From the inside looking out, I rather melancholically assert to myself at least once a day that I have a control problem; or, that I have a habit of absent-mindedly attempting to control everything around me. The good news, if it is fairly said to be so, is I don’t often try to control people, just circumstances and atmospheres. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the need to control, for my share in it, was born from a lack of trust that anyone or anything can contribute to the salvation of the universe as effectively as I can. This mistrust is paradoxically alloyed with a tedious and overwhelming sense of complete and utter fraud.

Yes, imposter syndrome is a sort of quasi-humble boast used by those who desperately need you to understand exactly how unworthy and underserving they are. However, my penchant for private self-deprecation doesn’t get in the way of my drive to bulldoze over anyone and anything that gets in my way until it’s absolutely too late to do anything but feel sorry for myself.

[Insert irony here]

Or maybe it isn’t ironic, or inexplicable. It may indeed be the most intrinsically sensical combination of neuroses yet discovered. At least if you gauge the pathology’s explicability by it’s outcomes. Does it not seem that these two feelings, imposture and a desire to control, are perfectly arranged to compliment each other in the worst way? One’s feeling of inadequacy may drive one to overcompensate, overwork, over-commit, and so burn out and embarrass oneself. DON’T DO THAT.

There, I’ve solved the problem for all time and everyone can go home now.

Except there is no going home if one is afflicted with a mental shadow which rises with him or her at the dawn, and lies down at his or her pillow in the evening. The only way out, is through, and with the help of caring friends, and the truth, administered like a bitter medicine that nevertheless performs its salvific magic, one can make the daring climb to a place of better judgement and peace of mind.