Impostor Syndrome

I’m pregnant. I’ve made it all the way to my second trimester and I have the ultrasound to prove it. Yet I have this nagging sensation that I’m making the whole thing up for attention. Allow me to explain.

Remember when you were a kid and you had to act incredibly sick just to get to stay home from school? It wasn’t enough to simply be sick. You had to put a real show on for your parents so they’d feel sorry for you. For me that meant groaning, forcing an entire glass of pee-colored powdered gatorade down my throat, and lying around the house pathetically until Mom realized that I really wasn’t going to put on pants this morning.

This is a hateful substance.

Fast forward fifteen years and I still put on a show even when no one is watching. If catch myself acting healthy on a sick say then I immediately sit down and cough a bit. Let me repeat that no one is watching; I do this when I’m completely alone in the house. This playacting is entirely for my own benefit. I have two selves: the ten year year old trying to get a lazy day and the suspicious mother searching for signs of faking it.

So imagine how I felt during the first trimester of my pregnancy. I was constantly ill. I’d get back from work and collapse on the couch from sheer exhaustion. The tricky thing about exhaustion is that as soon as my kind husband would volunteer to make dinner I’d feel immediately better. Suspicious? I think so.

Then there’s the fact that sometimes I manage to get off of the recliner all by myself and sometimes I sit listlessly waiting for help because I’m to lazy to even open my mouth and ask for a hand. Sometimes I cook dinner. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen and immediately sit down on the floor because I’m dizzy. When I’m out with friends I can stay awake and coherent until 10 PM. When I’m at home I lose my logic and self-control sometime around 8:30.

I just want to be consistent. If someone pointed a gun at me and said “go pick up your library books” I could certainly manage it. So really the problem isn’t one of ability so much as motivation. Maybe that should be my new motto “Live every day as if someone will shoot you unless you fulfill your responsibilities.” It’s a little wordy, and not terribly inspirational, but it’s perfect for fakers like me.