I've spent a lot of time on gifted-homeschooling forums and the like (and used to be "somebody" in such circles). I have two sons who are very "twice exceptional" (gifted with learning disabilities plus other handicaps) and I did extremely well in school but a medical handicap has held me back and generally frustrated me in life. Finally getting a diagnosis late in life allowed me to begin moving forward, but from a starting place of a deep pit, in essence.
I have come to think that "impostor syndrome" is probably at its worst with "twice exceptional" folks -- folks who are both more intelligent or competent than average and also have some kind of handicap (ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, whatever). I have found that the best antidote involves figuring out what is real and what isn't. I mean, I have done so many things that people said "could not be done" -- and I don't mean they said that I couldn't do it, I mean they said that no one could do it. -- that listening to other people about what my limitations "should" be is utterly useless to me. At the exact same time, there are lots of things that I find incredibly difficult or problematic that most other people don't struggle with. My observation has been that people like me frequently only find out what their actual limits are by hitting a metaphorical wall at like 100 miles an hour. When I fail and fail big, then I know I cannot do it. That is the only real, meaningful test. Listening to other people and their predictions/estimations/whatever doesn't work. Nor am I actually a good judge of what I can or can't do. My own predictions of my own ability sucks eggs. I've worked hard on finding less disastrous ways to find my limits and to fail more gracefully but failing still is basically the only reliable test of my limits.
Learning some real world, hard numbers that compare your abilities realistically to others helps. There are some sources of info out there and all that. And then just gradually testing your limits in some manner that is meaningful to you which gives you the feedback you need to judge what you are really capable of and whether or not it is genuinely better than what most other people could do in that area. Sometimes such data can be quite hard to come by. But there are ways to develop mental models for assessing such things.
I think it can but you have to have the right data. Coming up with the right data seems to me to be the hard part. But I also realize that, like with anything, it's a case of "different strokes for different folks".
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I've spent a lot of time on gifted-homeschooling forums and the like (and used to be "somebody" in such circles). I have two sons who are very "twice exceptional" (gifted with learning disabilities plus other handicaps) and I did extremely well in school but a medical handicap has held me back and generally frustrated me in life. Finally getting a diagnosis late in life allowed me to begin moving forward, but from a starting place of a deep pit, in essence.
I have come to think that "impostor syndrome" is probably at its worst with "twice exceptional" folks -- folks who are both more intelligent or competent than average and also have some kind of handicap (ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, whatever). I have found that the best antidote involves figuring out what is real and what isn't. I mean, I have done so many things that people said "could not be done" -- and I don't mean they said that I couldn't do it, I mean they said that no one could do it. -- that listening to other people about what my limitations "should" be is utterly useless to me. At the exact same time, there are lots of things that I find incredibly difficult or problematic that most other people don't struggle with. My observation has been that people like me frequently only find out what their actual limits are by hitting a metaphorical wall at like 100 miles an hour. When I fail and fail big, then I know I cannot do it. That is the only real, meaningful test. Listening to other people and their predictions/estimations/whatever doesn't work. Nor am I actually a good judge of what I can or can't do. My own predictions of my own ability sucks eggs. I've worked hard on finding less disastrous ways to find my limits and to fail more gracefully but failing still is basically the only reliable test of my limits.
Learning some real world, hard numbers that compare your abilities realistically to others helps. There are some sources of info out there and all that. And then just gradually testing your limits in some manner that is meaningful to you which gives you the feedback you need to judge what you are really capable of and whether or not it is genuinely better than what most other people could do in that area. Sometimes such data can be quite hard to come by. But there are ways to develop mental models for assessing such things.
I don't think comparing yourself to others really helps.
I think it can but you have to have the right data. Coming up with the right data seems to me to be the hard part. But I also realize that, like with anything, it's a case of "different strokes for different folks".