More like you’re 26 but you feel 23 inside, and it’s not because you’re immature. It’s because the last few years didn’t develop you - they scrambled you. Time passed, but it didn’t land in your body as growth the way it’s “supposed” to. It landed as noise. Stress. Survival. Weird limbo. Half living.
A lot of people lost a clean stretch of adulthood. Not just because of the pandemic, though that’s a big one. Also because the world has been running on rolling crisis mode for years. Money anxiety, job churn, rent rising, relationships collapsing under pressure, attention shredded by phones, constant comparison, constant doom. When you’re in that state, you’re not learning in a linear way. You’re coping. You’re getting through the week. You’re doing mental triage.
coping doesn’t always build you. Sometimes it freezes you.
You know that feeling when you look at your peers and it seems like they “caught up” to adulthood faster? They have routines, relationships, savings, a calm tone, a sense of direction. And you’re sitting there like… I can barely keep my laundry from becoming a geological formation. I still feel like a teenager in an adult costume. I still get that stomach drop when an email looks serious. I still avoid phone calls like they’re predators. I still don’t feel like I’m driving my life, I feel like I’m being dragged behind it.
That’s the “2-3 years behind” feeling.
usually not a skill gap. It’s a nervous system gap.
People think development is about milestones. Job. Apartment. Partner. Degree. But a lot of “growing up” is internal. It’s your ability to regulate, to plan, to recover, to trust yourself, to handle boring admin without collapsing, to believe that your future is real enough to invest in.
when you’re anxious or depressed or dissociated for long stretches, you don’t get to build those layers smoothly. You might still be functioning. You might still be doing the external stuff. But internally you feel younger because your system is still stuck in earlier modes: avoid, appease, freeze, fantasize, survive.
compare yourself to who exactly? The versions people post?
A lot of people look “ahead” because they’re performing stability. They have the job title and the nice photos and the “adult” aesthetic, and you don’t see the part where they’re also texting their mom in a panic, or crying in their car, or living paycheck to paycheck, or avoiding their own mess. Their life looks organized because they show the clean corner, not the pile behind the door.
Still, the feeling is real. And it usually shows up in specific places.
when you’re with older adults and you feel like a kid listening. When someone talks about mortgages or babies or promotions and your brain goes blank. When you realize you never got the slow practice of being an adult, you got thrown into it. When you notice you still want someone to tell you what to do. When you’re scared you missed the “becoming” part and now you’re just late.
that matters:
Feeling behind is often your mind trying to explain grief.
Grief for time you didn’t get the way you wanted. Time you spent surviving. Time you spent stuck. Time you spent numb. Time you spent in relationships that drained you. Time you spent trying to be okay instead of building.
grief gets translated into a simple story: I’m behind.
Because “I’m behind” feels actionable. You can fix behind. You can catch up. Grief feels heavier. It’s harder to hold.
if you feel 2-3 years behind, you’re not broken. You’re probably just honest. You’re noticing the gap between your age and your internal readiness. That gap is common now.
And it’s not permanent.
It shrinks when your nervous system stabilizes.
It shrinks when you stop living in reaction.
It shrinks when you build boring consistency.
It shrinks when you stop measuring adulthood by someone else’s timeline and start measuring it by your ability to show up for your own life.
A lot of people lost a clean stretch of adulthood. Not just because of the pandemic, though that’s a big one. Also because the world has been running on rolling crisis mode for years. Money anxiety, job churn, rent rising, relationships collapsing under pressure, attention shredded by phones, constant comparison, constant doom. When you’re in that state, you’re not learning in a linear way. You’re coping. You’re getting through the week. You’re doing mental triage.
coping doesn’t always build you. Sometimes it freezes you.
You know that feeling when you look at your peers and it seems like they “caught up” to adulthood faster? They have routines, relationships, savings, a calm tone, a sense of direction. And you’re sitting there like… I can barely keep my laundry from becoming a geological formation. I still feel like a teenager in an adult costume. I still get that stomach drop when an email looks serious. I still avoid phone calls like they’re predators. I still don’t feel like I’m driving my life, I feel like I’m being dragged behind it.
That’s the “2-3 years behind” feeling.
usually not a skill gap. It’s a nervous system gap.
People think development is about milestones. Job. Apartment. Partner. Degree. But a lot of “growing up” is internal. It’s your ability to regulate, to plan, to recover, to trust yourself, to handle boring admin without collapsing, to believe that your future is real enough to invest in.
when you’re anxious or depressed or dissociated for long stretches, you don’t get to build those layers smoothly. You might still be functioning. You might still be doing the external stuff. But internally you feel younger because your system is still stuck in earlier modes: avoid, appease, freeze, fantasize, survive.
compare yourself to who exactly? The versions people post?
A lot of people look “ahead” because they’re performing stability. They have the job title and the nice photos and the “adult” aesthetic, and you don’t see the part where they’re also texting their mom in a panic, or crying in their car, or living paycheck to paycheck, or avoiding their own mess. Their life looks organized because they show the clean corner, not the pile behind the door.
Still, the feeling is real. And it usually shows up in specific places.
when you’re with older adults and you feel like a kid listening. When someone talks about mortgages or babies or promotions and your brain goes blank. When you realize you never got the slow practice of being an adult, you got thrown into it. When you notice you still want someone to tell you what to do. When you’re scared you missed the “becoming” part and now you’re just late.
that matters:
Feeling behind is often your mind trying to explain grief.
Grief for time you didn’t get the way you wanted. Time you spent surviving. Time you spent stuck. Time you spent numb. Time you spent in relationships that drained you. Time you spent trying to be okay instead of building.
grief gets translated into a simple story: I’m behind.
Because “I’m behind” feels actionable. You can fix behind. You can catch up. Grief feels heavier. It’s harder to hold.
if you feel 2-3 years behind, you’re not broken. You’re probably just honest. You’re noticing the gap between your age and your internal readiness. That gap is common now.
And it’s not permanent.
It shrinks when your nervous system stabilizes.
It shrinks when you stop living in reaction.
It shrinks when you build boring consistency.
It shrinks when you stop measuring adulthood by someone else’s timeline and start measuring it by your ability to show up for your own life.
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