Quarter-Life Crisis

Ever hurt someone?

Yes. The answer is yes.

Ever done something wrong?

Yes. The answer is yes.

Ever done something right, but it still ended up hurting someone?

Yes. The answer is yes.

It would surprise me to hear that someone went throughout their entire life without hurting another human being. Living cannot happen without collateral damage, and many living people have intentionally created damage at least once in their life. It could have been that moment when you yelled, “I hate you, Mom!” Or maybe you were the high school bully. Or maybe you still can’t cope with your emotions, so you’ve become an adult bully.

Or maybe you’re like me. Making mistakes almost every day.

It’d be easy to blame someone else for my actions. “Gosh darn it, parents. You really could have taught me better and not left me alone for hours on end.” It’d be easy to convince myself that I’m justified for my mistakes. “Well, this person hurt me, so I don’t owe them anything.” It’d be easy to pretend I have control—to act like I have control—when I can’t control many of life’s consequences. “I’ll make sure this never happens again.”

Unfortunately, easy does not always mean good. And believe it or not, I want to be good. I try to be good. So, when it comes to it, I often choose to deal with the difficulties of accepting responsibility for my actions, realizing I can’t justify my mistakes, and accepting I don’t have control.

And I hate it.

When life gets hard, it hurts to do these things. I don’t like seeing other people hurt. I don’t like knowing I’ve done things that have hurt people—things that were good for me to do and things that weren’t good for me to do. In these moments of pain, I would much rather move to France and start life over, cutting off connection to all people I know. But in France, there’d be people, I’d have imperfections, and there would be problems. In many ways, life would be the same.

So, at age 25, I am sitting here with my pain, wondering, “Where do I go next? Where is this life leading me?”

It scares me to say that I don’t know. As a kid, I dreamed of the day I would raise a family that was kind and loving to one another. Now, I find it harder to hold on to that dream. I look forward to the future and it’s pitch black.

In the darkness, I wonder if I will have a future.

Will I make it to age 26? Age 27? Age 30?

Or will I die? Will I succumb to the pain and the pressure? Will I take my own life?

My friends, I do not talk about this subject often because it is a deeply sensitive, deeply vulnerable one, but it is also a deeply important one: the will to live.

When the internet talks about mid-life crises, it laughs and jokes about father’s buying motorcycles and wearing clothes that fit too tightly. However, a real crisis is a crisis. It’s the alarms blaring, people shouting for help, and the phone dialing 9-1-1. It’s serious.

Recently, I’ve been going through my own crisis. Call it a “quarter-life crisis.” I’m not buying motorcycles or skipping town, but I feel an unusual amount of immense pressure about the future. The family I dreamed of—have I lost it?

Nothing compares to the family I want to create, and when I think I’ve lost it, I feel I have lost my life itself. I feel like I cannot go on. I cannot live.

Then I wonder if my actions—if my mistakes—have led me to this loss. It is at this moment the pain becomes nearly intolerable. My fear heightens. I’m not only scared of the future, but I’m scared of my own thoughts.

This is what my quarter-life crisis has been like. If you watch my YouTube videos, this is what I’ve been talking about when I say “I’m struggling.” It’s not only that I am going through difficulties, but I am having a hard time not letting these difficulties take me over. I’m pushing them back with all my strength, with every tool I have. I don’t know how long I can keep them from spilling onto me; I only know I must try to prevent it because if they pile on top of me, I will suffocate.

What tools do I use in this process of prevention?

Family used to be my go-to tool. Don’t ask me why. It was like I saw a rusted hand trowel and thought somehow it could save me. Maybe I thought that because the trowel laid closest to me and I’d never used anything else. For the longest time, it stayed close to me. Easy to access. And one day, when it moved further away, I continued to go to it. I had used it so much in the past. The familiarity seemed to have promise. And yet, most times this trowel only gave me little pockets of air.

As I aged, I realized this, and friends became another tool. I don’t know if it was the lack of familiarity or something else, but it took a while to get used to being vulnerable with them. Here and there, I still shy away from doing this. But with every tool there is a risk of getting hurt. And there’s no chance of improvement without using your resources. So, despite how uncomfortable I feel, I reach out to friends.

