Imposter Syndrome

Since I was very young, I have learned to adapt. Survival meant adjusting to whatever environment I found myself in. The first time this instinct revealed itself was when I was taken for adoption. I learned quickly that crying led to punishment. So I stopped crying. I swallowed my emotions and taught myself to control them. For a child, adaptation is not a choice — it is a strategy for survival.

Being adopted and moved to another country is a silent earthquake in a child’s life. You lose your language overnight. No one speaks it, so you are forced to let it go. I had no choice but to learn Dutch, and yet I always felt behind, as if I had a language deficiency no one else seemed to have. Even today, I sometimes feel insecure about my Dutch. Articles, sentence structure, referrals, they never came effortlessly.

Much later, I realised something important: Dutch is not my mother tongue. My first language is Indonesian, though I remember only fragments: a few words, nursery rhymes, vague meanings. The rest has disappeared into silence.

As a child, I never fully understood the circumstances of my adoption. Questions lingered constantly in the background of my mind. But I had developed a powerful “suppress button.” I pressed it often. In many ways, that mechanism allowed me to function and even to enjoy life.

Primary school was my happiest time. I loved my family. I had many friends. For a while, I managed to set aside the confusion about my roots. At the same time, I was overly responsible and serious. I made sure never to get into trouble. The contrast between my disciplined inner world and the freer world outside was striking.

In secondary school, I became one of the best students in my class. While others relied on summaries, I read every assigned book from beginning to end. Reading became my refuge. Between the pages of novels, my questions about identity temporarily disappeared. Stories gave me an escape from my own.

Everything shifted after a visit to Indonesia in 1991. Members of my former orphanage arranged a meeting with a woman presented as my biological mother. The encounter felt staged. She gave me a pre-written letter in English and asked me to send money to an Indonesian bank account. I could not reconcile this woman with the loving image I had carried of my Indonesian mother from 1979.

For years, I questioned whether the meeting had been genuine. At the same time, I felt guilty for doubting it. There was no proof, and DNA testing was not yet available. The uncertainty consumed me. I replayed the events endlessly, analysing every detail. My concentration suffered. My education slowed down. The guilt and confusion settled deep inside me.

After finishing school, I studied Anthropology and Sociology at Leiden University and moved into a student dorm. I loved being a student. Mostly for the sense of independence and freedom. But this was also where my imposter syndrome began to take shape. My sense of not belonging intensified. I struggled to concentrate. The unresolved questions about my adoption no longer stayed quietly in the background; they burst open like Pandora’s box. I found myself unable to read or write properly. Studying pages of text triggered panic. My brain felt like mashed potatoes, unable to process what I was seeing. Writing became equally difficult. I would compose a sentence that sounded perfect in my head, only to reread it five times before noticing obvious mistakes.

Depression was not unfamiliar to me. The dark winters in the Netherlands made it hard to get out of bed and cycle to class in the cold mornings. It was labelled “winter depression,” but now I wonder if that label was too simple. My mind was constantly trying to solve a puzzle, trying to understand what had happened to me. My sense of belonging was fragile. At times, I felt like an accidental citizen, someone who had slipped into Dutch nationality by mistake.

I began working part-time at the airport and found companionship there. I saved enough money to backpack for several months each year. I was searching for a place that felt like home. I travelled through Kenya, Tanzania, and Central America. Guatemala was the first country that gave me a deep sense of belonging. Something about it felt familiar, grounding. I returned again and again. There, I did not feel like an imposter. I felt free. The Caribbean later became another place where I experienced that same sense of ease of being allowed to exist without explanation.

Strangely, I have never felt that way in Indonesia. Each visit leaves me feeling like a fraud, a fake Indonesian who cannot speak the language and feels disconnected from its people, culture, and traditions. For years, I avoided the country altogether. The trauma tied to it made distance feel safer.

My concentration issues have never fully disappeared, though they have improved. I became skilled at masking my struggles. Still, I am proud to say that I can now read and write more than before. Starting this blog and finishing a book feel like personal victories.

Stress can still send my brain back to that old state, where nothing registers. But I carry hope. Hope that one day the fog will lift completely. Hope to find or create a place that feels like home. Perhaps somewhere in the Caribbean or Central America. A place where I can finally sit down, read deeply, write freely, and simply be.