madam fraud strikes again
confronting the inner predator
What do you call your inner predator? You know, that nagging voice that will not let you create in peace?
She whispers with Victorian politeness and venom disguised as concern. Her voice is soft yet cutting, dripping with false civility as she plants her poisonous seeds. "Why dearie, just give up already. You know you will fail.. again.” She sits perched on her throne of self-doubt, adorned in antique clothes and a very ugly hat that does not entirely mask her true nature: a predator of the soul.
Madam Fraud visits me when I stand at the precipice of creation. Or about to take a creative decision. Or a financial one. About my education, my work, anything related to my vision towards what I would like to birth into the world.
She whispers, cruelly: “nobody wants this”.
When the blank page awaits my words, when the project needs my vision, when opportunity knocks with possibility. She arrives uninvited, wobbling about with her cane (to be honest, the cane is a new addition: I’ve decided to kick her in the shins over the last few years).
"Fraud," she whispers. "Unprepared," she hisses. "Not enough," she declares with absolute certainty.
I've come to know her well.
Unlike other predators I've identified in my psyche - the Great Empath (who dissolves my boundaries) or the Great Reaper (who cuts ties too deeply) - Madam Fraud specialises in paralyzing doubt. She is the architect of the impostor syndrome that plagues so many of us, particularly women who dare to take up space in the world.
Her presence is most aggravating when I am closest to breakthrough, to authentic expression, to the work that matters most. This is no coincidence, as she emerges precisely when I'm about to outgrow my own limitations
When I was younger, her cautionary voice appeared disguised as a shield from potential ridicule, from standing out too much in environments where visibility might have threatened my safety or belonging. I was severely bullied in high school and at the same time my emotionally distant father really disapproved of all my creative endeavours. So she appeared, like all inner predators, seemingly helpful.
But now? Now she is outdated. Unnecessary. Really harmful. A relic of defense mechanisms that no longer serve my soul's expansion.
Madam Fraud's tactics are insidious. She doesn't just tell you that you're inadequate; she makes you believe it's your own conclusion. She frames self-sabotage as wisdom. "You should probably keep your mouth shut,” she counsels, positioning silence as the reasonable choice. Her speciality is making you forget your own power, convincing you that your authentic voice is something to suppress rather than express.
I recently made a visual representation of her, a collage to see her more clearly: the vintage figure with painted cheeks and calculating eyes (this is actually an illustration from an old fairy tale book, I used Cinderella’s evil step sisters as models), surrounded by a swirl of negative whispers.
She did not always have a name (which was given to her during a very tearful yet funny therapy session) or a look, or the strident voice I describe when I talk about her. These came because I needed to see her clearly in order to truly face her and diminish her power over me.
I met her first in the study of fairy tales, in the shadowed corners of stories where the villains live. Bluebeard, The Evil Stepmother, they have a function, not just as characters. They are maps.
In the old tales, the predator is always close. He lives in the next room. She watches from the threshold. They are not strangers. They are familiar, often cloaked in family, intimacy. Bluebeard is not a monster at first glance, he is a wealthy, charming man. The Stepmother is not the witch in the woods, she is inside the house.
Some tales teach us: the greatest dangers aren't always obvious, sometimes they smile. Sometimes they sit at the dinner table. Sometimes they whisper exactly like Madam Fraud does, in a voice that sounds so much like our own.
Fairy tales hold this deep knowing: to grow, we must learn to recognize the predator. Become perceptive. Intuitive. The function of Bluebeard is to show us the cost of not opening the forbidden door. The function of the Stepmother is to teach us what happens when we hand over our power to someone else’s jealousy, envy or hunger.
That’s what I love most about fairy tales, they contain the roadmap for our initiations.
They tell us that we cannot wait for someone else to save us. That the key is always in our pocket. That we must descend the stairs, open the door, see what’s been hidden, and rise again with that knowledge.
And so I began to recognize Madam Fraud not just as a glitch in my self-esteem, but as an archetype.
What do we do with Madam Fraud once we recognize her?
I've learned that unlike other predators, she cannot withstand the light of conscious acknowledgment. When I talk directly at her: “Madam Fraud, I see you've arrived again. Kindly fuck off”, her power immediately diminishes. There is no use negotiating with her, I’ve come to learn. She is vicious and cutthroat, so now I return in kind.
When I share her whispers with other women, and humorously talk about her, she loses her grip. When I write down her criticisms and examine them in daylight, their absurdity often becomes apparent.
The antidote to Madam Fraud is not perfection, no, in fact, she uses the pursuit of perfection as her favorite weapon. The antidote is authenticity and action despite her protestations. It's creating even when she insists you have nothing worthy to say. It's publishing even when she predicts humiliation. It's speaking your truth even when she forecasts rejection.
Madam Fraud hates above all things the woman who says, "I may not be perfect, but I am enough. My voice matters. My work has value even in its imperfection."
I affirm now that I see through her matronly facade to the frightened aspect of myself that she represents: the part that equates lack of visibility with inadequacy, that conflates criticism with annihilation.
I see the fangs beneath those yellowed teeth, the actual drooling she’s doing while preparing to eat my very soul.
When she appears, I know I'm on the verge of something important, something real, something true.
And to each woman reading this: When your version of Madam Fraud visits you with her hat and her cutting words, recognize her for what she is: the voice of fear and the will to submit you into it.
She is the voice that wants to keep the story small. The one who cuts the heroine’s hair before she can flee the tower.
But I have read many, many, many stories. I know how the best ones end.
The heroine wins… but only after she stops trying to be such a goddamn good girl. Only after she sees through the disguise. Only after she listens to her own voice louder than theirs.
That is how we slay the inner predator:
We stop making it comfortable.
We stop mistaking our fear for our truth.
We stop obeying.
We begin to live like we are already the main character in our own story - because we are.
So what now:
Name it. Draw it. Write about it. Bring it into the light where, like all creatures accustomed to shadows, it loses its power.
You Madam Fraud may attack again and again, but each time with less conviction, with less authority, until one day her whispers become so faint that they're drowned out by the stronger voice of your authentic self, creating without apology, being without permission, thriving without constraint.
Today, I choose to create despite her. I choose to speak even as she criticises. I choose to take up space even as she insists I shrink.
And in doing so, I reclaim not just my voice, but my soul's right to expression.
Madam Fraud may visit, but she no longer resides here permanently. She cannot even come into my house and enter my workspace: I’ve pushed her down the stairs too many times.
This space, my soul, belongs to Creation now.
a small ritual for facing your inner predator
Create a portrait.
Name it. Draw it. Write it a letter. Give it a silly voice. Make it sit in a tiny imaginary chair across the room from you. Write out its most common lies… and then answer each one in your truest voice.
Ask yourself:
When does it appear?
What does it say?
Whose voice does it really carry?
What power have you given it?
What does it not want you to do today? … Then do that very thing, right now.
What does your inner predator look like … and what is it trying to stop you from becoming?
Comment below. I want to meet you.
With love, courage and a very firm kick in the shins,
Marianna
I know the feeling too well... especially when I am doing something I know I am good at but still creeps in.. thank you ❤️
I so look forward to chatting about Madame Fraud! I recognize her face from my childhood Cinderella illustrations. "She appeared, like all inner predators, seemingly helpful..." Ahh... Much more to come, Marianna!