Imposter Trauma gives language to the experience of struggling while simultaneously believing that what happened to you was not serious enough to justify the struggle.
Imposter Trauma refers to ongoing psychological distress that is downplayed or dismissed, internally or externally, because others' trauma is viewed as more valid, extreme, or deserving of support.
This work is only beginning. I'm exploring how people learn to rank trauma, how institutional and occupational cultures reinforce those comparisons, and what happens before someone ever decides they are entitled to ask for help.
Someone else's experience becomes the benchmark.
"What happened to me wasn't that bad."
Do I really have the right to be struggling?
Support can be delayed before a formal barrier even appears.
I came to this work because I knew what it was like to look at other people's experiences and conclude that mine didn't count.
Imposter Trauma developed at the intersection of lived experience, academic research, and years spent inside military and public safety environments. I'm interested in the gap between telling people to speak up and creating cultures where they believe it is safe and legitimate to do so.
The concept is developing through research, speaking, practitioner engagement, and international collaboration. I'm not interested in having the final word. I'm interested in asking a better question, then inviting the people closest to the problem to help answer it.
I joined the Infantry at 17 and spent most of my adult life moving through military and public safety environments. Strength, toughness and carrying on were familiar expectations long before I had language for what comparison could do.
"Who was I to think my pain counted?"
I was comparing my own experiences against friends who had served in Afghanistan. Their trauma looked more obvious to me, more serious, more deserving. Mine felt like an imitation of the real thing. That is where the connection to imposter syndrome became hard to ignore: the same kind of self-doubt that can make capable people question whether they belong can also shape how someone judges the legitimacy of their own pain.
That question became more important than I first realized. It shifted my attention from whether an experience looked serious enough from the outside to how people decide, internally and culturally, whether they are entitled to be affected by it at all.
Research, public engagement and collaboration are helping test, challenge and develop the concept across uniformed public services.
Development of the Imposter Trauma framework, currently under peer review.
Speaker at Anglia Ruskin University's international conference, Serving with Equity: Women's Voices in the Uniformed Public Services. Session: "When Pain Doesn't Count: Imposter Trauma, Gender, and the Hidden Hierarchies of Harm in Uniformed Service."
Conference poster presentation, "When Your Trauma Doesn't Count."
"Laurier researcher Emily Rowe shines light on imposter 'trauma' in public safety professions."
Further research and collaboration through Anglia Ruskin University.
Bringing the conversation directly to public safety personnel and those who support them.
Upcoming podium presentation with military, Veteran and health research audiences.
Start with the conversation that introduces Imposter Trauma, lived experience, and the question at the centre of this work: how do people come to believe their pain does not qualify?
Listen to the conversation →How do we learn what “counts” as trauma?
When does comparison become self-silencing?
How do peers, leaders and systems reinforce which pain feels legitimate?
What are people calculating before they decide whether it is safe to speak up?
What would have to change so people did not need to prove they were hurt enough before support begins?
The research is developing. If this work connects with your experience, your organization, or your own research, I want there to be a clear door for you.