“Surely Others Need It More Than I Do” — Alex's Story

Alex is a composite, drawn from experiences we see often. Not a real client, not identifiable as any one person.

Reviewed by Ian Smith, BSc (Hons), BACP (Accredited)

From the outside, Alex had it together. Solid career. A family who loved him. Friends who'd call him the reliable one. What nobody saw was the loop running underneath it all: the conviction he was one mistake from being found out, and the exhausting habit of replaying every conversation afterwards, hunting for the moment he'd got it wrong.

“Surely Other People Need This More”

A friend mentioned counselling almost in passing. Alex's first instinct was to brush it off. His life looked fine on paper. It felt almost indulgent to take up a therapist's time when, surely, other people had it worse. It took him several months to actually book. And in the end it wasn't a crisis that pushed him. Just being tired of carrying something he'd never once said out loud.

What the First Session Was Actually Like

He'd pictured being asked to explain everything, in order, with the right words ready. Instead it was mostly listening. His therapist asking what had brought him in, giving him room to find his own way there, without needing it to come out polished.

What Actually Changed

Nothing dramatic, over several months. Alex learned to spot the specific pattern his mind ran. A small mistake, then a spiral into “they've realised I'm not good enough”, then hours quietly replaying it. Naming that out loud, to someone else, took a surprising amount of its power away. He came to recognise it as imposter syndrome. Genuinely common. Not evidence the fear was true.

Not instant. Not always comfortable, either. Some sessions felt like nothing had shifted. Gradually though, the loop got quieter, and quicker to catch.

Where Alex Is Now

Still has hard weeks. The difference is he doesn't carry them entirely alone anymore, and he's stopped assuming that needing support means he's failing at something everyone else has figured out. Sound familiar, any of it? The sense you should be managing fine, and the quiet exhaustion of the fact that you're not quite. That's reason enough to reach out.

Anxiety and imposter syndrome counselling. Wimborne, Poundbury, Poole, and online.

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