Impostor Syndrome: Why Feeling Like You Don’t Belong Doesn’t Mean You Don’t

From Chemistry Ph.D. to Professional Artist

I first learned about impostor syndrome during my very first semester as a chemistry graduate student at Texas A&M. Imposter syndrome is defined as:

“a psychological condition that is characterized by persistent doubt concerning one's abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one's ongoing success.” — Merriam Webster

It came up in an ethics class that was meant to prepare us for the emotional side of graduate school. Most people probably brushed it off, but it immediately stuck with me. I had just arrived, and I already felt like I didn’t belong.

Honestly, I think I felt that way even as an undergraduate. My friend group all had their “thing” in chemistry (organic, inorganic, instrumental) and, while I understood the material, I didn’t remember loving lecture classes the way they did.

I struggled with paper tests. I wanted to fall asleep in classes. I did not usually want to discuss chemistry outside of class. I did not own chemistry or periodic table merch. Actually, research (creative thinking) was where I thrived. That was where I felt capable, and where I made real contributions and left impressions. My undergraduate research supervisor spent almost 4 years helping me find confidence and assurance that I would be capable in the scientific world if I wanted it.

One reason I chose graduate school is because of my undergraduate research advisor. He was incredibly supportive of my learning and truly believed in me. His mentorship made me feel capable in a way I had not experienced in the classroom, and I remember thinking that I wanted to become the same kind of mentor for others one day. I imagined pursuing professorship because I wanted to support students the way he supported me. I also realized that I genuinely loved research itself. It gave me space to think, explore, and learn at my own pace without the pressure of exams or performance comparisons. In research, I could follow my curiosity freely, and that environment allowed me to feel confident and motivated rather than anxious.

When I entered grad school, I felt like I had somehow snuck my way into a room full of genuinely brilliant people. They asked great questions after presentations. I often felt like I blacked out or couldn’t follow everything fully in class (thank God for Notability allowing me to record my lectures). Deep down I worried they were going to find out I was a “B” student.

And yet, stepping back now, the facts tell a completely different story. When you get a PhD, this means that you contributed something completely new to the world. I created a new branch of nuclear forensics: Ra-226 forensics. I built a novel methodology from scratch involving the chemistry of multiple radionuclide elements including Ra, Ba, Pb, Bi, Po and Zn. I successfully age-dated a controlled radioactive sample within two hours of its origination date. People pursued my research. They wanted what I produced. I need to own that!

Impostor syndrome often arises not because of inability or professional failure, but because people are placed in environments that distort self-perception and reward comparison rather than curiosity.

My graduate experience was not as glorious as my undergraduate experience. Still because I struggled in structured classroom environments and was compared against my groupmates, I never internalized the reality of what I achieved. I felt like an impostor right up through graduation. Unfortunately, that was for 10 years (undergraduate + graduate school). Two years into my graduate degree, I felt that art is truly where my talents lied. I felt I could express myself and convey messaged way more effectively through imagery since I was a small child. It is now no wonder that I was such an effective presenter throughout my scientific journey. I knew I would leave nuclear science behind for a field that was art related, but I chose to be an artist the very summer I graduated.

When I transitioned into art, something interesting happened. I did not actually feel like an impostor at first, not until social media entered the picture. For the previous ten years of school, I had barely used social platforms at all. Suddenly for my business, I created Instagram and Facebook accounts and my feed became a constant stream of the best of the best artists. My uninformed brain didn’t know how to contextualize what I was seeing.

Finished piece after finished piece, over and over. What Instagram never shows is that many of those paintings took a week or more. But our minds experience them as instantaneous output. I began thinking things like why am I so slow, why aren’t I producing more, I should be making art every day. Except when I track my own time honestly, a single pastel often takes me fifteen to twenty hours not including days where the painting just sits in my living room so I can stare at it while eating dinner or relaxing processing the composition before making the next move. That is real work time. That reflection is part of the creative process.

But comparison erased that reality.

