder. University or higher education wasn’t a dream for me, because it wasn’t even a possibility, it wasn’t on the radar for us kids at all. So when I did finally step into that world, (in my late 20’s early 30’s) surrounded by people from good schools, with polished accents and parents who’d paved the way, it felt like I was crashing a party I wasn’t invited to.
That’s where WCIS comes in. It’s not just feeling like you don’t belong—it’s the fear that everyone else knows you don’t belong too. And that fear sticks with you, even when, on paper, you’ve ticked all the right boxes. It’s not about modesty or false humility. It’s a deep-rooted, gut-level anxiety that whispers, you’re faking it, and they’re going to find out.
The worst part? WCIS doesn’t just sit quietly in the background—it shapes how you act. It pushes you to work harder, yes, but it also drags out some ugly habits. When you don’t know something, instead of asking questions like everyone else, you bluff. You fake it because admitting ignorance feels like exposing yourself. And if someone calls you on it? That’s when the anger flares. You get defensive, quick to argue, because being caught out feels unbearable. I’ve found myself snapping in conversations, not because I was confident, but because I was terrified of looking stupid. If you have been on the end of any of the above I apologise.
Please do not think this article is a pity party or that I am sort sort of ‘victim’, it isn’t, and I am not. I sit here as a very happy man, but I do see this imposter syndrome as a challenge that I must try to overcome, (if that is even possible) it is a state of mind that both inhibits me, and as I said above often brings out the worst in me, like a scared or nervous dog, who feels that its only weapon, is its bite.
This feeling of inferiority never goes away. Even now, writing about thinkers such as; Illich, Ellul, or Mumford, sharing my thoughts with people who subscribe to my work, that old feeling creeps in. Who am I to comment on this? What do I know compared to people with real academic credentials? It doesn’t matter how many degrees I have or how many people read what I write—the doubt is always there, lurking.
My wife feels it too. She’s managed to work her way up to leading a team of 30 people, despite having no formal qualifications for that job. Her team is full of people with bloated CVs and impressive titles, but she’s the one steering the ship. And yet, she struggles even more than me with WCIS. She constantly questions whether she deserves to be in that position, whether her success is just a fluke, whether someone’s going to realise she doesn’t have the ‘right’ background.
What makes WCIS so insidious is how it distorts reality. It convinces you that your achievements don’t count because they weren’t earned the ‘right’ way. It makes you feel like an outsider in spaces you’ve worked hard to enter. And worst of all, it convinces you that everyone else belongs—everyone but you.
But here’s the thing: WCIS doesn’t just reflect personal insecurity—it exposes something bigger about the worlds we move through. Education, workplaces, intellectual circles—they’re all shaped by unspoken class codes. When you come from a background that doesn’t fit those codes, no amount of hard work feels like enough. Even when you see through it all, and realise you are every bit as intelligent as everyone else, and in fact by every metric, perhaps even more so, it still isn’t enough the feeling is still there. Perhaps it is because the system wasn’t designed with people like us in mind, and WCIS is the result of constantly trying to navigate spaces that were never meant to feel like home. Or maybe that is all wrong and this feeling is to be found only in ones mind, I know it isn’t just people from my social class who feel this, I suspect most people do at some stage in their lives, and sometimes it is a good thing, as it pushes you on to make sure you have worked hard enough to ‘belong’. The thing is, I could go and do my PhD (something I have thought a lot about) I could teach at a prestigious college, and I know for a fact I would always have this gnawing feeling that I do not belong, and I am about to get found out.
There’s no tidy conclusion here. I’d love to say that recognising WCIS is enough to banish it, but it isn’t. It’s a constant process of checking yourself, recognising when the doubt is creeping in, and pushing back against it. And maybe that’s the best we can do—acknowledge the feeling, name it for what it is, and refuse to let it define us.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, know you’re not alone. WCIS is real, and it’s exhausting at times. But the very fact that you feel it means you’ve stepped into spaces that were never designed for you—and that’s not failure…
We live in a utopian nightmare, running after money, titles and prestige. Instead of happiness.
John Lennon was right.
The most important things in life cannot be bought.
Most of us feel lost in the rat- race or matrix or tax farm... it is an artificial existence, meaningless jobs keeping us busy and unfulfilled.
It ignites greed, arrogance and ignorance.
Even if you win the rat race all you will be is a rat.
Everything we need is found in nature. We were made this way. It is our only source yet we have forgotten.
Just My Opinion
There are a zillion points of departure to approach this subject of “I”. Who am I? Who are you? What am I in relation to you and what should one do to procure standards for measuring the worth of another “I” and a reality based worth or measure of ones own “I”, or self?
Perhaps one way is to just bypass self-image reflection altogether and focus on ones ethical values predominantly.What is right or wrong in this particular orientation that I choose to pursue? Then just forget about the little image of “me”-the “Oh dear, what will they think” monkey wrench (the frozen picture of “self”inside the head)
Elementary reality based common sense would keep most people, I think ,from grandiose assumptions of the likes of thinking one’s self able to help people in need of brain surgery if one is merely skilled in plumbing only.But I am referring to the myriad ways that many of us, I assume, stifle ourselves with self-doubt about things we can do because of over-emphasis on focusing on the abstract image of self instead of the core motivations of our acquired ethical perspectives ,values ,etc. for doing whatever we endeavor to do.
