The most soul crushing thing is being in your mid to late 20's and comparing yourself with your peers. One of them is married, one has an amazing job, one just bought a house, one is pregnant, one is very successful. And you look at yourself and you have none of these accomplishments, you still feel like a kid inside, you're the same age but really you feel so much younger, so behind. You're living in different worlds, different lives, so far apart. And you observe them and all you want is to be like them, all grown, all independant and functional. And then the fear creeps in: What if I will never get there? What if my mental issues are always gonna keep me in the same place? And that feeling, that huge fear and doubt and incapability, I wonder if that's what they meant when they talk about a "quarter life crisis". You're gonna get there, in your own time. This is a normal experience millions of people our age have and have always had. It will be ok.
And then one day you're in your mid to late 40's. A lot of your friends with the "perfect" marriages are divorced now; the ones with the "perfect" jobs burned out early, or succumbed to the grind. Some have kids, some don't. Some found their passions at work, some crashed and burned spectacularly, some are working a job for the paycheck to support their hobby of making their little clay animals or tending their backyard chickens. You? You know what you want, now. It's not the same as what you wanted when you were 25. In fact, you're kind of glad you didn't get those things then, because you became wise, at some point, while you weren't looking. You know now, in a way you never did when you were young, that your brain isn't actually that weird, and there are so many people like you, and all of them, including you, deserve to feel good and loved and cared for. You still feel like you're about 12 on the inside, but everybody else does too. You've learned to be kind, not least to yourself. You're happy more often than you're sad. You have people you love richly, and who love you. You laugh all the time. One day you sit by the lake in the late afternoon autumn sunlight and you think about being 25, and how you were convinced your life was already over, and you smile, and think to yourself, I'm so glad I'm here.
