Profession: Marine Scientist

Trawling for the lurking creatures underneath my impostor syndrome

Due to my ongoing sinus issues, I finally made an appointment with an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) doctor.

Lovely.

Haven’t been in something like 15 years? But here we went again.

To experience all these bewildering instruments, I had to complete a new patient form first.

Name, first name, birthdate, address: Check.

Profession: blank stare.

Time ticking. Heart pounding. Feeling like everyone in the waiting room is slowly starting to make a story. She doesn’t have a job. She has a strange job. Of course, I am exaggerating. A bit at least.

I slowly started writing.

Profession: Marine Scientist.

Isn’t this the most absurd thing ever? You studied for a master’s degree in marine science. You conducted a study you designed yourself from a vessel in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. You graduate with distinction. You get to present the results of your master's thesis on multiple occasions. You have a manuscript pending peer review. You are submitting PhD applications, and you even got your first TWO gigs as a research assistant.

Why do you hesitate to put your profession on a stupid piece of paper? A stupid paper, that will disappear into the vastness of some stupid file system. For the sole purpose of a doctor identifying the cause of some disgusting snot in your nose?

“Impostor syndrome”, I hear you say.

This is actually what Sven says, too. He remineded me, that I always do this. I acted like this when I was a younger consultant (well, I did it for my entire consulting career even as a senior consultant). Then I did it for may Bachelor’s Degree and then again for my Master’s.

But actually, I don’t think so. At least, something else lurks underneath what might present as Impostor Syndrome on the outside.

Chat GPT told me that Impostor syndrome is “[…] a psychological pattern where an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud," despite evidence of their competence and success. People with Impostor Syndrome often attribute their achievements to luck or external factors rather than their own abilities.”.

Am I afraid of being exposed as a “fraud”?

No. If someone asks about my qualifications, I can prove them and clearly state my strengths and weaknesses.

Do I doubt my competence and success?

No. I usually just feel uncomfortable about them.

Do you attribute them to luck or external factors?

I guess we all might do it to some extent. But I get a weird upset pinch in my stomach if some people tell me that I am just lucky, so no.

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The appointment at the ENT provided some further details.

I stepped into the doctor’s office and had sufficient time to get accustomed to the sight of the instruments of torture. Oh boy.

The very kind doctor came in, and we chatted about my symptoms. She did the first inspection and sprayed something up my nostrils.

But then, she pushed air into my nose while asking me to say “Coca Cola”. It was the weirdest feeling ever. While still figuring out where this air went now, she casually said: “Wow, you are a marine scientist. You must dive a lot. We really need to get your sinuses clear…”

And so my air-bubble-filled brain (of course, I know, there were no air bubbles in my brain) went straight into overdrive:

“No, no, no. You don’t dive for your job. At least not right now. Come on, you must clarify and explain what you do. Ahh, there comes another instrument. I can’t handle this right now, girl, but go figure out how to explain yourself. To ensure, she gets it right! To get you right.”

Okay, let’s step into this for a second. Of course, I was following commands, trying to handle the distaste for having my sinuses “abused” while coming up with anything short of explaining my profession and clarifying things. “Well, not exactly. I dive more for pleasure. I am more researching in the colder waters and on acoustics …” What are you doing here?

The doctor just went on anyway, expressing what a lovely job this is and that my husband (he had referred me to this doctor) must be very supportive as I would be away quite often, etc.

Let’s step into this briefly and go back to the moment my mind told me to explain.

Why is there a need to explain myself?

Since her assumptions are wrong!

Well, certainly, this assumption is quite a reasonable default one.

But she gets it wrong. She gets YOU wrong. She doesn’t understand you. She now has expectations about you that you will disappoint. And then she won’t like you.

Wow. Wait. Why wouldn’t she like me? And first of all. She is my doctor. It doesn’t matter if she likes me or not.

Her task is to take care of my sinuses; if she assumes I need them for my job, that is certainly a big advantage. I will have them fixed properly. In the end, it is not fully wrong since I do dive. Just not for my job at the moment.

Why does she need to get me right about my job? It does not seem to be her intention to learn more about my job right now but simply share her thoughts about it—maybe to distract me, maybe since this is the mode she operates in. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she gets right about what is wrong with my sinuses.

And maybe…to stop penetrating them with all of these tools.

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About this postcard

Just to distract this heated conversation between me and my mind with some cool pictures of “trawling some other creatures lurking underneath”:

I took these pictures during a field trip to the marine research station in Kristineberg, Sweden. We sampled the seabed to assess biodiversity (which species, how many, etc.).

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Phew. Good. Back to the storyline.

What does all of this tell me?

I am afraid people could make wrong assumptions about me and, therefore, have expectations that I can’t meet—or worse, that I don’t want to meet. That would create a conflict my people-pleasing part doesn’t want to deal with.

Is it because I choose careers where people don’t know the daily tasks? What the heck does a software consultant do? And a marine scientist? Could be. But objectively: No. People make assumptions about everything based on their unique experiences, personalities, and realities. Maybe the doctor simply wanted to share her assumptions to be relatable. Her way of being interested. And I could just take it like that. Pause, no need to clarify. Just let her go; if she has a question, I can answer that.

This again makes me wonder: Is it an actual fear, or is there something else beyond this need or desire to be understood?

Is it the desire to express and explain? Is it to share about myself rather than have people make assumptions? Maybe. Something resonates with these lines.

A doctor making kind assumptions about my job is probably not the right place and time to satisfy this desire. But maybe there is a general lack of expressing myself and talking about the things I love in the way I love—explaining on a more detailed level and storytelling.

Hello, little introvert afraid of oversharing and thinking no one is interested in my stories. Did you hear about this Substack platform? Where do you write online to share what YOU are passionate about explaining in the way you love to express yourself? Guess what? We just committed to writing more regularly here. So you can relax a bit in your daily life if people make assumptions. Relax. Be curious about them rather than freaking out that they could (and probably will) not get it right! It’s okay. We are okay.

Hug,