It is true tha t I have often had moments of “imposter syndrome…” That feeling you have when you are sure that you should not be in the room wherever you are. That you are a phony. That you don´t deserve to be in there. From conversations with friends who are creative and take risks, this seems to be a fairly common sentiment. I am not sure how this shakes our differently for women and men. But I do know that I get it and it couples alongside my feeling of vulnerability.

The feeling is something like… “I am here in this room, but I am not sure that I deserve to be here.” I can´t say I put too much stock or anything in this feeling, but it is good to admit.

A good friend directed me to a piece from Neil Gaiman who wrote about this topic on his blog.

The second best help might be in the form of an anecdote. Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.
On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”
And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.