[carise]

Great advice about facing problems head on, instead of running or avoiding. I started doing that when my anxiety was at its worst, and I've been feeling much better since.

I had been at the company for several years and felt like I was just wandering -- pretty much self taught in a lot of things, for better or worse, so I didn't understand a lot of things still. Pretty much everyone else on the team was/is a senior engineer, and when we would have discussions, I would be quite lost... but I was too afraid/proud to ask for help to understand. I would always feel anxiety during meetings especially, because everyone gave input and I had nothing to say.

I decided that instead of boiling myself in my own anxiety about not knowing how things worked, I would go ask another engineer to help me understand. Reaching out and asking for help (and deciding not to care what people thought of me) helped me realize that it's "ok" (to some extent) to have imposter syndrome.