Do You Feel Like You Are NEVER Enough? 

JOHN! I got some advice for you. Stop saying "oh today we are doing this show only 3 people are watching" You have thousands of people watching you. You aren't an imposter.

Do I have mentors? Yes. John Delony guides me with kindness. Dave Ramsey yells at me until I'm scared straight.

God bless you Dr. John Delony. You are helping folks like me get a grip on life. Thank you.

“Family Trauma Burns Through a Tree Like a Wild Forest Fire”. 🎯 add in Family Secrets too!!!

I certainly did not come from a high achieving family. I think I pushed myself more out of fear of turning out like my mom.

John, that call with Mike really had me confront my whole childhood. I struggled with attention in school, and I still struggle sometimes even though I now have my dream job. I keep having this narrative that I’m a bad kid, a wannabe, and a lazy freeloading employee. My parents were high achievers, and they loved me with all their hearts, but they’d cry themselves to sleep at night worried that I wouldn’t be able to graduate school and hold down a job because of my attention problems. I’ll be reading that book you recommended. Thank you for what you do!!

2020: unprecedented surge in mental health issues *Dr. John Delony has entered the chat* Right guy for the right time.

Love your work, Herr Dr. Delony. Greetings from Germany.

To all imposters/ add/ anxious/ depressed: make sure you aren't raised by a narcissist. You are AUTONOMOUS and you are WORTHY!!🧡

Ani Difranco is an absolute favorite of mine. Such an amazing poet and songwriter, i love that you shared some of her lyrics!

To the man with adhd. I have such a similar story, and my counsellor just gave me such a good tip for how to manage my harsh inner critic. When you have those thoughts, acknowledge them, then recognize that they are literally not your thoughts- no child grows up naturally believing that they aren’t good/enough, are stupid, broken, etc etc- the only way you come to believe that is because the adults in your life reinforced those things. Anyways, starting to see those thoughts as literally not my own, and placed there by people who should not have placed them there, I’ve found it so much easier to discard them. Love this show! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for making this show, I'm a member of the "Adult ADHD" community, graduated from the "Child with ADHD" table and have always been treated like a girl that isn't able to function as a human being in the society that God put me in. Your show is one of the few places I can go to actually hear, "You're not irreparable." And, I'm so blessed to have your show. Thank you.🤗

Just got off a conference call with my job where I was presenting. Got high compliments from my boss but still feel so inadequate that I'm ready to re-do my LinkedIn profile. Imposter syndrome sucks!!

I never have felt good enough but I keep pushing and do for myself

In response to Baileigh, I was going through the same struggle of whether to move or stay. Specifically living so close to where all that trauma took place. We moved 4 years ago and absolutely could not be happier. Removing yourself from the geographical area makes healing SO much easier. Getting away from the craziness makes you not feel like the crazy one who wants different for your family. I beg you, please do it for yourself and your family. You are worth it. Everyone else will deal with it and it may even help them realize and force them to work through their own trauma without you being there as a crutch. It is extremely liberating and freeing

I have always felt this way from childhood. It has paralyzed me at times from trying something. I have just started to feel confident enough to pursue some of my dreams. I do still struggle wondering when I will be caught and those around me will realize I am cut out for this.

Amazing advice!! Thank you 🙏🏼

WHAT?! love ani difranco! Excellent lyrics today 👍 (also the episode and everything 😜)

Best ending for this episode 🙌 great show!

Stay in this town or move away: is exactly what I needed to hear…. I’m going through a similar situation right now at this moment with making the right decisions to move away 😢

Thank you!

Hey, Dr. John. Scattered Minds is also by Gabor Mate. It looks like it may be an update from Scattered. Thank you for your videos! They are a help to me and many others!

Advice for the first guy , whenever you have feelings of i am not enough, or in comparing mode , always compare yourself from one year ago, then 6 months ,then 3 months, and a month and 1 day, also if you can go to gym or take a hobby and set a minimum for improvement" so feg ,if i do one more extra rep of any exercise,i improved, i usually end up doing a lot more exercises. And the few days that you do have bad days ,take them as "few bad days".

I was verbally emotionally and spiritually abused by my ex, i went back to work and at 6 months review the managers were very complimentary about how i had settle etc etc etc and i came out and thought, they are too nice to tell me the truth,

I so love you're show it helps me so much

Mike from Green Bay: I find myself thinking some of the thoughts you shared. Years ago I read the book " Christ Esteem" helped me. I would recommend this to anyone. Take Care !

