I don't know why I’m even writing this, it’s not really a big deal but it’s just… it’s been bothering me. Like, I was in that meeting today, the one for the new skincare brand, all clean lines and minimalist aesthetics, and I felt this wave of pure, unadulterated FEAR wash over me. Everyone was throwing around these terms – "gestalt principles," "semiotics in visual communication," "typographic hierarchy," and I’m just sitting there, nodding along, trying to look like I totally get it, but inside my brain is screaming, *what even IS that?* I taught myself all of this, you know? Hours in front of YouTube tutorials, late nights with cracked versions of software, just trying to figure out how to make things look good, how to make people *feel* something when they see what I’ve done. And I *do* make good things, I know I do, that’s why I’m even here, but it feels like it’s all just instinct and a good eye, not any real… foundation. Like one wrong question, one slip-up, and someone’s going to realize I’m a complete fraud. It’s just infuriating, really. I work so hard, probably harder than most of them who got handed degrees from fancy art schools, and I’m still here, agonizing over every single presentation, every new project. It’s not just the work either, it bleeds into everything. Someone mentioned wanting to go to that new gallery opening next week and I just automatically said I was busy, even though I’m not, not really. It’s just this fear of being exposed, of having to talk about art or design in a way that shows I don’t have the proper vocabulary, that I haven’t read all the books they have, that I can’t articulate *why* something works beyond "it just does." And then I get angry at myself for not just… going. For letting this feeling dictate things. It’s stupid, I know. It’s just this thing, this constant whisper in my head that I’m not good enough, that I don't belong here, and sometimes that whisper just gets so loud I can’t hear anything else. And it’s all just amplified by… everything else. Rent is astronomical, dating is a joke, everyone around me seems to have figured out how to be an actual adult and I’m just trying to make it through another week without that pit in my stomach getting bigger. Sometimes I think about just quitting, going back to freelance, but then what? Just perpetuate the cycle of insecurity on my own terms? No, that’s not right. It’s just… I wish I didn't feel like I was constantly holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to point and say, "You don't belong." It’s exhausting. And I just don’t know how to make it stop.