I started feeling guilty and ashamed, like maybe I was not working hard enough after all. I could feel it draining my energy and affecting my creativity. My partner would come home every day and see how down I was. He recognized what was happening long before I did. Social media was poisoning my creative stability. Guilt fed directly into paralysis. When guilt shows up, creativity suffers and the work itself becomes harder to make. Around 3 months into being an artist, I learned that professional artist Erin Hanson finishes one painting per week, and that was grounding for me. I realized how unrealistic my expectations had become. At my skill level factoring in business responsibilities like framing, photography, website work, and shipping, one completed piece every two weeks is not laziness. It is professional pacing.

At the same time, subject matter comparison crept in. I began feeling pressure that real artists should be abstract, experimental or hyper narrowly focused. I absorbed comments like if your work isn’t all oceans or one theme forever, you haven’t found your voice. That remark cut deeper than I expected.

I am fundamentally curious. I got a PhD in science for a reason. I love detail. I love nature. I spent much of my childhood and early adulthood indoors and working. First because of circumstances growing up and then because of school. Now I finally get to explore the outside world I missed. My artwork reflects my love of landscapes, textures, flora, and fauna. I want to study everything. And yet, I felt guilty for being a nature painter as if that somehow meant I lacked originality or courage. Which is absurd and yet emotionally sticky. I just want to paint what I want to paint right now honestly. About three months into being a full time artist, the thought appeared again.

“Did I make a mistake?”

I hated that thought because I love making art. Art has always been the part of me that couldn’t be hidden or boxed up, even during my science years. Back then I existed in a white background RGB zero world of conformity and I stood out because I couldn’t help caring about aesthetic detail. My supervisor once asked why I put so much effort into figures as if caring visually was unnecessary. With all due respect, how dare you! Suppressing that urge always felt like trying to drain my identity away like asking Mariah Carey to stay quiet or Michael Jackson to sit quietly at a cubicle.

So how on earth could I now believe I was wrong for choosing art?

That question led me to a deeper realization. This wasn’t about career choice. It was about confidence and comparison. I grew up in a competitive unstable household. Comparison hurt relationships. It damaged friendships during undergrad. I now recognize that competition and self comparison have always been destructive forces for me personally. Comparison kills happiness. And social media is an engine designed entirely around comparison. One minute of doom scrolling pulls me out of emotional neutrality. Fifteen minutes leaves me dysregulated. I finally accepted what I had resisted admitting.

Instagram will never be a healthy creative environment for me. My boundaries now are simple.

Post what I need to post.
Visit specific friends’ pages intentionally.
Engage with comments then leave.
Do not revisit performance metrics.
Avoid scrolling entirely.

Not everyone needs to take it that far but for me, I am not ready for social media the way highly competitive people aren’t ready for a constant ranking machine disguised as community.

I once heard someone say, if you feel like an impostor then you probably are one. You just aren’t doing enough. I now believe that statement is ignorant and harmful. After reaching the terminal end of my scientific career, I can see clearly. If I had wanted to stay in that field, I belonged there. And I would have continued to exceed expectations. The problem wasn’t competence. It was perspective.

When you are standing inside a competitive environment, comparing yourself in real time against others, your perception of yourself becomes distorted. You cannot see your own value accurately while immersed in constant comparison whether that environment is academia or Instagram. And here I am now in the mud again but this time as an artist. The difference is that now I recognize the pattern.

If you have ever wondered whether feeling like an impostor means you truly do not belong, I want to offer this truth.

It probably means the opposite.

It often means you care deeply.
It means you are growing into new territory.
It means you have not learned to perceive your own worth yet.

I realized something looking back at both science and art. I am not lacking motivation. In the right environment and subject matter, I can work all day and night with joy. I have always been deeply driven when what I am doing does not make me miserable. What drains me is not the work itself. It is anxious, comparative environments that turn passion into pressure and people into competitors, even when they care about one another. That culture does not bring out the best in anyone.

Protecting my mental health is not weakness. Self-preservation is how I stay in an environment where I can do the work I love and do it well.