She’ll let me know that too. I love hearing her tell me she settles for less every day while I’m not even a priority to her.

Wonderful as always Dr. Delony. I absolutely love listening to your show everyday. Ps. There is an actual book called Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder by Gabor Mate.

That second caller was so frustrating to listen to. She had her fingers in her ears going "la la la la" to shut out what Dr. John was saying

I know this is 2 years later, but the caller who phoned in to talk about "imposter syndrome" mentioned that he has ADHD. I recently learned that one of the common symptoms of ADHD/ADD in adults is what is known as "rejection sensitivity". I have always had the same feeling. I am excelling at my job, but every time my boss asks if I can hop on a live chat, I am certain that I am about to be fired. I am 48 years old and was also diagnosed with ADD as a kid. I had super awesome parents who didn't make me feel like anything was wrong with me, however, we moved from Detroit, Michigan to a tiny Texas town with a very different sort of people than I had been used to. My parents were both artists, and they were anti-authoritarian, and I was an only child so I was free to be me, but in that tiny Baptist town we all of sudden HAD to go to the church 3 days a week, and then I was in school the rest of the time, and from the time we moved their EVERYTHING that I said was wrong. We were only there for 2 years before my Dad was transferred again to Arizona, and I have been here ever since, but those 2 years in TX shaped my life a lot. Anyway, I have always had that same feeling. Even though I have been promoted 3 times in 2 years, and they tell me constantly how great I am doing, I still spiral into a whole catastrophic scenario in my head if I see them assign a project to another writer, or if they ask to speak to me. I always just thought it was just a crappy insecurity of mine, but my daughter married her high school sweetheart 2 years ago and he was also diagnosed with ADHD as a child. In the 2 years that they have been living together, my daughter started to say that she thought a lot of my quirks that she just always thought were just my personality may actually be related to my ADHD because her husband has all of the same illogical responses, irrational insecurities, and behaviors that I do. That was later confirmed by a psychologist who was studying how untreated ADHD manifests in adults, and he was speculating that the medical industry may have spent so much time concerned about how to make us "fit in" to the status quo, and how to control our ADHD so it didn't bother everyone else, that they never really looked at what we were feeling. The study showed a pervasive paranoia and extreme anxiety that he said was very specific, very similar to imposter syndrome, but he said what it seems to be is more of an abnormal hyper-reactive fight-or-flight response to a benign communication or event that we interpret as the possibility that we are about to be reprimanded or fired." He labeled it "rejection sensitivity" and he was just beginning to dig deeper. He also theorizes that it is likely related to the way that we are often treated by impatient adults when we were very young, but he said it as so prevalent, and so uniform in all of the ADHD subjects that he wants to know if it has some chemical or biological origin as well.

Just started watching...would love to see a show about recognizing ADHD in undiagnosed adults! Maybe I'll call in.

The feeling of never being enough is typical in second born children. They actually end up being higher achievers, due to the drive to overcompensate.

Scattered book definitely an eye opener!

I don’t just feel like I have never been enough… I know for a fact that I am not now nor have I ever been enough. Not a good enough woman, girl, daughter, wife, or anything else. I tried to be, worked all my life to be. 6 months ago I learned that my entire life and marriage have been nothing but a lie. I felt like I wasn’t enough because I was in fact NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Can imposter syndrome be caused by living with a narcissist?

Listen to Jireh by Elevation Worship. When I feel like I'm nothing this song brings me out of it. Most amazing song I've ever heard. :)

John do you offer one on one counseling

I wish you would do an interview with Jordan Peterson.

Dad is unreasonable, too. See below comments!

I feel like everybody else are never enough. I don't mind the rest of you not being like me, but so many of you aren't even trying to be like me. Come on, people...put in the effort! :-)

I never felt I was good enough and at 61 I’m ok with that 😝

Wait a minute. Your caller described what troubles them at work, but you said "I wouldn't consider that (what he described) to be Impostor Syndrome, that's a whole other conversation about worth and values" , so you then decided "Lets' talk through Impostor Syndrome (which you don't think he has)and then we can talk through your specific situation"? HUH? If you said that to a client in a session, you would be risking invalidating them. But since this is a SHOW, not therapy, you can react that way?