How I Crushed a Nightmare and My Insecurities With It
Final exams? Today?? I’m gonna fail!
All my classmates were horsing around the room, celebrating the end of the school year. My fingers fumbled through a 10-pound textbook as I tried to cram eight chapters of American history.
I’m fucked.
What a nightmare. Literally. It would haunt my sleep every month for the next few years.
I usually ignore my dreams. They’re too nonsensical to bother with. But this one really riled me up. For one thing, it was the first dream I had that popped up on a regular basis. The details from night to night were consistent, too. And the emotions from the dreams lingered for weeks.
I went online and searched “dreams about being back in school.” Apparently lots of people have school-related dreams. But the interpretations I read didn’t hit the mark with me.
I took out a legal pad and noted the main scenes in my dreams:
- I’m at my old high school, sitting in a room with my classmates.
- Everyone starts talking about the final exam taking place that day.
- I panic because I realize I hadn’t been to class in months.
- I try to learn a semester’s worth of material in just a few minutes.
I then replayed the dreams in my mind and jotted down the frantic thoughts any adult stuck in high school would have.
What do these thoughts mirror in my life today?
I immersed myself in those thoughts one by one, marinating in the emotions and hoping that my conscience would answer. It did.
Thought #1: “I shouldn’t be in school. I graduated already!”
Interpretation: I haven’t earned my place in the real world.
Thought #2: “I know nothing about this material!”
Interpretation: I have no expertise.
Thought #3: “Holy shit! I’m going to fail my test!”
Interpretation: I am inadequately prepared to do my job.
Everything made sense.
I was both a web developer and art director at an agency when the “You suck at school” dreams started. When I was hired, I had just two years experience as an off-and-on graphic design freelancer. I had never taken a design or computer programming class. I brought only my self-taught skills in HTML, CSS, and Adobe Creative Suite. Thankfully I got better at my job with each project, and our clients loved my work.
But I felt like a fraud. Because of our small staff, we collaborated with outside designers and programmers who had degrees in their fields. They made professional decisions based on years of experience and textbook concepts such as the rule of thirds, “DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself,” and model-view-controller.
When I worked on a project, however, I always deferred to the number one guideline in the Sue Anna Joe playbook for strategizing: “It just feels right.”
Whenever someone asked me about my job, I’d say, “I do graphic design” or “I build websites.” I never could utter the words “I’m an art director.” Even if I thought about saying it, my body swelled with shame, as if I were pretending to be something I wasn’t. I was only comfortable telling people what I did, not what I was, because I didn’t feel worthy of my title.
The symbols in my dreams opened up the chasms in my mind.
Not knowing the material for the exam meant I believed I didn’t have the groundwork for doing my job.
The high school represented the path to get me where I wanted to be. Sitting in the classroom meant I believed I needed to prove myself.
A diploma in real life is an official stamp of approval from a school. In my dreams, it represented a stamp of approval of me from myself. There was never a diploma in my dreams.
It was true that my real-life colleagues had valuable knowledge I didn’t. But I didn’t want to go back to school or get a certification. My only option for getting out of this mental hole was to retrain my thinking:
Scenario #1: Someone points out an inefficiency in my coding and shows me a better way of doing it.
Instead of feeling like an idiot, I’d tell myself, “Great! Another tool for the toolbox.”
Scenario #2: My boss introduces me to a new associate with a storybook career.
Instead of feeling insecure, I’d review his portfolio and tell myself, “Cool! Another person to inspire me.”
Scenario #3: One of my ideas is rejected during a brainstorming session.
Instead of taking it personally, I’d say to myself, “I successfully branded practically all our clients’ websites, sometimes with no direction.”
Scenario #4: A colleague’s work is featured in a book.
Instead of feeling like my life was going nowhere, I’d remind myself, “I established this career by teaching myself new skills and taking risks.”
At first, these course-correcting thoughts sounded stupid and fraudulent. I was tempted to give in to the knee-jerk resentment and shame that supported decades of self-defeating, yet familiar, patterns.
But with time and consistent effort, I started rejecting these beliefs and accepting my new truths. I give my accomplishments and talents the acknowledgement they deserve, and I don’t measure myself against other people’s lives so much.
It all came down to breaking a bad habit, which does take a long time, but in exchange I’ve gain a little more peace in my life.
It’s been so long since I had the school dream that I don’t recall the last time it happened, but I do remember that it started off the same way. I was back at that depressing high school, and I sat in my desk, all confused.
What am I doing here again? I graduated a long time ago.
My classmates were clowning around, but before anyone could say anything about exams, I gathered my things and stood up.
I’m done with this place. I’m leaving.
And I did.