Letting that be the criterion by which we pursue our actions and goals.Forget the frozen categorized self-image picture in the head that stifles action and thought.
Let the hearts values be the motivation for ones actions.Then the question of ones “worthiness” would seem inevitable to fade into irrelevance.
I think that in the ever unfolding process of knowing oneself more deeply and broadly,knowing ones values and ethics the less one gives a hoot about what others think of “me” as some general and vague image in their class snooty gossip oriented minds.Of course one is always open to listen and weigh the value of meaningful critique addressed to oneself by others.
For example ,you are walking down the street and witness through their front window some nice little old ladies having tea in their front dining room.You simultaneously just happen to notice huge flames roaring out of their attic roof.You spontaneously begin to run to the front door to warn them about the fire but suddenly freeze in self-doubt.You ask yourself,”who am I to approach this private home and start yelling at the people there? I am not an official licensed and trained authority in this field of endeavor.I am not a public service officer.I am just a prune picker at a local prune orchard.No,I dare not assert myself as if I knew the proper protocols to deal with fire emergencies”…..And so he wanders off in remorse and a feeling of inferiority despairing that he was not qualified to help these poor old people from possibly perishing in their house fire.
I take it your underlying motivation for writing about Mumford, Illich and others who wrote about the great calamities, sufferings and destruction we human beings are bringing upon ourselves , is like the feeling of obligation to warn the little old ladies that their house is on fire.The little old ladies ,as they gab away over their tea , are ignorant of the danger that is coming upon them. Similarly you see the danger of our collective ignorance about how corruptly, stupidly and insanely our world is being ruled by oligarchic psychopathic values of unbridled power and profit pursuits and letting these forces herd us toward diminishment and destruction as subjugated and clueless captives of their clever and manipulative deceits.
And now a word about GUINNESS STOUT Ale.You put a picture of such in one of your postings referring to it as your “reward”.Though I have gone the way of the happy teetotaler I am not here to preach on the evils of firewater(alcohol) in a Calvinistic guilt and shame inducing sense.
Whiskey was used, as I understand it ,to fire up the Native Americans(Indians) and thus weaken and disorient them to better manipulate, deceive or kill them.I just wonder if the British also ever used alcohol in such a way against the Irish to weaken, disorient and dominate them easier.Hollow speculation?
Long story short, just to throw in a related point that perhaps only I find interesting is the effect of “the day after” a drinking bout regarding a weakened sense of self that seems to follow quite commonly.The writer and social activist of the early 1900’s Upton Sinclair has the perfect quote on this phenomena in his wonderfully informative book entitled ”A Cup Of Fury”. It is about the very many artist, writers, actors and so on that he knew personally in life that stifled, diminished and destroyed themselves with alcohol, such as Jack London who ended up committing suicide after reducing his health and quality of writing to a mere shriveled trickle at an early age.I am too lazy to look up the Sinclair exact quote on the very common ego shrinking psychological effect of alcohol.I hope you read that book someday because I think it a very valid wise warning as to the negative effects of that central nervous system poison called alcohol.
Poison however nicely it is dressed up as “Craft Brew”, ”Fine purple wine”,”Smooth Golden Whiskey”is still poison.
One Doctor Somebody, whose name I cannot recall said,”alcohol is an ego solvent”.
Sorry to sound like Carey Nation, the American crusader against alcohol who would go with the police during prohibition and chopped up barrooms with an axe.Prohibition was an idiotic idea and authoritarian brute stupidity in my view, only education and knowledge of the danger of alcohol can compel people to avoid diminishing their mind, bodies and spirits with the stuff.Same with any kind of damaging drugs , it seems to me.
For the record, in the distant past I drank more than my share of Guinness Stout and thought at the time it was a gift of the Gods. I think I was mistaken.
Well here is this higgledy-piggledy response to your latest post on self -doubt.
I am not “a writer” and probably should not be allowed anywhere near a typewriter, so the grammar imperfections here will just have to do. I am only concerned with an adequate conveyance of meaning and if I have succeeded in that I am happy.
Good day.
A few final dribbles of comment regarding booze.
A friend mine from long ago had a sister, an older woman who become so touchy and sensitive to just about anything he would say to her.She was a respectable daily boozer with the very respectable glass of wine (or two) with lunch and dinner and the respectable and normal “drinks” in the evening “to relax”.To me this fits into the “alcohol as ego solvent” idea as largely at the root of her snappy, argumentative, defensive responses to some of the most casual and innocent comments from her kind brother.Just one of the many subtle gifts that the subtle poisoner and false seductive friend called alcohol delivers.Its final embrace is all too commonly the squeeze of great diminishment and unpleasant slow demise.
End of “Sermon on the Booze”
Goodnight