Depending on what I need and whom I talk to, I might ask them to hang out, or talk, knowing full well I will share all the feels with them. Some friends I can count on more than others. However, during my quarter-life crisis, it has become clear to me that I need more friends.

You want to talk about vulnerability? Imagine being a grown woman admitting to the internet that she doesn’t have many friends. At least, not many “we-hang-out-or-talk-to-each-other-on-a-semi-regular-basis” friends. In my desperate moments, I could think of two friends I knew I could reach out to. However, the numbers worked against me when one of those friends went to Europe and the other had a baby.

To help with this, I’ve decided to try and make an effort to expand my social group. Yes, I won’t comfortably bear my soul to every friend I make, but increasing my connection to people will lift my spirit over time, and if time has proven anything, it’s that I know some of my new friends will become long-lasting ones.

Despite all the good that friends and family can do, they can’t do everything. Healing requires a professional’s assistance. That’s why I use therapy as a tool. Some therapists can’t help, and some therapy practices won’t work, but overall, a therapist can be like a doctor. My therapists have assisted with addressing my traumas and exposing both unhealthy patterns I’ve experienced and unhealthy patterns I’m perpetuating. With the amount of trauma I’m dealing with, I don’t see myself exiting therapy anytime soon, but I’m glad I have a consistent place where I can find ways to improve myself and heal from the past. And truth be told, heal from the present too.

When I can’t connect with family or friends or any people in general, I pull out my coping tools. My recent go-to coping tool? My journal. It’s odd how it relaxes me. The pen meets the paper, the thoughts spill out in permanent ink, and all is better. Perhaps it is the notion that I can share any private thought, any private experience and have no fear of “what will this person think of me?” Or perhaps it’s the notion that by journaling I give myself the opportunity to reflect on feelings and events in a more stable setting. And if it’s none of that, at least I’ve given myself the chance to vent.

I might not feel as if I can do anything else, but I can usually get myself to journal. If I do manage that, then I typically gain enough energy to do at least one more thing that will prevent the pile of problems from collapsing onto me.

The next coping tool I use is reading. Imagine that. The girl who sees writing as a solace also has the same view about reading. Find the genre of book you enjoy most, or revisit an old book that you cherish. I tend to read fiction. It’s escapism at it’s finest.

Another coping tool I use is walking. When I take my dog on a long walk, I get fresh air. Apparently, oxygen helps the brain function better. Apparently, trees, flowers, and other plants in nature release oxygen. Thus, even if I don’t walk, going outside helps. However, walking gets my blood pumping and I guess my brain needs that too. Plus, from time to time, I’ll see another cute dog, or I’ll go by a park and a stranger will say something nice, or I’ll run into an old acquaintance. Walking isn’t a solve all, and I’ve had times where I’ve returned from a walk feeling just as sorrowful, but it’s an accessible option for improving my situation.

When nothing has worked, or I don’t have the ability to do anything else, and the will to live is gone, I’ve called the suicide hotline. In the past year, I’ve called them twice. The only two times in my life that I’ve dialed 9-8-8.

The first time, it helped to talk to the person on the other line. She helped me calm down and come up with a plan to take care of myself. The second time . . . well, the person I talked to didn’t help. But talking to her gave one of my friends the time they needed to respond to me, and they were able to console me. If you ever get to a dark place, don’t be ashamed. You’re just a human, and these are other humans who want to be there for you. Please use this resource.

You could call the rest of my tools self-care. It takes effort and acute awareness to take care of yourself, but it’s important. It compounds over time, either for or against your favor. If you’re ignoring self-care, your resources will be depleted because you will simply find it harder and harder to use them. It’s as if self-care is the key to unlocking the tools that will prevent the pile of problems from toppling onto you.

Quarter-life crises are scary. Any crisis is scary. But despite my mistakes, despite the consequences of life that I can’t control, despite my unknown future, I have a future. I can do good. I can be kind. I can show love to others. And you can too.

Because before I wrote this blog, I felt pieces of the pile dropping down onto me. The light decreased and the darkness felt impenetrable. But I wrote in my journal. I texted a friend. And I shared what I could with you.

All this reminded me that there’s hope. And suddenly, I can see some of the future again.

I hope you can too.