Quieting the noise

On self-doubt, people-pleasing, and learning to trust my own voice.

If you’re someone who has always taken in everyone else’s opinions before you decide what you want… this one’s for you.

*photo by Emily Lucille Sather

I was sitting at the acrylic desk in my studio apartment when I got the email. “Apparently you and I are bitches,” it said, forwarded by another blogger I’d recently met.

I was 23, brand new to New York City, fresh off my first heartbreak with the only boyfriend I’d ever had, and honestly shocked to have even been invited to a recent blogger event where I was pretty much in awe of every other person there. But my imposter syndrome must have come across to someone as aloof or even outright rude, to the point they’d felt driven to share it online. My stomach dropped.

I clicked over to read what she was referring to, and with every click my heart beat faster and faster. Dozens of pages, written by people I’d never met, dissecting everything from my body and my hair and my teeth to speculating on my personality and my friendships and my finances.

I felt… nauseous. I felt like everyone in the world hated me, and even with my own pre-existing self-doubt very much alive and well, somehow I was the last to know.