Your Twenties Are for Mistakes Unless Anxiety Gets In The Way
- Chloe Johnson
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
You think your twenties are going to follow the shape of New Girl or Sex and the City. You forget most of these characters are in their thirties because that doesn’t fit the narrative, and your twenties are all about the narrative. You’re expecting an eclectic gut-punch of a decade, but there’s probably still a worrying amount of quiet. Give yourself a little more time because, well, 2020 happened, and more worldly events seem to keep happening on top of it. Until you realise the quiet moments are your twenties: quietly anxious, quietly hopeful, quietly despondent. It’s no wonder that this period is associated with having a mental breakdown. It can be kind of lonely, huh?
I’m Chloe Johnson, and as a writer in my twenties living with an anxiety disorder, I can see why the image of the scared, confused, somewhat jubilant young person coming-of-age is particularly captivating. There’s a dichotomy in your twenties. An air of mystique that it’s for messing up alongside a crippling pressure that it’s a defining decade where you have to actually be something, not just dream it. You can feel the carefully placed weight of time, the creeping sense of dread that you’re falling behind. It can be difficult not to sacrifice your well-being on the quest to ‘have it all’.
All of this is quite well-documented. This won’t be the first article you’ve read on the subject of the perilous twenties; they'll tell you it makes sense to feel behind, immature, lost. After all, suddenly, life is no longer highly structured and typical adult milestones that might have once applied feel harder to reach. For those with a uterus, add to that societal pressure to start thinking about the biological aspect of the future, and you have a cocktail for anxious existentialism.
But what happens when you add an anxiety disorder on top? In your twenties, everyone you know is biting the bullet on something (starting a business, travelling, having kids, rewatching their comfort show for the tenth time). But for the (a little over) 1 in 10 of us living with an anxiety disorder in the UK, the indecision about biting the bullet or sending the bullet in the opposite direction is the task. And it can be paralysing.
Your twenties are meant to be a decade of making messy mistakes – but when you have an anxiety disorder, especially conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which involves recurring unwanted thoughts or repetitive behaviours; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can develop after experiencing or witnessing trauma; or agoraphobia, an intense fear of situations where escape may feel difficult (or symptoms closely related), you might struggle to cope with anything short of perfect. To even get out there and experience those ‘mistakes’ in the first place. Diana Oliver wrote about this in her feature exploring agoraphobia - ‘the true definition of agoraphobia falls short of the literal meaning that usually accompanies the word. This is because far from implying a fear of open spaces, it’s actually a fear of fear itself.’
Gen-Z and young millennials, in particular, are noted to be struggling when it comes to issues of self-esteem and anxiety that consume them. It’s easy enough to dismiss these feelings and just blame the damn phones, but there's a huge cultural shift at play. The creep of all things digital has not only allowed us to live increasingly online lives, but also to know more and more about our mental health and each other than ever before.
This is obviously extremely helpful. More of us than ever know what to look for as markers of struggling mental health. But it can also be a bit of a trap, especially for those predisposed to self-examination. Gen Z are increasingly plugged in politically, rejecting the expectation of emotional labour and advancing causes around mental health, so we’re more self-informed than generations before. But when people spend a lot of time analysing every uncomfortable feeling, practically, it can make you feel stuck: as if there are no good options.
We’re also more likely to keep an eye on the world at large, as well as to self-examine. Digital overload can have us feeling like the world is in crisis; some we are largely at a loss to help, others we feel uniquely responsible for. According to a survey by Extra Gum, 28 per cent of Gen Z describe themselves as 'chronic overthinkers', with 32 per cent reporting that overthinking happens every single day. Indeed, as we enter the era of ‘maxxing’, where everything can be optimised, we can see that a predisposition to ‘fix’ things can sometimes even make things worse. There’s a reason that incredibly successful artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Noah Kahan are listened to so widely, especially as they articulate the feelings of extreme anxiety, perfectionism and obsession.
While it can seem simple to add two and two together and say that if young people went out more and got off their phones, the ‘anxious’ generation would get a lot better, it ignores a lot of the changes to modern society. Third spaces which by definition are informal places outside home and work or school where people can socialise - on the whole have decreased, and half of adults now spend less than three hours a week in natural settings such as gardens, parks, fields or woods, according to a survey by the Wildlife Trusts. With fewer third spaces, there’s less emphasis on just ‘hanging out’. Connection then turns into something deliberate: added pressure to do stuff in the best way.
There is also pressure to be on social media to create a ‘brand’, which is a subtle hum beneath everything as job security continues to feel more mythical – and for those who struggle with chronic illness or other disabilities, connecting online can be a meaningful way of connecting and seeking community. Of course, offline groups and hobbies not connected to our phones can definitely be helpful, but it’s the blame (and the pressure) put on the individual that can make anxiety disorders such a lonely condition in your twenties.
For those of us struggling to make the same ‘mistakes’ as our peers in our twenties due to anxiety disorders or, conversely, feeling like we’re making too many of them, connecting online can help us realise that you can’t actually ‘waste’ your twenties. In fact, many women in their thirties and beyond, especially those diagnosed with mental health or neurodivergent conditions, are sharing about how life only gets better as you learn more about yourself and find your own coping mechanisms, knowing the boundary between self-care and pushing yourself is definitely one that needs to be tried and tested first.
And you’re likely doing that, even when you think you’re making no progress. Jackie Adedeji said it best in her Substack on 30: “So, on reflection 30 feels like…we have plenty of time to sometimes live a little slower, fall, make mistakes, enter adversity, create stuff that makes no sense to anyone, fail, cry, have numerous breakdowns, dust ourselves off and then eventually come back to who you are because guess what? I’m back.”
There’s a prevailing 24-hour clock analogy that suggests that at 30 years of age, it's just after 9.00 am in the morning. No wonder you’re anxious; you might not have even had your coffee yet. The fear of making mistakes might be amplified with an anxiety disorder, and the milestones might look smaller from the outside, but the tiny, subtle shifts that shape who you’re growing to be? They’re still happening, even on the worst of days.
This article has been sponsored by the Psychiatry Research Trust, who are dedicated to supporting young scientists in their groundbreaking research efforts within the field of mental health. If you wish to support their work, please consider donating.
