They make me feel like my insides are collapsing onto themselves.

There's this constant balancing act of

your needs as a human and your guilt as a parent.

You feel like you're gonna be failing one of them at all times.

All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record. Cause that feels right.

Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi,

everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different

Not Broke is our podcast on exactly that.

That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken. And

the reality is you're just different. And that's fine. I'm sure I've

said this before a number of times, but the last year has been

chaotic and exhausting and

a thousand other things that have left me frequently

feeling like my fuse is very short.

I always try to be really, really

aware of what my kids are getting off of me,

kind of vibe wise. If you had told me before we had

children that Kyle Howard would be the heavy and the

disciplinarian and that I would be the

laid back, permissive parent, I would have laughed in your face.

I would have told you that you were bonkers. And then these

kids were born and I became fully useless at discipline.

I am absolutely worthless when it comes to enforcing the

rules. The only rule that I'm really good at is bedtime. Kyle

Howard is terrible at bedtime because he doesn't understand

clocks in any way, shape or form. He has never met a

clock that he agrees with, whereas I only understand clocks. And

I am like a walking one. And so I'm good at bedtime. He's not.

But other than that, like, these kids are mouthy and

disrespectful. And I'm like, that was great. And he was like, you shouldn't let them

talk to you like that. And I'm like, why not? I love it.

My youngest cries and is clearly definitely a hundred percent

trying to manipulate me. And I am totally on board for it.

And the alternative is let her cry. And my

response is, come here, baby, I need to hug you and

cuddle you. Because even though I know you're being manipulative, I still want to hug

you because you're so cute. So anyway, life is funny in that way

that there's no planet where my husband was supposed to be

the heavy. That is not the way we live our lives. And yet here I

am being 97% useless when it comes to

discipline because I just want to let them live and do what they want and

figure things out. And apparently that's not what you're supposed to do with children. And

I think that's ridiculous. There is this very

real aspect of parenting that is

the constant overstimulation of being a

parent. And it does not matter how many

children you have, their existences

are overstimulating. And if you are a person like me

who is prone to overstimulation, it can be really

overwhelming at times. And again, for the most part,

I try to deal with it. And my kids know. My kids know that if,

like, four people are talking at once, you're not getting an answer out of me.

I can't figure out who's saying what and when. And so I'll

say, like, stop, guys. One person. Pick one person.

They also kind of experience the same kind of sensory overload at times. And so

they get it. And I don't expect them to fix things

for me, but I do expect that if they need something,

that we will kind of work together to figure out how to communicate it in

a way that works for both of our brains. And that's a constantly

evolving process. But after the year we've had,

my proximity to overstimulation is shorter

or closer than it's ever been, ever.

There are little teeny, tiny things that they do that

are completely imperceptible to other people in the world,

completely imperceptible to anybody who is not me,

that make me feel like I am being

crushed inside. They make me feel like my insides are collapsing

onto themselves. And I have to remember, and I have

remind myself all the time, that just because this

feels like absolute chaos to me internally does not mean I have to communicate

it to them that way. And I can very politely ask them to

stop doing those things, even though inside

I feel like I am being absolutely freaking

crushed. Absolutely crushed. And it's very,

very simple, tiny things that I think probably never would have

bothered me before, but I'm just in this phase

of my life that we're working through a lot, and

there's so much stress and there's so much overwhelm. So I'll

give you an example. My kids are always in my office coloring. And that's not

a complaint. I love it. I even have a little station set up for them.

I like to buy pens, but I am a picky

diva when it comes to pens. So if you show me

a pack of colorful pens, the reality is I'm probably gonna buy it

because I love it and I wanna try them. But I will also try them

one time before being like, well, these are Trash and never touch them again.

So I put them in a pile. Like there's a little organizer on that side

of my desk and my kids can come in and use them whenever they want.

And I print out coloring pages for them and they can use them and it's

great. And I get to have my colorful sets of pens so they come in

and they color next to me like somewhat constantly. And that's fine and I

love it. And my 7 year old, I say that

her butt has magnets in it because it

is immediately drawn to the nearest adult and she

has to be right on top of you all the time. Not

nearest adult in like strangers. In fact, she's the one who is

very stranger averse. Whereas my 9 year old is like,

everybody's my friend. And so she will come and she'll start

across the room and then slowly creep her way until she is

like right on top of me. And she'll do this thing where she is just

putting the tiniest amount of pressure on my desk chair

so that I can't move it and fidget freely.

