Story: Imposter Syndrome. Chapter 2.

by Jackie J

Chapter 2

Taken back to the room, that she had been told would be her own, Miss Ruskin left Jen to her thoughts, on the assurance that she would be back shortly to supervise her first day a cleaner at Doctor James’s residence.

Jennifer sat on the bed not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of her situation. She had been told there would be role play, but this?  Jen, she was to be Jen a cleaner. Being told to strip like she had, and actually doing it in front of Samantha, Whoops, Mistress, my Mistress? Really?  This Ruskin woman, she was odd when I arrived, a brute of a woman, no messing with her for sure.

Jennifer inspected the plainly decorated en suite room she had been allocated, basic and small. A shrug of the shoulders and a wry smile looking in the closet and drawers. What did she expect? Plain underwear, and an assortment of unfashionable and well-worn clothing was all she found. Jennifer ran her fingers across the fabric of the cheap nylon overalls, that hung on a rail by the bathroom door and inhaled their industrial scent. The odour filling her senses, Jennifer felt that same comforting calm and humbling weakness she had felt earlier with Doctor James, her Mistress. The temptation was too great, and having taken it from the end of the rail she stepped into the primrose overall and fastened the large buttons. Roomy, long sleeved with its hem to her lower calf, Jen reached for one of the turbans from the rail and knotted it in place. Having volunteered herself into her workwear and staring into the wall mirror she hardly recognised herself. Jennifer, filled with a not unpleasant numbness, stumbled back to the bed, and sat down heavily with panting breath.

Calming a little, she smiled to herself, “Conditioning”, my goodness, whatever this conditioning is it is working on me. The feelings she had just experienced, staring into the mirror, the same, although more so, more real than those she had felt earlier in the room with Doctor James. In that moment, much like before, she was Jen, accepted she was Jen it was Jen the cleaner that stared back at her. Fleeting, those feelings and emotions may have been, they were liberating, intoxicating and desirous.

Jennifer had not lost touch with reality, not yet she knew who she was, but being Jen, a cleaner, was such a safe place wasn’t it, and all she deserved, Doctor James had told her that. Doctor James was her Mistress now, odd but the connotations of that title, Mistress, of ownership, of being owned offered its own yet complimentary sense of sanctuary, a safe and welcome sanctuary away from the judgemental criticism, imagined, perceived or actual.

Story: Imposter Syndrome. Chapter 1.

By Jackie J

Leaving the offices of leading psychiatrist and psychotherapist Doctor James, Jennifer was relieved in some way, but also a little perturbed. With her Trench coat belt fastened, its collar up, dark glasses in place and a headscarf tugged tight, Jennifer was confident that no one would recognise her whilst she made her way back to the car that she had rented. She couldn’t have risked arriving in her own car, with its personalised number plate. Her easily recognised car, parked outside London’s renowned psychiatric clinic, would inevitably lead to awkward questions by the seemingly ever present and eager paparazzi. Miss Jennifer Forbes, known to millions, to be the confident and assertive consumer champion, who graced their television screens twice weekly, was in fact, suffering a crisis of identity, of self-worth and self-doubt, to believe herself undeserving of all she was, and all she had.

 Things had come to a head, following the publication of a critical article in the media by the reviewer Connie Black. Jennifer had already been, whilst she hid it well, emotionally distressed for weeks. She had to do something, and she had, visiting the highly regarded doctor, Samantha James.

Now at least she had a name for what she was suffering from, but a cure? She would of course follow what Miss James had told her to do, before she was to return the following week, but failed to see how this would help.

Sat in the small rental car Jennifer could not fully relax. She would not feel secure, safe even, until she was back in her apartment, it never used to be like this. Outgoing and friendly, she welcomed publicity, meeting people on the streets who recognised her but, since the judgemental article by Connie Black, all that changed. Used to being an ever present on the social scene, now reluctant to accept invitations. Only attending the most special of occasions, and even then, fearful of betraying her true feelings and emotions, rarely staying long.