The Tribulations
My epic heroic battle against perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and the worst of them all: comparisonitis
Hey y’all, it’s KimBoo! I’m an author and a podcaster who is also a librarian, text technology historian, and former I.T. project manager. I write about a lot of interesting things, I hope you agree! Please consider supporting me (and my dog!) so I can keep throwing errata & etcetera into the Scriptorium!
There is a set of demigods in the writing pantheon which are more like demons and who serve the god Resistance, the evil ruler of Obscura, the creative underworld. The 'Tribulations,' as they are known, are powerful beings that assail a writer’s sanity, sometimes singly, sometimes all at once with relentless cruelty. They rule over the midlevel hell of Procrasti Nation, and their names are Perfectius, Fraudulus, and Comparitia.
As I write this, Gina, Melody and I just wrapped recording episode forty-six of Around the Writer’s Table, where we focused on the experience so many writers have: comparisonitis.
As the name suggests, it is a syndrome where an individual persistently compares their accomplishments, progress, or status against those of peers or others in their field, often leading to feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and self-doubt. The comparison might be to craft, style, output, money, or any number of other aspect of “the writing life.”
(That episode will be airing soon, and I’ll come back then to link to it.)
I think it’s a great episode overall (of course!) but there was one particular moment that stands out in my mind. Melody made a connection between “The Tribulations” and trauma response.
I felt like I had been walloped with a stick. Suddenly, everything made so much sense.
To make the connection here, I need to explain just how comparisonitis manifests in my life. It’s tied in with prefectionism and imposter syndrome, as you can expect, but it takes a particular form of comparing myself to others that is actually more directly aligned with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
I admit I’ve never been one to compare my writing quality to other writers very often, but then, I’ve never felt the need to strive to be a “great” writer. Never once have I ever said, “I want to write the next Great American Novel!” I love literature, and I want to be a good writer, but I have never felt called to reach for those esoteric heights.
No, Comparitia arrives to beat me up when I look at the fandoms other writers have, and the number of books they have published. I have so many stories I want to tell, but they feel waterlogged in my brain sometimes. I see other writers on their tenth, twentieth, fiftieth book and grind my teeth in jealousy and FOMO, then compare everything I am doing to what they have accomplished: am I writing enough? Am I writing fast enough? Are my stories compelling enough?
If I had to pin it down to a moment in time, I think it was the first time I realized just how sprawling the Dragonriders of Pern series was, and likewise how popular. I did not care about how much money she made, or about the objective quality of the writing. That never crossed my mind! But I did care about how many people loved her work. I cared about how many books she wrote. I cared about how many people loved the series and followed it religiously.
I cared so much and I had so little to show for it.
I’ve known this about myself for a long time. I thought it was just part and parcel of being a writer, and in a lot of ways, it is.
But when Melody brought up the connection to a trauma response, everything clicked for me in a way it never had before.
What is the trauma, you ask? Nothing specific, not like, “oh that one time in May 7th, 1981, I got traumatized!”
For me, the trauma was a feeling of disconnect.
My parents were both mentally ill. My father was a good man but emotionally distant due to war-related PTSD and alcoholism. My mother was a melting pot of syndromes, from clinical depression to bipolar disorder to narcissism. I was an only, and lonely, child for most of my youth, which only got worse as mother’s paranoia increased and she started homeschooling me when I was seven.
Obviously, I could write a half-million words based on that paragraph alone, and maybe someday I will!
But the focus here is on why that affected my writing, and shaped my own particular version of the Tribulations: I was jealous of the connection those writers had with their readers. Even if it was just the idea of fans appreciating my work (as opposed to being a fan of me as a person), I craved it. What those other authors had? I wanted it.
Likewise, my perfectionism is less about “people will see that I’ve done something wrong” and more about “how will anyone know my work exists if it isn’t perfect?”
My imposter syndrome comes to the fore when I look at popular authors like McCaffrey, Patrick O’Brian, Lois McMaster Bujold , MXTX, Victoria Goddard, CJ Cherryh, Terry Pratchett. Who am I to think that I belong in the same vaunted realm of authors who have such devoted fans? How could I ever write anything so unique and inspiring that it creates a whole fandom around it?
My comparisonitis manifests as me refusing to go into the SFF section of the bookstore, knowing I’ll see authors who have what I want, who are better at doing what I want to than I am.
At least at the library, fiction is organized by last names. I still come across those authors, but I can quickly move on! How sad is that?!?!?
I suppose this trauma response is a version of “a desire to be seen.” To be fair, it’s not so much that I want to be idolized or become a celebrity—I’d prefer not, on the whole. Being a celebrity looks dangerous and unhappy to me. But I do want to be seen through my work, to feel like I’ve connected with people via my storytelling.
You would think that as a result of this desire, I would work better/harder/faster to get more stories published. That certainly seems the logical conclusion!
But the goal of the Tribulations is to serve their own god: Resistance.
Most writers know about Resistance from the work of Steven Pressfield, specifically his short, motivational book The War of Art which reads very much like a good old-fashioned “come to Jesus” talk: get it together, author, and do the damn work! The villain of the piece is, you guessed it, Resistance, which Pressfield writes as an anthropomorphized demon who haunts the dark corners of every artist’s soul.
Comparisonitis makes me feel hopeless and directionless, and feeds into the message “why try? You’ll never create the kind of story that inspires a fandom for generations! Give up and doomscroll!” Comparitia whispers in my ear, and I give in to Resistance.
Every time I sit down to write, my deep seated feeling of unworthiness formed in the depths of a childhood where I was rarely seen for myself surfaces. I think of the nearly impossible dream I have, and my trauma response goes into full defense mode by calling up the Tribulations to wear me down like fast water over rocks.
It’s often felt rather hopeless.
Melody’s framing of it as a trauma response completely changed my concept of comparisonitis, though. It shifted my understanding of it from something that is unavoidable and simply must be managed to a problem I can solve.
If there is one thing I’ve done successfully in my life, it is deal with trauma, and that’s a good track record to dealing with the Tribulations.
Don’t get me wrong: I have spent many years not dealing with trauma, and many years dealing with it poorly. Trauma, whatever the cause, can be a slippery eel of a problem to face off with. It’s often hard, brutal work.
Yet, having done it a few times already, I know that I can.
Bring on the Tribulations. I’m ready for that celestial throw-down and I will fight my way out of Obscura with every weapon at my disposal!
My mother is much like yours, and I too struggled to be seen as a child. So I can completely relate to wanting what all those other authors want. And of course, I am the primary caregiver for that mother. So I'm learning how to fit writing in around care-giving. I wish I could dedicate 5 hours a day to my craft. I wish I could be more prolific and have the writing empire that McCaffery, Roberts, King and McGuire have.
But we do what we can, right?
OMG, thank you so much for this post! It gave me a new perspective on how the Tribulations have influenced my everyday life and my writing. Glad to have offered a bit of insight into your journey. Love you so much!