The Lost Years: How COVID Changed Life for Young Adults
For many people in their late teens and twenties, life is often described as a time of firsts.
-Your first proper job.
-Your first flat.
-Meeting new people.
-Going to university.
-Travelling.
-Dating.
-Finding out who you are away from your family.
It's often a period of making mistakes, changing your mind and slowly building a life that feels like your own. But for millions of young adults, that chapter looked very different.
Instead of festivals, graduations, nights out, holidays or starting exciting new jobs, many of us found ourselves indoors, separated from friends and family, staring at screens and wondering when life would return to normal.
Years later, the pandemic may feel like something we've "moved on" from. Yet in the therapy room, I still meet people who feel as though they're carrying the emotional impact of those years without even realising it.
It wasn't just a lockdown – it was a pause on life
When people talk about COVID now, conversations often focus on restrictions, masks or working from home. What isn't always acknowledged is what people lost.
Some missed important milestones.
Some started university from their childhood bedroom.
Others graduated into one of the most uncertain job markets in recent history.
Relationships ended because distance became impossible.
Friendships drifted apart.
People experienced grief without being able to say goodbye properly.
Others spent months completely alone.
Even if you weren't directly affected by illness, the uncertainty, isolation and disruption had an impact. Many people describe those years as feeling as though life was simply put on hold.
"I feel like I'm behind."
This is something I hear regularly from young adults.
People compare themselves to friends who seem to have successful careers, long-term relationships or their own homes, wondering why they're struggling to catch up. But it's important to remember that many people lost two or three years that would normally have been spent gaining life experience.
Those years mattered.
They were years when confidence is often built.
When friendships deepen.
When people begin to discover who they are outside of school or university.
It's understandable if you sometimes feel as though everyone else got a head start.
Social confidence didn't automatically return
For some people, lockdown offered relief from social pressures.
For others, returning to everyday life felt overwhelming.
After spending months speaking through screens or avoiding busy places, it's no surprise that social situations suddenly felt different.
Some people noticed they became more anxious.
Others found themselves overthinking conversations.
You may even have questioned whether you'd "always been like this."
The truth is, confidence isn't something that simply switches back on overnight.
Like any skill, it often needs time, patience and practice.
We became used to surviving
During uncertain times, our minds naturally focus on getting through the day.
Many people developed routines centred around safety, predictability and simply coping.
Now, several years later, some people are still living in survival mode.
You might notice yourself feeling exhausted even when nothing particularly stressful has happened.
Perhaps you're constantly waiting for something to go wrong.
Maybe you're finding it difficult to plan for the future because uncertainty feels familiar.
These aren't signs that something is wrong with you.
They can be understandable responses to living through a prolonged period of uncertainty.
Grieving the years you can't get back
One of the hardest parts is recognising that there are experiences you simply can't recreate.
You can't have another first year at university.
You can't celebrate the eighteenth birthday that never happened.
You can't go back and have the graduation ceremony you imagined.
That sense of loss is real.
And yet many people minimise it because they tell themselves, "Other people had it worse."
While perspective can be helpful, it doesn't mean your own experiences aren't valid.
Grief isn't a competition.
You are allowed to feel sad about the version of life you thought you were going to have.
So what now?
If any of this resonates with you, know that you're far from alone.
Many young adults are still finding their feet.
Some are changing careers because the pandemic shifted their priorities.
Others are rebuilding friendships.
Some are learning how to manage anxiety that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
There is no timeline for "getting over" something that changed everyday life so dramatically.
The important thing is recognising where you are now rather than judging yourself for where you think you should be.
Therapy can help you move forwards
Therapy won't give you those years back.
But it can help you make sense of what they meant to you.
Together, we can explore how those experiences may still be influencing your confidence, relationships, anxiety or sense of identity today.
Sometimes people come to therapy believing they're struggling because they're not resilient enough or because everyone else seems to have moved on.
More often than not, they discover that they're carrying experiences they never really had the opportunity to process.
If you've been feeling stuck, behind or disconnected from the person you thought you'd become, therapy can offer a space to understand why.
Not to dwell on the past, but to recognise how it has shaped you and to help you move forward with greater self-compassion.