Feeling Stuck in Your 20s? Why Young Adulthood Can Feel So Lonely, Uncertain, and In-Between
Updated: 3 days ago
There’s a strange contradiction that can happen in your 20s: you’re finally old enough to make your own choices, but you may have never felt less certain about what you’re supposed to be doing.
Maybe you’re finishing school, starting a career, moving away from home, questioning a relationship, watching friendships change, or trying to figure out what you actually want your life to look like. Meanwhile, it can seem like everyone around you is moving forward with a confidence you somehow missed the memo on.
One friend is getting married. Another just landed their dream job. Someone else bought a house. Your social media feed is full of promotions, engagements, vacations, graduate degrees, and people announcing that they’re “so excited for this next chapter.”
And you might be sitting there thinking: I don’t even know what chapter I’m in.
If you feel stuck in your 20s, you’re far from alone. Young adulthood is often portrayed as a period of freedom and possibility, but it can also be one of profound uncertainty, loneliness, identity exploration, and change.
Your 20s Aren’t Supposed to Feel This Figured Out
There is enormous pressure to treat your 20s like a decade-long launch sequence.
Choose a career. Become financially independent. Find your people. Date. Maybe find a partner. Figure out where you want to live. Take care of your body. Build a professional network. Maintain friendships. Heal from your childhood. Develop hobbies. Save for retirement.
And, apparently, have fun while doing all of it.
The reality is much messier.
Young adulthood involves a series of transitions, and transitions—even positive ones—can be destabilizing. The structures that once organized your life may disappear before you have built new ones to replace them. School ends. Friends scatter. Family relationships shift. Careers turn out differently than expected. Relationships begin and end.
You may have more freedom than you did before, but freedom also means having to make decisions without always knowing whether you’re making the “right” ones.
Why Does Everyone Else Seem Ahead of Me?
Comparison can become especially painful during this stage of life because there is no longer one obvious timeline.
At 17, most of your peers may have been doing roughly the same things. By 27, your lives can look completely different.
One person may be finishing medical school while another is raising two children. Someone may be traveling the world while their friend has moved back home. One person may be thriving professionally and struggling relationally; another may have a deeply fulfilling relationship while questioning everything about their career.
Social media compresses all those complicated lives into a stream of milestones. What you usually don’t see are the doubts, debt, family conflict, loneliness, career uncertainty, breakups, anxiety, or ordinary Tuesday nights behind the announcements.
Yet it’s easy to compare your internal uncertainty with someone else’s carefully selected evidence that everything is going well.
Feeling “behind” often has less to do with where you actually are and more to do with the timeline you believe you were supposed to follow. Sometimes, feeling behind also comes from the effort everyday responsibilities require. You may want to answer messages, organize your week, or begin an assignment and still struggle to get started. If that pattern feels familiar, our article on ADHD, executive dysfunction, and the shame of falling behind explores why the gap between intention and action can become so painful. Difficulty keeping up does not automatically mean you have ADHD, but it deserves curiosity rather than self-blame.
Sometimes Growing Up Means Questioning the Life You Were Given
For many young adults, figuring out what you want isn’t simply a matter of choosing among possibilities. It can involve sorting through expectations you have carried for years.
This can be particularly complicated for people from immigrant, first-generation, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and multicultural communities.
Maybe your family sacrificed enormously so you could have opportunities they didn't, and changing careers feels like wasting those sacrifices. Perhaps independence is highly valued among your peers while your family places greater importance on interdependence and staying close to home. You may be navigating expectations around marriage, gender, sexuality, religion, finances, or what constitutes a “successful” life.
You may also have become the person your family relies on—the one who solves problems, manages emotions, or keeps going without asking for much. When being dependable becomes part of your identity, making room for your own needs can feel like letting someone down. explores how those responsibilities can shape your relationship with guilt, independence, and caring for yourself.
Sometimes you’re not simply asking:
What do I want?
You’re also asking:
What am I allowed to want?
Learning to distinguish your own values from the expectations surrounding you is an important part of becoming an adult. But that process can bring guilt, grief, conflict, and uncertainty along with freedom.
Why Your 20s Can Feel Surprisingly Lonely
Loneliness in young adulthood can be confusing because you may technically have plenty of people in your life.
You might have coworkers, classmates, roommates, family, group chats, hundreds of social media connections, and friends you genuinely care about—and still feel deeply alone.
Part of the problem is that proximity no longer creates relationships for you in the way it once did. School naturally put the same people together repeatedly. Adult friendships often require much more intention, coordination, vulnerability, and effort.
But there is another kind of loneliness too: the loneliness of not feeling fully known.
You can spend time with people while hiding the parts of yourself that feel uncertain, messy, culturally complicated, queer, anxious, neurodivergent, unsuccessful, or simply different. You can belong to a group and still wonder whether you would belong if people knew more of you.
Sometimes what we’re craving isn’t more people. It’s more authenticity in the relationships we already have. Sometimes loneliness comes with a broader sense of disconnection: you spend time with people but struggle to feel present, or the things you once enjoyed no longer seem to reach you. If that feeling persists, our article on depression and feeling disconnected from yourself explores an experience that can be difficult to put into words. Loneliness does not necessarily mean depression, but you do not have to dismiss ongoing numbness or loss of interest as just part of your 20s.
The “In-Between” Can Actually Be an Important Place
Feeling uncertain doesn't necessarily mean something has gone wrong.
