Do You Feel Overwhelmed By All The Pressures Of Adulting?
Are you a young adult who is struggling to navigate all the changes in your life? Is living on your own not what you thought it would be? Do you wish there was someone who could help you manage the stress of adulting?
Maybe you’re just starting college or entering the workforce and you’re overwhelmed by all the pressure to succeed. Perhaps you couldn’t wait to set out on your own, but now that it’s happening, you feel unable to launch. You might feel frozen with indecision. Deep down, you may find yourself asking: Who am I? What’s my purpose? What do I want to do with the rest of my life?
Entering Adulthood Can Complicate Your Relationships
As you make the transition from high school to college or the workforce, you may find that your relationships are changing. Old friendships may be slipping out of the picture and you might be struggling to find new ones.
Your relationship with your parents is probably changing, too. Perhaps you feel like your parents are too involved in your life and you wish they would lay off sometimes. Or maybe they put too much pressure on you—they’re always reminding you of what they accomplished at your age and acting like you should have your life together.
If you want to step away from the pressures of work, school, relationships, and society, I encourage you to try counseling for young adults with me. My goal is to help you manage the stress of adulting and create a roadmap for your future.
It’s Not Your Parents’ Economy Anymore
Young adulthood is a time of great change and uncertainty. Today, it’s arguably harder than it’s ever been. College tuition and the cost of living have skyrocketed. Wages have stagnated and most entry-level jobs offer very little money. As a result, it’s become very hard for young adults to be financially secure. It has become the norm for young adults to move back in with their parents after college. This is different from previous generations, when most people were able to move out right after college and support themselves financially.
Naturally, these differences create a generational divide. Many parents unwittingly put a lot of pressure on their kids to move out, telling them things like “When I was 22, I already had an apartment, a job, and my own car.” And many adult children have trouble setting boundaries with their parents, especially if they’re still living at home. The more that the kids struggle to launch, the more the parents struggle with “letting go,” creating a vicious cycle.
Young adulthood is a stressful time for anyone. That’s why getting help is so vital. Instead of telling you to keep it all together, therapy provides a space to normalize what you’re going through, let loose, be yourself, and figure out the person you want to be.
Young Adult Therapy Can Help You Create A Life Plan That Is Uniquely Yours
There is no “how-to” manual for adulting. Pressure from school, parents, friends, and society can make it seem like there’s a “right way” to do things. But sometimes, what appears to be the right way for everyone else may not be right for you. This can create a lot of anxiety! As a therapist for young adults, I want to help you carve your own unique path instead of getting distracted by outside pressures.
Therapy gives you a safe and empowering space to explore the thoughts and feelings that are keeping you stuck. You will learn that it’s okay to not have all the answers. If you don’t know what you want out of life, therapy is a safe space to sit with your feelings, explore your options, and resolve this discomfort. Not everything has an immediate solution, but by working together, I believe that you and I can find a path forward.
What To Expect In Sessions
Oftentimes, the first step of therapy for young adults is helping you get in touch with your values and beliefs. When you are able to do this, finding a path that’s true to those values and beliefs is much easier. Together, we’ll explore what gives your life purpose, what you like to do for fun, and what you look for in relationships. Additionally, we’ll look at the things in your environment that prevent you from living out your purpose and sticking to your values.
While a lot of counseling is future-focused, I also want to give you skills for managing your struggles in the here and now. Whether you’re a college student or you’ve just entered the workforce, therapy can give you skills for de-stressing, managing anxiety, staying focused, and improving communication. I’ll help you learn to advocate for yourself and set healthy boundaries with your parents and other people in your life.
Tailoring Your Counseling Plan To You
One of the main approaches that I use to help young adults is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). At its core, the goal of CBT is to identify and correct unhelpful thought patterns in your life. Changing how you think about yourself can help you improve your emotional wellbeing, relationships, and every other area of your life.
I also draw from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which is very practical and gives you ways to tolerate distress. Instead of telling you to ignore your emotional pain, DBT encourages radical acceptance—you will learn to sit with your discomfort, understand why it’s there, and use the knowledge you gain to move beyond it.
Young adulthood is a difficult, stressful time of life, but it can also be a time of great self-discovery! I am confident that you can achieve your goals and create a life plan that’s true to you and no one else. As your therapist, I’ll be your partner on your journey and help you create a roadmap that’s right for you.
Common Questions About Therapy For Young Adults…
I feel like I should be excited about moving on. What’s wrong with me?
There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s normal to be anxious about the future. Everyone talks about how fun it is to be on your own and make your own decisions, but no one talks about how hard it can be. Therapy is a place where you can talk about how stressful it is without any fear of judgment. You will learn that it’s okay to feel anxious and excited at the same time—you can have it both ways.
My friends don’t need counseling, so why do I?
It’s easy to assume that other people are fine if they don’t talk about their mental health. But beneath the surface, many of them are probably struggling, too. Just because your friends aren’t in therapy doesn’t mean it wouldn’t benefit them. Counseling can help anyone. Most people find that simply talking to someone else about their worries makes them feel better.
Will you tell my parents what I talk about?
If you are over 18 years old, you have a choice about who is involved in your treatment. Unless it is a mental health emergency, I will never disclose anything about your sessions to anyone, including your parents, without your consent. This is true even if your parents are paying for treatment.
Adulting Doesn’t Have To Be This Stressful
If you’re a young adult suffering from anxiety, depression, burnout, and any other mental health issues, I am confident that therapy can help. Tod get in touch with me, you can email me or use the contact form.