So I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late thirties and before that I was a mess, job to job etc. then got lucky and worked for a company that afforded me the chance to study for my dream job without work pressure.
I am now a software developer and although I went from being the smartest person in the groups I roamed to the dumbest person at work I still have half a foot in my old life of drugs and poor decisions (although the usage has dropped by 95% and I’ve got a good routine and go to bed early).
I feel like a pretentious dick when at a party and someone asks what I do for work, I kinda feel ashamed saying I’m a software developer. Like a fraud I guess.
How to stop this?
Fellow adult with ADHD here, welcome to the club! What you’re feeling is referred to as “imposter syndrome” and it’s one of the more pesky symptoms of our particular affliction.
Just knowing it’s a symptom of ADHD has been a huge help to me… When those thoughts creep in, I just remind myself how hard I’ve had to work to get here.
I know for a fact that I had to study for some of my licensing exams three or four times longer than some of my coworkers, for example. Those coworkers don’t know that, and I wouldn’t care if they did, but I know how hard I’ve had to work to get where I am and I’m proud of it.
In my experience, there’s two ends of the developer spectrum.
At one end is uptight. They have all their shit on lockdown and the confidence that comes with that.
The other end is creative. They are developers because they enjoy creating, and development is a rare high-paying but creative outlet. They stumble through everything and get bored with reading too much documentation.
I have seen many cases of both of these, and another, underlying metric is their perception of their own intelligence.
It’s unfortunate, but a lot of them grew up in an environment where they were the smartest person in the room and were rarely challenged. Now, being in an environment with many other smart people, they only feel smart by making others feel less than.
They purposely show off their knowledge and when you give an idea they shit on it and make you feel stupid.
There’s also this thing where if you know a system really well, it’s hard to imagine someone not having the knowledge you have. This is just how memory works because our brains abstract things away and then we can’t recognize when others don’t have that abstraction yet.
This is all normal. Humanity has a lot of work to do to change this, but it’s embedded into how everything works, so it’s not going to happen in our lifetime. You can change you, but you can’t change anything else.
With that being said, here are some things I have learned, being from a similar background as you:
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Recognize that you are smart or you wouldn’t be there.
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Accept that others will make you feel stupid. The best response is to act like it doesn’t phase you.
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Don’t make others feel stupid if you can help it.
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Be enthusiastic. Any shortcomings you may have, will be forgiven if you show up with a big smile on your face.
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Talk to your managers. Ask them what would make you better at your job, and ruthlessly pursue bettering yourself. This will give you a lot of confidence.
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You will lose touch with your old party friends. They will die young, and you will feel sad. When you do get a chance to catch up, talk to them a lot and consider journaling it. This will help a lot when you lose them.
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You will feel guilty because you are doing so much better than them. Accept it and move on and try not to brag about your new life.
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You will feel out of place because your new friends don’t have the same background as you. Accept it and move on. Nobody else is worried about it.
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Your new friends will probably not be as interesting as your old friends, and you will feel yourself becoming less interesting. This is the price we pay for our new life. If you want to stay interesting find a way to be in touch with other creative people: musicians, teachers, English majors.
As someone who is the stupid party stoner friend to a big friend group of (mostly) tech bros, this list is pretty hilarious to read from the other side.
Also fuck you for saying I’m gonna die young.
I hope you don’t. And I’m sorry.
I lost my best friend in February. It fucking sucks.
He was a big partier. Once he hit his late 30s he ballooned to probably over 300. He took a nap one day and had a heart attack in his little attic room of his friend’s house, where he had lived for 10 years. Our big friend group from back in the day is wondering who will go next.
My comment was supposed to be kind of wink wink tongue in cheek in tone, I’m sure that didn’t come across.
I’m sorry for poking at fresh wounds. I lost my best friend too, many years ago. He was only 21, but there’s no such thing as “old enough” because life is too short. And there’s not enough time in this life to truly move on from something like that. There’s nothing else I can say, I just hope you’re doing well bud
You had a journey, a struggle, to get where you are. You don’t need to impress everyone or check all the conventional boxes in order to have a compelling life story.
One of the long lingering effects of mental and socioeconomic afflictions is that we don’t ever believe we are worthy.
Imposter syndrome is pretty common and it sounds like you’ve put in a hell of a lot of work turning your life around, so that’s something you can and should be proud of.
In the meantime though; remember that often it’s not that they actually want to know, they’re just looking for common ground or something to talk about. You can be vague or redirect; “I’m in I.T.” (not a lie) or “I work for a (whatever industry you dev for) company.” (also not a lie) and turn the question back on them. Then ask follow up questions. Most people love to talk about themselves, just give them an excuse.
Hey, this is the second imposter syndrome call out. I will be aware that this is a thing now.
Yeah I will try and be vague unless they prove further.
As for the other point, I am inherently curious so I do prefer to ask lots of questions and learn about others rather than talk about myself.
Thanks.
Stop caring? It’s just your job, there’s also doctors and lawyers and architects and …
You reply you’re a software developer. Either the topic ends there or how it often happens you get follow up questions like “What do you work on?” or “How to learn programming?”.
People are usually curious instead of jealous or annoyed. It’s just a conversation.
