Cassandra Moment / Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome

A young woman discovered writing in high school and won prizes for it. She had been writing since high school, winning prizes for it, and had just been admitted as one of two freshmen into an elite writing seminar, when one voice and one silence changed the direction of her entire life.

That fall, she shared her first story. A senior in the class, tall, white, spiky blond hair, a torn concert shirt, combat boots, a leather jacket, a fellow student with no more standing than she had, no publishing credit, no teaching authority, nothing but three more years in school, stood up and delivered a verdict. Not feedback. A verdict, spoken with the certainty of someone reviewing a published work. He said the story was bad. He said she couldn't write. He offered nothing specific, nothing she could learn from, just a blanket judgment dressed up as expertise he never actually had.

The teacher, a man, said nothing.

That's the part that has to be named directly, not softened. He wasn't neutral. Neutral would have still been a failure, but this was worse than neutral, because he had the authority in that room to stop it and he chose not to use it. This is the pattern women have lived inside for generations: not always active opposition, but men declining to help when helping would have cost them nothing. We built the suffrage movement, we've built most things, without that help, not because men were always standing in the way, but because so often they simply weren't standing anywhere at all.

After several minutes of silence, a female student finally spoke up in her defense. But it was too late. She walked away from her dream. She walked away from her talent. She believed, internally, that she wasn't a good enough writer. She believed she wasn't worthy of it. The teacher hadn't come to her defense. By the time someone did, she'd already decided he must be right about her. This was imposter syndrome taking root. That nagging feeling that you're not good enough. That you don't belong. That you don't deserve the job, the promotion, the seat at the table. She changed her focus to public service. She went to law school. She didn't return to writing for over twenty years, until she finally wrote the story that became her bestselling memoir. Twenty years later, she took her dream back.

One careless boy's opinion. One silent man with the power to correct it. One woman who tried, too late. And a woman who spent two decades believing she wasn't good enough to be what she'd always wanted to be.

That's a Cassandra Moment.

Source: Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden (2026)