Imposter Syndrome? Or Just Failing at Life?

Here's another one for you.

Let's talk about Imposter Syndrome.

Supposedly, I have this.

It's supposed to explain the previous post.

I guess.

So I hear.

Not directly, of course.

But I do hear this.

After all, I'm a woman, I'm a Millenial, and I'm a TCK.  At least, I think I am.  Maybe.  I'll get into that.  If not in this post, then another one.

I mean, Imposter Syndrome is when you feel like you're not good at anything at all when in reality, you are.

I just don't happen to believe that I really am.

Is that meta-Imposter Syndrome?  Or is it just self-deprecation?

I mean... Supposedly I'm good at my job.  But all I do is clean up other people's messes and that's about it.  I just have really high standards for what I do.  And no one pays attention to the work I do.  If they did, they should at the very least appreciate what I do, right?  Instead of being told my standards are too high and I should just allow people to make mistakes (even when said mistakes are allowed to be perpetuated ad nauseam without even the slightest hint of fixing them; seriously, the rules are meant to be enforced, not trampled over with a herd of African elephants).

Supposedly...

And yet.

All indications also point to the fact that I'm a TCK.

But... how can this be?  I only spent 6 years of my life in another country.  Seven if you count the year I lived in Canada with my parents (illegally, but at least I didn't work, or take advantage of the healthcare system, so I don't think the Canadian authorities even knew or cared I existed).

TCKs are supposed to be diplomats, flight attendants, lawyers, artists.  We had one as President of the United States for eight years.  They're supposed to live in multiple countries.  They're supposed to be between visas, only going to their passport country when they feel like it or need to visit family.

And here I am, doing customer service.  Living in my passport country for the past seventeen years just about, not even being granted a visa other than a student visa for the six months I spent in Spain for a study abroad program.

So I can't even do that right.

And it's not because I haven't tried, either.

They just don't give work visas to Americans.

I've been told by people that I should be grateful: after all, Americans can still travel freely and don't need a visa for every single country they want to try to visit.  And sure, I'm not going to complain that it appears to be harder for me to move to Europe than it does someone from a war-torn country.  I'm not tone-deaf enough to actually think that that's the case because I know it's not.

That's not what this is about.

This is not about my woes and my first-world problems and not being able to say I'm anything other than American for any purpose other than voting for the next President.

No... it's about the fact that I struggle to find any concept of pride in anything I am or do.

I mean... who am I?

My parents would spout some Christianese at me.  I don't feel comfortable with that life anymore, especially considering all the harm it's done to some of the people who are closest to me.  No.  Definitely not that.

Am I a TCK?  Or an imposter TCK who wans to be a TCK "for clout"?  Can someone who's lived in her passport country for most of her life still be considered a TCK despite having spent some years in childhood abroad?  Does it count if she's spent time in multiple cultures and cities around the US?

I'm American... kind of.  I was born in the US to American parents.  My native language is American English (with an albeit confusing accent that's not Northeastern nor Midwestern nor Southern nor Valley Girl nor any regional accent... it's so non-descript that no one can guess where I'm from in the US because of how I speak).  But culturally... I hate American nationalism.  American patriotism is borderline nationalism and has so many inflections of racism I refuse to get involved in that "movement".  I vote Democrat now, I don't think the US is God's Chosen Land nor are Americans his Chosen People, and I fit in with everyone.

Basically... to anyone outside of Metro New York City, I'm not at all American.  But here, in this metropolitan corner of the world where my neighbors are every color of the rainbow... here I can be as American as I want to be.  And if I don't want to be, well, that's okay by them.