And it is like being trapped in a vice as far as my

brain is concerned. Literally nobody else in the world would

notice that this is happening. But I notice.

And it makes me feel like I have lost all function in my body

and that I can't move freely and I hate it. And so

I have to translate that from this is the

worst thing that has ever happened to me. Which is not. It's not. But

that's what it feels like in that moment to hey, can you not

lean on my chair? To which she always says, oh, sorry and

bounces away and everything's fine. And then five minutes later she does it again and

I have to go, hey, can you not lean on my chair? Hey,

remember what I said like 2 minutes ago when I was like, hey, stop leaning

on my chair. And every time it's like, oh, sorry. Then she bounces back to

where she's supposed to be. It really does feel awful internally,

even though it is so small and so simple. It

is something that for whatever reason, the

fuse that is so short right now is lit by

that. It also happens when she, like, my kids do this all the time.

And this is really kind of the thing I wanted to address.

Do you remember when the Barbie movie came out and Ken said

my job is beach? Like I say,

my job is chair because as far as my children

are concerned, I am a chair. If they see

me, they sit on me. And that for the most part, I love It.

It's amazing and it's wonderful. But also, there

is something very, very

stressful about a small human

wedging herself onto your lap when she was not invited

between your lap and your desk and

having to navigate. And I'm like, why is your butt on me?

Why is the immediate response that your butt needs to be on me?

Because all of a sudden I can't move around, I can't fidget, I can't. And

I've got. I can't use my hands, I can't use my computer. There's a butt

on me. And a lot of times I will say, hey, can you go stand

over there? And of course they'll do it. Sometimes they look at me and say,

no, but it's like, very deliberate. It's like very

much I know this is bothering you. And also, I'm

making the conscious choice that I'm going to bother you. And that's like.

I get that. I do understand that, and that's mostly funny.

But for the most part, they just get up and move away. But then

whether it's because, you know, they're doing something that

feels constricting and making me feel like I can't move my body

freely, which is really hard for me, or they're sitting on

me and I'm not ready for that particular stimuli, right then

they will absolutely move away. Correct it. No

argument. And the next part of it is that I

immediately feel guilty for two reasons. One, I feel guilty

that their touch or their closeness could in

any way make me feel so negative, which is a function of my

brain and not really a function of anything that they're doing. But then

there's that part of the parent brain that turns on

when you're like, I'm asking her to get off my lap,

and someday she's not gonna wanna sit on my lap anymore. And I'm gonna regret

this. I'm gonna regret, like, not

soaking up every single second of having her on my lap.

But also, I can't make decisions about things based

on guilt. There are times where I need space and

the overstimulation is too much. But that doesn't make the

guilt go away. It doesn't make you feel less guilty about

making a conscious choice to not spend time being showered with the

affection that someday your kids. Not even that they're not going to give you, but,

like, there's going to be a day where my kid is not going to walk

into my office and immediately climb on my lap because she's too grown up or

she thinks she's too cool for it or her friends are around or whatever.

And that's going to be devastating in its own way.

This is 1000% the way that parents torture

ourselves all the time. Like making a

decision for yourself, protecting your peace, deciding

to set a boundary, even if it's not a critically important

boundary, the immediate balance to

that is. But what if this is the last time?

What if we don't ever get to do this again? Someday

they're not going to love this. Nobody told me

that someday you're going to pop out a kid

and every decision from there forward is going to

be about how you're failing them. And there are the

times that you fail them less, and there are the times that you

fail them more. But there are very rarely times

when you're like, I'm getting this right

at all. And right now I'm in a phase where

my brain, my

stress level, the things that we have recovered from, the things that we're still

recovering from, require me to have a whole lot

of grace for myself and for the people around me. Myself especially.

I'm horrible at giving myself grace and

balancing it with this constant

feeling. Like, the areas where I

have to assert that there is something that I need are

going to be places that I might regret someday

because of this constant parental guilt that

is crushing all the time. Even when you're doing things amazingly right

again, like, it never feels like you're crushing it. It always feels like you are

doing things the least bad. Like, I joke a lot about things that

my kids do that are as good as a DNA test, where I feel like,

oh, I've nailed this. Either I've nailed this, or like, oh, I'm sorry I made

you that way. But usually they're funny. But there was one

situation, the one time in the

almost 10 years that I've been a parent that I was certain I

had done something right. Absolutely certain I had done something right. We

were at a relative's house, and my

kids mouth off to me all the time, and it doesn't bother me. They talk

back to me constantly. We joke like that all the time. They're funny as

hell. They're sarcastic as hell. My oldest has a

pun game that rivals the best, most advanced

linguists in the world. Her pun game is better.

