Asklemmy

43899 readers

1107 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

I’ve been somewhat of a fuck up in life, now doing better but still struggle with things. More details below. (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late thirties and before that I was a mess, job to job etc. then got lucky and worked for a company that afforded me the chance to study for my dream job without work pressure.

I am now a software developer and although I went from being the smartest person in the groups I roamed to the dumbest person at work I still have half a foot in my old life of drugs and poor decisions (although the usage has dropped by 95% and I’ve got a good routine and go to bed early).

I feel like a pretentious dick when at a party and someone asks what I do for work, I kinda feel ashamed saying I’m a software developer. Like a fraud I guess.

How to stop this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Imposter syndrome is pretty common and it sounds like you've put in a hell of a lot of work turning your life around, so that's something you can and should be proud of.

In the meantime though; remember that often it's not that they actually want to know, they're just looking for common ground or something to talk about. You can be vague or redirect; "I'm in I.T." (not a lie) or "I work for a (whatever industry you dev for) company." (also not a lie) and turn the question back on them. Then ask follow up questions. Most people love to talk about themselves, just give them an excuse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Hey, this is the second imposter syndrome call out. I will be aware that this is a thing now.

Yeah I will try and be vague unless they prove further.

As for the other point, I am inherently curious so I do prefer to ask lots of questions and learn about others rather than talk about myself.

Thanks.