Depression is primarily a consistent feeling of sadness or apathy and loss of interest in activities. People can doubt themselves without being depressed. A depressed person devalues themselves because they feel they are worthless and become so self focused they cannot see anything outside the reality in their own head, so even if someone says they care, it will be explained away. With Impostor syndrome, people struggle to feel confident that they belong with their peers, not due to a lack of self worth, but due to not seeing the struggles that other people go through to achieve things, they only see the results. A finished project always seems more impressive and technically difficult when you don’t see how it was developed and all the mistakes other people have made along the way. People can have both depression and impostor syndrome, but I don’t think the two should be confused.
Being a layman: I just get the feeling that “impostor syndrome” could just be a better sounding description than “depression” for roughly the same thing (cf. burnout). Depression can show itself in a very broad collection of symptomes, including but not limiting itself to the things in the article and stated by you.
Depression is primarily a consistent feeling of sadness or apathy and loss of interest in activities.
started doubting myself
felt like I wasn’t adding value or achieving much
found it difficult to concentrate and focus
Note: I don’t want to devaluate any condition, I just find it risky to say impostor syndrome (which has a tongue-in-cheek feeling for me) to something which might be more severe.
i guess impostor syndrome could also be another name for a minor depression.
Depression is primarily a consistent feeling of sadness or apathy and loss of interest in activities. People can doubt themselves without being depressed. A depressed person devalues themselves because they feel they are worthless and become so self focused they cannot see anything outside the reality in their own head, so even if someone says they care, it will be explained away. With Impostor syndrome, people struggle to feel confident that they belong with their peers, not due to a lack of self worth, but due to not seeing the struggles that other people go through to achieve things, they only see the results. A finished project always seems more impressive and technically difficult when you don’t see how it was developed and all the mistakes other people have made along the way. People can have both depression and impostor syndrome, but I don’t think the two should be confused.
Being a layman: I just get the feeling that “impostor syndrome” could just be a better sounding description than “depression” for roughly the same thing (cf. burnout). Depression can show itself in a very broad collection of symptomes, including but not limiting itself to the things in the article and stated by you.
Note: I don’t want to devaluate any condition, I just find it risky to say impostor syndrome (which has a tongue-in-cheek feeling for me) to something which might be more severe.