The short answer
You've done the hardest thing — you stopped outsourcing your sense of belonging. The fraud feeling loses power the moment you stop asking others to confirm you. Doing the work, without waiting for a stamp of approval, is exactly how a grounded identity gets built.
You used to feel like an imposter waiting to get caught. That feeling thrives on a specific condition: you let your sense of belonging depend on whether others confirmed it. Research on identity after job loss shows that people who bounce back don't do it by collecting reassurance — they do it by re-engaging with meaningful work and letting that engagement rebuild their self-concept from the ground up. You did that. The grip loosened because you changed what you were feeding.
Marcus puts it plainly: maintain your own purpose free from compulsion and necessity. That's the move you made. You stopped needing external permission to feel like you belonged. Your resolution became your own — not borrowed from a job title, a manager's praise, or a room full of people who might find you out. That internal anchor is exactly what the fraud feeling can't touch.
This week, write one sentence — just one — about what you now do that you do because it's genuinely yours, not because it earns approval. Keep it somewhere visible. It's a small act, but it reinforces the shift you've already made: belonging comes from the inside, and you've already proven you can build it there.