Grown Bodies, Stuck Minds: Young Adults Struggling to Catch up with Themselves -By Oyinlola Abigail

Emerging adults, ages – 18 to 25 are often filled with confusion, anxiety, and unresolved issues from childhood or adolescence.

Factors like: Rapid life transitions, Pressure to succeed, Unprocessed trauma and Lack of support or guidance can leave young adults feeling “stuck” or overwhelmed, despite appearing mature.

Even though young adults may look like adults on the outside, paying bills, attending university, taking responsibilities, many of them still struggle mentally and emotionally.

Their inner development, mental health, identity, decision-making, emotional regulation hasn’t always caught up with their physical or social responsibilities.

Most Young Adults acted mature when they were barely old enough to understand what Maturity meant. And now as Real Adults, their body has caught up to the world’s expectations of them, but their minds still feel left behind.

Feeling Stuck While Growing Up:

Growing up with too many responsibilities can cause long-term emotional struggles. Most of us grew up fast, not because we wanted to, but because we had to.

Even among youth living with serious conditions like psychosis, many described feeling emotionally frozen or left behind especially during the pandemic, despite growing older and gaining responsibilities.

This emotional lag was explored in a Nigerian study that highlighted how mental health challenges can slow inner development, (Bella-Awusah, 2023).

Many Nigerian young adults carry the weight of adult expectations while feeling emotionally unprepared.

A person described discovering mental health in university, saying,
“It wasn’t until I was in uni that I learned about anxiety… What a huge relief that was”
This shows emotional disconnect behind matured appearances.

“I am old enough to know better, I tick the Boxes: school, Responsibilities, Adult conversations.. but deep down, a version of me still waits for someone to tell me it’s okay not to know”.

“Sometimes I feel like a child wearing adult cloths, walking through a world that expects me to have everything figured out”

Most people think growing up means being fine, but growing up actually means Unlearning the Fear of asking, slowing down long enough to catch your breath and allowing yourself to grow in places you once had to shrink.

Most of us must have grown too fast, but it is not too late to grow gently now.