There are periods of life when an old version of you no longer fits, but the next version hasn't fully emerged yet. That space can feel uncomfortable because there isn't a clear identity or roadmap to hold onto.
But being in-between can also create room to ask questions you may never have had permission to ask before.
What relationships actually feel good to me? What does success mean outside of what I was taught? Which parts of my identity do I want to explore more fully? What kind of community do I want around me? What do I value when no one else is choosing for me?
Therapy can provide space for these questions, but they don't always need to be explored alone.
Why Group Therapy Can Be Especially Powerful in Young Adulthood
One of the most painful parts of struggling in your 20s is believing everyone else has figured out something you haven't. Group therapy can interrupt that isolation.
Unlike individual therapy, where the therapeutic relationship primarily exists between you and your therapist, group therapy allows you to notice what happens when you connect with several people in real time. You begin to see your relational patterns: when you hold back, when you worry about being judged, when you take care of everyone else, when you disappear into the background, or when you struggle to let people support you.
You also get something surprisingly powerful: the experience of hearing someone else put words to something you thought was uniquely wrong with you.
A process group isn't simply a place to receive advice. It can become a small relational community where members practice being more honest, taking interpersonal risks, giving and receiving feedback, navigating differences, and allowing themselves to be known.
For young adults who have spent years code-switching, masking, adapting, or moving between different cultural worlds, having an affirming space to explore identity and belonging can be particularly meaningful.
Finding Community While You’re Still Figuring Things Out
At Aguirre Center for Inclusive Psychotherapy (ACIP), we created the In-Between Young Adult Process Group for adults ages 18–30 who are navigating exactly this kind of life stage.
The group is designed as a culturally affirming space for young adults from historically marginalized and minoritized communities, including BIPOC, Latine, first-generation, multicultural, LGBTQ+, immigrant-family, and other culturally diverse identities.
Members can explore relationships, independence, school and career pressures, family expectations, identity, culture, belonging, discrimination, code-switching, and the complicated experience of figuring out who you are while navigating multiple worlds.
You don't need to arrive knowing exactly what you want to work on. In fact, not knowing yet can be part of the work.
Young Adult Therapy and Group Therapy in Atlanta
ACIP provides culturally responsive and identity-affirming therapy for young adults in Atlanta, Decatur, and throughout Georgia through online therapy. Our Atlanta practice works with young adults navigating anxiety, depression, relationships, family and cultural expectations, identity development, life transitions, neurodivergence, trauma, and the experience of feeling caught between where you've been and where you're going.
The In-Between Young Adult Process Group provides another way to explore these experiences alongside peers who may be navigating some of the same questions. The group is facilitated by Dr. Stephanie Gonzalez-Galvan and is designed to center connection, curiosity, cultural context, and authentic relationships.
You Don’t Have to Have Your Life Figured Out Yet
Your 20s aren't a test you’re supposed to pass before turning 30.
They are years in which relationships change, identities evolve, plans fall apart, new possibilities emerge, and you gradually learn which parts of the life you inherited you want to carry forward—and which parts you want to reshape.
Feeling uncertain doesn't mean you're failing at adulthood. Sometimes uncertainty is what it feels like when you're beginning to build a life that is actually your own.
And you don't have to figure it out by yourself.
If you're interested in the In-Between Young Adult Process Group or want to explore individual therapy at ACIP, reach out to learn more. We also offer a free 15-minute phone consultation to help you ask questions, learn about your options, and determine whether ACIP or the group feels like the right fit for what you're looking for. Visit Getting Started to request an appointment.
Commonly Asked Questions About Feeling Lost or Stuck during Young Adulthood
Is it normal to feel lost or stuck in your 20s?
Yes. Your 20s often involve major changes in identity, relationships, career, education, finances, and family roles. Feeling uncertain doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something wrong; it can reflect the developmental work of figuring out what you value and how you want your adult life to look.
Why do I feel behind everyone else in my 20s?
People reach milestones at very different times, but social media and cultural expectations can create the impression that there is a correct timeline for adulthood. Comparing your full life with other people's visible milestones can intensify feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, or being left behind.
Why is it so hard to make friends in your 20s?
Adult friendships often require more intentional effort because school and other environments no longer create consistent proximity. Work schedules, moves, relationships, family responsibilities, and changing identities can also make maintaining friendships more complicated.
Can you be lonely even if you have friends?
Absolutely. Loneliness isn't only about how many people you know. You can have an active social life and still feel lonely when you don't feel emotionally understood, safe being vulnerable, or able to show important parts of yourself in your relationships.
How can group therapy help young adults?
Group therapy gives young adults an opportunity to explore relationship patterns, practice vulnerability and communication, receive feedback, and develop meaningful connections with others. It can be especially helpful for people struggling with loneliness, belonging, relationships, identity, or major life transitions.
Does ACIP offer group therapy for young adults in Atlanta?
Yes. ACIP's In-Between Young Adult Process Group is designed for adults ages 18–30 and provides a culturally affirming space to explore relationships, identity, independence, family and cultural expectations, career or school pressures, and belonging.
About the Author
Dr. M. Sophia Aguirre, Ph.D., CGP, FAGPA, is a licensed psychologist and the founder and director of Aguirre Center for Inclusive Psychotherapy in Atlanta. A Chicana/Latina psychologist and Certified Group Psychotherapist, she specializes in culturally responsive and affirming therapy for BIPOC, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, and high-achieving adults navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, identity, relationships, neurodivergence, and systemic stress. Learn more about Dr. Aguirre and her clinical approach.
