Life is always filled with the transitions, but the transitions seem to be unstopping for those in their 20s and 30s. While every person’s journey and situation is different, common life transitions for young adults are moving out of their family’s home, attending college, starting full-time work, changing careers, getting in and out of long-term relationships, becoming parents (or deciding not to have children), marriage, divorce, and taking care of aging parents. Mixed into these life events are often struggles to come to terms with one’s religious or faith background, sexuality, dynamics in one’s family of origin, and beliefs about how to have a meaningful life.
Oftentimes it is not until people are in their 20s or 30s that they begin to unravel how unhealthy family dynamics in their family-of-origin impacted them — sometimes this is not brought up until adults become new parents and are resolute to raise their own children differently, but find themselves slipping into patterns that are familiar. It is also common for young adults to begin processing how sexual, physical, or emotional abuse that they experienced as a child or a teen impacted them — sometimes this is brought up due to entering into an intimate relationship and discovering emotional or sexual barriers. Struggles with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse or other forms of addiction are especially common for adults in their 20s and 30s, even for very successful and accomplished individuals.
Every person goes through ups and downs throughout the course of life, but depression is more than sometimes feeling sad or experiencing a slight mood shift during a difficult life season or following a loss. Depression is powerful and colors the lenses of the person experiencing it. Life can feel meaningless and one might feel worthless, inadequate, and like a failure, despite evidence that indicates otherwise. It is common to have decreased energy, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, increased anger and irritability, little interest in previously enjoyed activities, increased isolation, difficulty concentrating, and thoughts of death or harming oneself. As much as we all (and most of all the affected individuals) wish that they could just “snap out of it” and think positively, this is often an unrealistic task for one truly experiencing depression.
In the lives of those experiencing anxiety, anxiety has almost always served a purpose as a survival function at some point. Some anxiety can even produce desirable results, as it can motivate individuals to complete needed tasks, to perform at their best, or to recognize safety risks. Most successful, motivated individuals have likely had some degree of anxiety that helped them push themselves to where they are now. Anxiety becomes a problem when it is pervasive, distressing, or leads to inhibiting behaviors, likely due to an altered perception of the world. This can look like consistently worrying about the same issues despite no evidence to support the worries (worrying that one has cancer despite being healthy, worrying that one will fail graduate school when one has high grades, worrying that one's partner will suddenly die), being on high-alert and having distressing, intrusive recollections following a traumatic experience, or sometimes experiencing stress in the body through trembling, not being able to get a full breath, sweating, heart palpitations, or unexplained muscle tension.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), phobias (including social anxiety), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and panic attack disorder are all anxiety disorders that people seek treatment for. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is considered to be one of the most effective therapeutic treatments available for trauma.
Adolescent brain growth is defined by four traits: novelty-seeking, social engagement, increased emotional intensity, and creative exploration. Teens are in a season of exploring who they are, what their values are, how to connect with others, and what brings them joy and fulfillment in love. These are positive, healthy, and normal developments, but oftentimes the outgrowth can cause conflict with family or lead to some concerning behaviors. As parents, it is important to ask if your teen’s behaviors are normative experiments with gaining independence and learning important life lessons (sometimes easily, sometimes “the hard way”), or if there are more serious concerns about rebellious, danger behaviors (substance use, skipping school, getting in trouble with the law, unsafe sexual behaviors) or emotional health (depression or anxiety that is difficult for your teen to manage, even if they are a high performer.)
