” Nobody really talks about the 30s crisis, but I see it EVERYWHERE “

It’s a week since my birthday, and I suddenly felt compelled to write this blog. It’s no coincidence that the celebration of my birthday has made me reflect on life; my life and turning 40 in 2 years.  

When I was a teenager, 40 felt ancient, and scary. Old people were 40! The irony is, I feel more alive, and the youngest I’ve felt in a long time. I am happier, more content, and I know who I am, and what I want to be. However, it’s taken me a long time to get here, and that’s because I’ve battled with something I like to call, ‘the 30’s life crisis.’

Nobody really talks about the 30s crisis, but I see it EVERYWHERE: the media, family, friends, people who attend therapy, and it played a huge part in my own. Let me explain…

From being tiny little humans, we are socialised and told how to live a ‘normal’ life. It goes something like this:

…do well at school, go to college, go to university, travel or get a job, get a girlfriend/boyfriend – not a serious one to start with – then move onto ‘the one’, get a house together, get married, have kids, do well at work, go on a cruise, die…       

Please hear me loud and clear; I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this trajectory of life. My point is, what if this just isn’t for you? Or, what if this dream doesn’t exist? Or what if you follow this trajectory and it ends up not being what you expected? Then what? I tell you what happens, you have a 30s crisis! This goes something like this:

  • I’m turning 30/ in my 30’s and I’m nowhere near settled down… PANIC!
  • All my friends are getting engaged and I’m still single… I don’t even want a partner…. But does that matter?  What’s wrong with me? PANIC!
  • All my friends have good jobs and I still don’t know what career I want… What’s wrong with me? PANIC.
  • All my friends are having babies and mortgages and I don’t… Do I even want children or a loan for the next 30 years? I don’t know…, Should I know? Arragggghhhhhhhh PANIC, PANIC, PANIC!

And this is not just an issue that affects women; men struggle too.  It saddens me that in today’s modern world, people feel their self-worth is measured on whether they have ticked off these milestones, in a certain order, by a certain age.  

And, if like me you choose a different path, you must deal with another person’s confusion. Oh goodness, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked why I don’t want children. Now, these days I can confidently decline to respond or engage in the conversation if I want to. However, this was not always the case, especially around the ages of 27-34. In fact, it affected me so much I embarked on two years of intense psychoanalysis to find out why I did not want children. And guess what? Yes, that’s right, I felt the same at the end of therapy.

Sometimes, we just don’t all want the same things, we don’t always value the same milestones in the same way, we don’t always have the same perspectives on life. And that’s okay. But it can feel like a lonely place. And because we feel judged, and because we feel like we are alone, we try and deal with our feelings of perceived failure in silence, putting on a pretence, pretending that everything’s fine. But in doing this, we can have a profound impact on our emotional and mental health. I see this too often in my work.

My goal in writing this blog is to create discussion around this crisis; which is happening everywhere and affecting mental health. We need to talk about these issues and challenge the shame and stigma that people like I felt; and the clients I have seen over the years have experienced too. And if we do talk about it, we will probably find that more people are having similar thoughts and feelings to us.