Book overview
Making Sense in Crooked Rooms: Distorted Mirrors, Cognitive Dysmorphia, and Collective Knowing invites readers to reconsider what they have been told about self-doubt, confidence, and competence.
For generations, many people, particularly Black women and others navigating systems not built with them in mind, have been taught to understand persistent self-doubt as a personal failing. Terms like "imposter syndrome" suggest that the problem lies within the individual. But what if the mirror itself has been distorted?
Drawing from sociology, psychology, counseling, mindfulness, and lived experience, Jessica M. Oladapo, LCPC, introduces the concept of cognitive dysmorphia: the phenomenon in which individuals come to inaccurately perceive their abilities, worth, and belonging after prolonged exposure to environments that consistently misreflect who they are.
Through research, storytelling, reflective exercises, and practical tools, this book explores identity, belonging, organizational culture, stereotype threat, and collective healing. Ultimately, Making Sense in Crooked Rooms offers readers a new question to consider:
If so many capable people struggle to see themselves clearly, perhaps they were never the problem. This is a book about seeing ourselves differently, witnessing, seeing, and reflecting one another more accurately, and creating communities that reflect back the truth of who we are.
