The fact that she served in the light infantry and was apparently effective enough in that role to be made an aide to a general officer suggests the disguise was not the only thing she was managing successfully. She was simultaneously performing the duties of her assignment well enough to earn a measure of institutional trust. Whatever internal experience accompanied that — the sustained vigilance, the daily management of risk — is not something the historical record can illuminate with the specificity that would be needed to describe it accurately.
One consistent thread across multiple accounts is that she was recognized as capable and reliable by those who worked with her. The assignment to General Paterson is the clearest documented indicator of this, because the waiter role required a soldier in whom the general had confidence. But earlier in her service, the continued assignment to light infantry duties without documented disciplinary problems also suggests a soldier who was performing adequately.
This competence matters for the historical record because one of the distortions in some popular accounts of women who served in male disguise is the implicit or explicit suggestion that they were effective because they were exceptional and that their exceptionalism was what allowed them to succeed. The more direct reading of Deborah Sampson’s service is that she was effective because she was capable and because she worked hard at the skills required, and that maintaining the disguise was a parallel project alongside the actual military duties rather than a replacement for them.