Cause it always happens right after you finally manage to convince yourself that you're overthinking things and that you're looking too deep into it. And thennn....

My boss phoned me on a Thursday in '06 when I was working remotely for about 3 years.

My worst fears - and the moment I'd pre-lived in my head while ruminating in the dark nights and in every half-second while reaching to answer any ad-hoc call had finally arrived, and I knew it when he asked, "Eileen, are you still on the call?" When HR needs to be there, you're less trying to save a career than you are ceasing CPR on a coma patient who's come to the end of the will, and then beyond.

With the emotion reserved for an exhausted TV doctor filling in the forms after a grueling session trying to save my tiny corner of the world for days and weeks and years, we finished off the off-boarding call, pausing often so my boss could ensure I was 'gonna be okay' and not lose my own will; and go beyond, as so many had after losing their dream post during this years-long hemorrhage of money to pay David Boies' team on his legal quest to punish a big old company essentially for leaking our nudes in a cheap coffee-table book. I miss those people, my lost peers, to this day.

But here's the thing: because I had lived out this call, because I'd replayed this conversation in my head in the dark over-nights while waiting on a compile on a deadline, because it flashed in front of my eyes so many times, I was ready. I'd trained for this eventuality. I did my part, performed my role and we were done in a few boring minutes.

I think this is that: dreading that email where they 'find out' your problem is less 'imposter syndrome' and really just 'imposter' is maybe a coping mechanism for a call or meeting or email you need to be ready for so the impact doesn't break you. Your brain is training you.

You can't avoid that training, I'm sure. You can, though, suffer through it and use it so you don't lose everything, including your will. Know it for what it is, and run through that fire drill so you can get out with your sanity intact, even as you know that today's not that day.

(The company died, by the way. It spent almost every red cent to get what was a Brock Turner apology and a re-framing. In the end, it lost more than it ever had, and its nudes, its software crown jewels, now sits locked in a Novell closet where no one who even understands the software that led us into the golden age we are now will ever see it.)