And so I love it when they banter with me. I love it when they

argue with me. I love it when they say silly stuff. And they also, like,

I can also turn it off when I need to and be like, hey, not

the time. And they'll usually back off, but for the most part, like there's nothing

off limits. They can say whatever they want. And so we were at a

holiday meal or something and my kid said something

sassy to me and I like raised one eyebrow and laughed because I thought

it was funny. And the family member who was sitting at the table

looked at her and said, you better watch it or she's going to

give you a fat lip. And I was so

shocked. And my kid looks at them and says,

what's a fat lip? And they say it means

she's going to hit you in the mouth for being disrespectful. And without

missing a beat, my oldest, very

genuinely and without concern, looked at them and said,

she's my mom, she would never hit me. And I was

ready to jump in. I was ready to say, like, how in a

million years could you talk to my kid like that? How could you suggest that

to my kid? That is not what we do in our house. And before I

even had the chance, my then nine year old said,

she's my mom, she would never hit me. And it was like

watching something heal. Generations and generations of

generational trauma, just like resolve in

this little 45 pound body. That was a three minute period

in 10 years of parenting, the only time that I

ever felt that I actually got it right. And so

I keep that moment with me forever. Because if

the only thing I ever do right is to give them

a space safe enough where they can say anything, do anything,

bring anything, and know that there's no violent

reprisal on the other side, no terrifying reprisal on the

other side, everything else is awash.

But even though I've had the kind of tangible proof of that that

most people would die for, most parents at least,

I still spend so much time balancing

my own needs, my own overwhelm, my own overstimulation,

which is something I struggle with all the time. And my desire

to keep my kids close, and my general

concern about the fact that someday they're not going to be my tiny babies

anymore, even though they're already not tiny, which is rude, nobody told them they were

allowed to do that. There's this constant balancing

act of your needs as a human

and your guilt as a parent, and you feel

like you're going to be failing one of them at all times. I don't have

a solution for that, except to acknowledge the fact that it exists,

acknowledge the fact that my kids are healthy and well taken care of and

have everything they need in this life and most of the things that they want.

And that you don't stop being a parent when things are hard,

but you do sometimes become a parent who struggles with specific things

when things are hard. And that's not a reflection on you as a

parent, but it is something that you have to

pay attention to and be mindful of. One, because you

don't want that thing to become your kid's responsibility, but two, because

you deserve grace in that situation. And

sometimes that means that little

imperceptible things that don't mean anything to anyone else are

really gonna bother you. And one,

you have to find a way to cope with it. But two,

deciding that protecting your peace in

those situations and giving yourself some sense of calm and

resolve in something that makes you feel

chaotic even though it's so tiny, and that you're

not damaging your relationship with your kids by doing it.

And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's

small talk. I don't know if this is even a question or just me admitting

something out loud for the first time. I'm good at my job,

like, objectively good, but I still feel like I'm one mistake away

from being found out. Is there a point where imposter syndrome

actually shuts up, or do you just learn to live with the

noise? That's a really good question. And I say this as

somebody who knows your imposter syndrome is full of shit and should

go get bent. And the part of your brain that

tells you that you can't do those things is either

parroting something that it's never actually been told or

repeating things that have been told to it by people who

are not good sources of information anyway. I think you will go through

phases in your life where you're more secure in where you are, and

whether that completely manifests as imposter syndrome going

away or whether it's more likely that it's this

naggy voice at the back of your head that you have learned to work through

and ignore. I can't exactly promise the realities of that, but

it's one of those things, right? In my experience, I'm sure there are people

who have kicked their imposter syndrome. And I really, really encourage

everyone who is struggling with imposter syndrome to look at

their nearest mediocre white male and see if he's

struggling with imposter syndrome, because I guarantee you, he's

not. The career trajectory of the mediocre white

male does not have the same trappings of

imposter syndrome than it does for basically everybody else. And

so we say this a lot, but, you know, approach everything as

if you were a mediocre white male. Because he is not concerned about being

ill prepared for something he's not. He has been taught

always that every role was made for him and that

everybody's lucky to have him in every space that he's in. And he just doesn't

worry about it. I'm not talking about anybody specific, to be clear. I'm talking about

