There’s a lot of advice on how to get through puberty peacefully. Or how to enter your 30s with grace. But no one ever warns you about how being 23 will drive you insane.

So, I’ll do the work.

If you were born and raised in a decent environment—one that gave you the chance to be a kid when you were a kid, or let you be a teenager who could try a bunch of things even if you failed—then chances are, you’ll be hit with an identity crisis at 23.

I call it social confusion.

At 23, you’ve most likely just graduated from college. So you may already have a job, or you may not. But that’s not the point. What makes everything complicated is the bachelor’s degree behind your name. In our society, that title comes with responsibility. It’s a social weight you suddenly have to carry overnight.

For some, it could mean paying for their sibling’s tuition. Or saving up for marriage. Or covering the household bills.

To put it simply, every problem suddenly becomes yours, just like that. And you’re expected to be the one who solves it. Overnight. Without notice. Without agreement.

It won’t take long before you start feeling overwhelmed. And it’s completely understandable, because you’re still the same person you were yesterday. The one who still hangs out late with friends. The one whose biggest problem used to be figuring out what to have for dinner.

And what makes it worse

Biologically, you’re actually not ready to handle all of this. The rational part of your brain isn’t even fully developed yet.

You realize something’s wrong, but you don’t know how to fix it. You know how things should turn out, but you don’t really know how to get there.

It’s not that you lack competence. You just don’t have the experience.

At this point, all you see are problems, without fully understanding the cause, let alone the way out. But somehow, you gotta work through it anyway.

Be patient.

Keep learning.

Meet a lot of people.

Listen more.

Hold on.

Slowly, everything will start to look clearer. And one night, you’ll realize that you’ve made it through all of it.