The years between leaving home and feeling settled in adult life are harder than they're often made out to be. Some of the structures that used to organize life fall away, and in their place is a set of questions without obvious answers: who you are, what you want, how to build relationships that feel genuine, how to find direction that feels like yours rather than simply the path that seemed most expected.
Many young adults find themselves managing more than they anticipated: anxiety about the future, difficulty connecting with people they're drawn to, a quiet sense that everyone else seems to have things more figured out than they do.
Some of what makes this time difficult is that the ways of operating that got someone here can start to work against them. Working hard, meeting expectations, staying self-sufficient: these strategies provide structure and direction but don't always translate into knowing what you actually want, or how to build relationships that feel genuine rather than performed. Feelings that have been carefully managed have a way of surfacing when the usual structures fall away.Â
Therapy at this stage isn't only about understanding what's gone wrong or avoiding past mistakes. It's also about figuring out what you actually enjoy, what kind of relationships feel genuine, and what direction feels like yours. That requires space to explore your own point of view rather than the one that seemed most expected, and a regular place to develop accountability to yourself, not to anyone else's idea of what you should be doing.
If this reflects where you are, I'd welcome the chance to talk.