This is a hard post to write—maybe the hardest I’ve written here.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether to share this because it feels deeply personal, messy, and unfinished. But if this platform has taught me anything, it’s that honesty creates connection, and I have a feeling I’m not the only librarian carrying something like this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about impostor syndrome lately. Or maybe more accurately, what happens when impostor syndrome gets fed by workplace trauma, gaslighting, and betrayal.

We talk about impostor syndrome as that inner voice telling us we’re not qualified enough, not experienced enough, not as competent as people think. I know that voice.

But I’m realizing something else can look and feel a lot like impostor syndrome: being systematically made to doubt your own reality.

Being diminished often enough that you begin to question your own competence.

Being gaslit long enough that even documented truth starts to feel shaky.

That does something to a person. It has done something to me.

Not even a week after being terminated from my previous library, I picked up this blog again and started “working,” because I don’t know how not to work. This blog is work. It has become my full-time job, my purpose, and honestly, my lifeline.

But here’s what I haven’t said out loud much: the thought of working in another library sends my anxiety into full gear.

Not because I don’t love librarianship—I do. That’s part of what makes this so painful.

But the idea of having to prove myself all over again, to be put on the spot to perform in a new institution, can send me into a spiral. The stress has lived in my body. I’ve lost 25 pounds in a short amount of time because stress-induced nausea has made eating difficult. That is what prolonged stress can do.

Sometimes writing and rereading my own posts gives me brief relief. It reminds me that I am good at this. That I know what I’m talking about. That I built something meaningful.

But the relief can be short-lived.

Then the doubts creep back.

What if I was only successful because I was in my hometown? What if my ability as a librarian rested on the fact that I already knew the community? What if I can’t build that again somewhere else?

That’s the spiral.

And I know I’m not the only one who has had those thoughts after being hurt by a workplace.

What makes this even harder is that I worked incredibly hard to build what I had at my old library, and I largely built it alone.

There was no leadership. No mentorship. No support. No training.

And I mean literally no training.

On my first day, I was handed all the system passwords and told, “It’s your department now, do whatever you like.”

That was my onboarding.

I hadn’t even had LIS coursework yet.

Looking back, that should have been a red flag.

Everything I talk about here—so much of what I built and learned—was self-taught or learned through networking with other librarians. That is why this online community has always felt so comfortable to me. For seven years, this community has been what I relied on professionally. In many ways, it helped make me the librarian I became.

And yes, being rooted in my hometown mattered. I grew up there. I already had connections in the community, which made it easier to deepen those relationships I talk about so much.

But community connection didn’t make me a good librarian.

It allowed me to practice being one fully.

There’s a difference.

My library community felt like family. I knew names, favorite books, birthdays, lunch spots. That relationship-building was at the center of my work.

And losing that has been devastating.

Especially because of how it ended.

The continuous gaslighting by the director and board members—some of which is still ongoing—really messed me up. There were moments they had me doubting myself, believing things I knew weren’t true, even though I have pages and pages of documentation proving otherwise.

That’s what gaslighting does.

It destabilizes you.

It can make a competent person feel fraudulent.

And that can masquerade as impostor syndrome.

But they are not the same thing.

One is self-doubt.

The other is harm.

Naming that has been important for me.

Because I know I am good at what I do.

I know it.

I have been recognized by School Library Journal, ALA, and Indiana University. Those things did not happen by accident.

And yet those accomplishments were never acknowledged by the institution I poured my heart and soul into. They were never celebrated. Never really even recognized.

Not even a happy birthday.

I just showed up and, in the board’s words, “did what I was supposed to do.”

That sentence has stayed with me because anyone in this profession knows librarians do far more than what they’re “supposed” to do.

We build things.

We advocate.

We innovate.

We hold together programs and services with limited resources and a lot of heart.

Many library workers do extraordinary work and receive very little recognition for it.

Some are actively diminished while doing it.

That takes a toll.

I’m not in a good place right now. That’s the truth.

My future feels uncertain.

I have work to do—internal work, healing work.

But this blog gives me purpose.

And all of your shared stories and experiences make me feel less alone.

That matters more than you know.

Some days this platform feels like proof that what happened to me did not erase me.

That I still have something to offer.

Maybe even something deeper because of what I’ve been through.

I would give anything to go back to my old job and work with my neighbors again.

I miss them.

I miss that work.

I miss belonging.

But right now, this is where I am—still showing up, still writing, still trying to rebuild trust in myself.

And maybe that counts for something.

If you’ve struggled with impostor syndrome after a toxic workplace, or if gaslighting has ever made you question your professional worth, I’d love to hear from you.

You’re not alone. I’m here for you, just as you have been for me – even when you may not have realized.

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