The funny thing about impostor syndrome, says comedian, writer and actor Aparna Nancherla, is that the debilitating feelings of inadequacy she’s battled her entire life have only gotten worse as she’s become more successful.

Even as Nancherla has recorded stand-up specials for Netflix and Comedy Central, acted on shows like “Master of None” and “BoJack Horseman,” and written for “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell,” her inner critic has gotten freakishly good at undermining her self-esteem.

“I still only warily accept I’ve accomplished anything or that I ever could again,” Nancherla writes in her revealing, at times humorous and bracingly honest debut book of essays, “Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome.”

“Sometimes it’s almost like my impostor syndrome is the majority of me, and the rest is my shadow.”

The Washington, D.C., native — who wowed audiences at2017’s Colossal Clusterfestcomedy festival in downtown San Francisco — was diagnosed with depression at 19. Her openness about her acute bouts of anxiety and crushing insecurity have been a trademark of her stand-up act ever since she started doing open mics 20 years ago.

“I kind of like to do anxiety for the week, depression for the weekends,” she jokes in one bit. “They both have custody.”

Nancherla spoke with the Chronicle by phone from her Los Angeles home, just before launching her fall tour, which includes a performance in San Francisco on Saturday, Sept. 30.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Why did you want to write a book about impostor syndrome?

A:A lot of my life ends up in my work, and I thought writing about it would afford me a little distance, a way to contextualize things that I’ve struggled with internally for so long. I thought it would force me to confront it head-on, in a way you can avoid in your day-to-day life, and figure out where these feelings started of feeling like a fraud.

Q: For someone who’s been open about being a perfectionist and a procrastinator, finishing a book-length project is no small feat. How hard was it to write?

A:Everyone I talked to who had written a book before told me, “It’s going to be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.” And I was like, yeah, yeah. But, in fact, it was the hardest creative project I’ve done. Choosing to write a book about self-doubt added a level of challenge I didn’t fully foresee going into it. I thought, “Well, my inner critic has had so much to say over the years, why doesn’t it actually make itself useful for once and write a book for me?” But, of course, it only works for itself. It was like, “You write your own book, and I’m just going to be here in the corner.”

Q: You write about being introverted and describe yourself as “violently quiet.” Is that hard in a writers’ room?

A:Yeah, that’s where the self-doubt can come in. I’ll question, “Am I being quiet because that’s my comfort zone? Or am I trying to make myself smaller?” As a woman and a minority, it’s already a challenge making yourself seen and heard and not letting people steamroll you or make assumptions for you. It’s been a tricky balancing act for me, knowing when to speak up and when I’m just honoring who I am by being quiet.

Q: Your first comedy writing job was forOakland’s W. Kamau Bell. Did your shyness affect you there?

A:That was my first big break. That allowed me to do comedy full time, so it was a huge door opening for me. I felt really fortunate getting to work on a progressive show that had such a diverse writers’ room, so my first experience wasn’t being in a room full of white men. … But I still had the complication of self-doubt, that voice saying all these people are so much more brilliant than I am.

Q: It’s become a lot more common in recent years for comedians to address their mental health in their act. Did it come naturally to you to discuss your depression and anxiety?

A:I first started talking about it just as a byproduct of not knowing what else to do with these acute feelings other than to try to create something from it. My go-to as a writer is: How can I reframe what I’m experiencing as a story? Can that small bit of distance give me a little space to see outside those difficult things that can take up so much room in my brain? Now I actually find it freeing in some sense to just be like, “This is me. This is what makes me up as a human.”

I also started in comedy looking up to comedians likeMaria Bamford,Marc MaronandPatton Oswalt, who had all been pretty open about their mental health. I certainly didn’t think I was doing something new or groundbreaking, but eventually I did realize I’m a woman of color, and maybe that sets me apart.

Q: Does joking about your mental health struggles help, whether onstage or in your book?

A:I think it helps knowing other people go through similar things because depression and anxiety can be such isolating experiences. The tricky thing is when you’re making something into work, it’s a more polished, edited, presentational form of an experience that is actually messy and raw and can leave you in some dark places. A joke I’ve written about my anxiety versus actually having an anxiety spiral — they’re not at all the same thing.

Q: You used to use Twitter (now called X) as a kind of joke incubator, but now you’re on social media much less. What’s replaced it for you in terms of real-time feedback?

A:Very patient friends. Since taking a step back from social media, I’ve tried to live more of a life that’s not just eating, sleeping, breathing comedy all the time. I found that what I find most creatively fulfilling is actually having experiences that aren’t always framed in terms of: How can I make this into a joke that I can post about or immediately turn into content? Can I just have an experience for the sake of the experience and then later maybe find something funny about it? I guess I’ve turned to whatever the comedy equivalent to slow food is.

Jessica Zack is a freelance writer.