this kind of mythical figure. Not mythical. He really exists in a lot

of different forms, but they get to

benefit from the

unfettered joy of failing up. You know, these are the people who

do a really bad job at something. And the solution

from corporate is to promote them

instead of fire them. Well, we need to get him out of that role,

so we're gonna promote him instead of actually dealing with

the corporate internal issues. So that's not who you need to aspire to

because you're already better than that. That kind of

inexplicable self perception is what we need

to aspire to, even though in your case it's explicable because you

really are that magical and wonderful. That

said, I will guess there are people in this

world who have improved from imposter syndrome

or not had it plague them ever again when they

have some sort of light bulb. But I think in general, being

a person who is self aware and

not overly impressed with yourself means that there are

times where you feel like a toddler in a room of postdocs.

And that is just the reality of

being a person who may be super

confident in your skills in some places, but not in everything.

I can't promise that it will go away entirely. I can promise

that you can start retraining your brain in ways that

make the bouts of it shorter, that make them less paralyzing,

that make you get closer to feeling

like you can do it scared. Like if it's

fear that's standing in your way, you can do it scared. Because remember,

if you're not doing something because you're worried that someone's going to tell you

no, you're doing that for them. So you might as

well do it and just let them tell you no. There's a good chance

they might actually tell you yes. Instead, let them surprise you, even

though nobody else is survi is surprised because everybody knew that you would,

that you were a shoo in or that you were fully capable, or that it

was made for you. So will there be a

day that imposter syndrome is not a thing for you anymore?

Maybe. Is it more likely that you learn how to

train it out of your kind of every day so that it's not bothering you

all the time? Probably. And are there

still seasons of life where you get a

gut punch from something and all of a sudden you're questioning

your capabilities and you know what you can do and how it has the

potential to interfere with whatever opportunities in front of you?

Absolutely. I will say, like

February me of this year versus

October me of this year were totally different people.

One of them, and I won't tell you which one, but one of them

was ready to take over the world. And one of them was wondering

why anybody even let me own a

company. And I say that as the person who tells

people multiple times a week that that's just their imposter syndrome

talking and they need to tell them to tell imposter syndrome to shove it. Those

two things can exist. They can both exist in your body. And you may very

well find that as seasons change, so does

your confidence level. And that's not only human, but completely expected.

And again, the only people who don't have

imposter syndrome, the only people who don't have imposter syndrome

are the ones who should have imposter syndrome.

Everybody else has probably worked their way there. I'm not sure if

we've talked about this before, but

imposter syndrome is based on a

whole lot of arrogance, but not arrogance in the

way that you're thinking. Right. So we think

that, you know, I must be saying that you're so impressed with yourself.

I know you're not. I know that's not what drives imposter syndrome,

but it is not possible that every

person in your life who has been part

of your career up till now has been wrong about

you in such a way that you were able to repeatedly

fail into where you are. It's not possible.

If you got where you are, you got there because you did the work,

you put in, the time, you developed the relationships, you did all of

those things. It is so self centered to think

that the universe likes you so much that

it let you fail repeatedly to get where

you are. It's not possible. You have not only been

surrounded by people who are unsmart and so bad

at what they do that they didn't realize that you were also

bad at what you do. It's not possible. It's not how it

works. You are a

magical, wonderful,

unicorn person who deserves

every ounce of everything that you get and you

did not repeatedly fail to get there. That said,

I know you don't believe any of it. If you need to hear that

again at some time, let me know. I gotcha. Thanks for being here,

guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.

I just want to point something out before I lose my ever

loving shit. Which is close.

It is 12:12 Eastern Time

on a Tuesday. What do we

do every Tuesday? That I have told this man who

inhabits my house. That we do every Tuesday.

Tell me how a contractor just walked up on my goddamn porch.

I'm gonna hurl this man out the window if this person makes noise. And I'm

not gonna be nice about it this time. I'm gonna walk out and be like,

stop it. It is Tuesday. I'm gonna get

a cheap shock machine is what I'm gonna get. I'm gonna attach it to

him. How is it every

motherfucking Tuesday? Never any other

day of the week.