Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Psychotherapist | Trauma-Informed Executive Coach
Some days adulting isn’t hard — it’s impossible. And when you come from a childhood where no one showed you the ropes, those days hit differently. This is a note for those days: a reminder that struggling doesn’t mean failing, that the fact you’re still showing up says more about you than any of the things you feel like you’re getting wrong. You are doing harder things than you know.
Today’s post is not an article.
SUMMARY
Some days, adulting feels genuinely crushing—and if you came from a difficult childhood, you may be doing it without the emotional scaffolding most people take for granted. This letter is a reminder that struggling doesn’t mean failing, that hard days are survivable, and that you are more resourced than you know. It’s written for the moments when you need someone to simply hold space for how much you’re carrying.
Today’s post is a letter, written from me to you, as I sit in my soundproofed, converted garage turned quarantine-home-office in late Summer 2020.
A letter that you may or may not need but one that I hope you bookmark for days and weeks that feel hard. That feel impossible. When adulting feels like it might break you.
It’s a letter that will, I hope, help you feel less alone, more seen, and a letter that will buoy your spirits and give you even an ounce more hope and comfort in hard, heavy times as you adult.
So please, if you need a note of encouragement for when adulting, keep reading to feel supported.
Relational trauma refers to psychological injury that occurs within the context of important relationships, particularly those with primary caregivers during childhood. Unlike single-incident trauma, relational trauma involves repeated experiences of emotional neglect, inconsistency, manipulation, or abuse within bonds where safety and trust should have been foundational.
Emerging Adulthood
Emerging adulthood — roughly the period between ages 18 and 29 — is now recognized as a distinct developmental stage characterized by identity exploration, instability, and the simultaneous experience of possibility and uncertainty. For those with relational trauma backgrounds, this period can feel particularly disorienting: you’re expected to launch into adult life often without the internal scaffolding that a secure, attuned childhood provides.
Honey.
No one, and I mean no one, told you that being an adult would feel this hard.
No one told you that adulthood can sometimes feel like being a firefighter in Northern California in fire season: exhausted, weary, with no end in sight to your shift, and yet in charge of beating down fire after fire as crises and unexpected events emerge seemingly again and again.
The buck stopping with you and no one else.
Sex And The City, MTV’s Real World, Friends, and definitely not Gilmore Girls prepared you for the grind that can sometimes feel like adulthood.
(It always looked so much more fun for them, didn’t it?)
No one told you that adulthood would sometimes feel like its own version of Groundhog day: a repeating loop of sleep, household chores, work to pay the bills, more chores, putting everyone to bed, and then one precious hour of escape into Netflix and late-night snacking before passing out and doing it all over again.
You’ve been told to #liveyourbestlife.
Instagram (that sneaky beast!) reminds you that some people seemingly are: sunshiney trips to Bali, whitewashed Swedish minimalist farmhouses, five-year anniversaries #marriedtomybestfriend, converted sprinter vans and road trips to glaciers and redwoods, Marie Kondo’d everything, sourdough bread baking, and chalkboard paint crafts, and quote after quote remind you to enjoy every single moment of motherhood because it goes by way too fast.
Is this the bar you feel like you’re falling short of?
Are you afraid you’re #notlivingyourbestlife?
FORGET THAT. Let it go.
Let that curated, often kid-free and certainly, highly edited version of adulthood be a social media fantasy.
The same kind of fantasy that you escape into like Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey.
Forget #livingyourbestlife.
Instead, embrace #sometimesadulthoodisjustsurvival.
Some days, like today, like all the days of this month, adulthood can look like just trying to survive.
To parent without having a nervous breakdown.
And to work the bare minimum without losing your job.
To keep the house clean and safe enough so no one gets sick or injured.
To feel like you’re giving everything the bare minimum, that seemingly everyone is upset with you for not giving more, and feeling at the edge because you truly don’t know how to give or do more.
Take this 5-minute, 25-question quiz to find out — and learn what to do next if you do.
START THE QUIZ
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Embrace the fact that, for most of us as adults, life doesn’t look like coordinated white outfits against tidy living room backgrounds, frequent international travel, and hot sex with our spouses after we’ve been together for more than two years.
Instead, adulthood often looks like showing up to work on four hours of sleep because your toddler is teething and choosing to wear glasses versus contacts so no one will see your dark circles over Zoom.
Understand that, for most of us, our houses are in a constant state of clutter and, despite our efforts, our kids occasionally find and eat old raisins and stale popcorn from the floors in various rooms.
Really get that, although we promised ourselves we’d be screen-free parents, our kids are watching more Youtube than we ever dreamed, just so we can unload the dishwasher, switch out the laundry, and put the dinner into the Instant Pot in peace.
FREE QUIZ
The invisible patterns you can’t outwork…
Your LinkedIn profile tells one story. Your 3 AM thoughts tell another. This quiz reveals the childhood patterns keeping you running — and why enough is never enough.
TAKE THE QUIZ →Recognize that adulthood, for many of us, looks like laboring from the moment we get up to the moment we put the kids to bed, with barely an ounce of energy left for nighttime romance with our partner (or anything that requires brain cells and energy).
Please understand that adulthood is composed of so much mundanity: coordinating childcare and feeling your world halt to a grind if you lose it; a never-ending loop of making people meals, cleaning up after meals, loading and unloading the dishwasher and realizing you’re running out of groceries again; gathering up all the laundry all over the house, loading and unloading the washer and dryer and having no clue how your household generates this much laundry.
And this is all BEFORE things like global pandemics, race riots, fascism, corrupted elections, heatwaves, rolling blackouts, environmental catastrophes, and wildfire season.
Adulting is so, so much harder than almost anyone talks about.
Yes, there are awesome, wonderful moments to it – your child’s goofball sense of humor, the freedom to buy $50 of gelato in the weekly grocery order if you so choose, an endless library of escapist streaming TV to disappear into.
All of this is true. But what is also true is this:
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So if you’re struggling, if you’re feeling overwhelmed today, this week, this month, this year, please know that that is an appropriate response to your situation.
It makes sense that you would be overwhelmed.
It makes sense that you would be struggling.
You’re not failing as an adult.
You’re just an adult having a normal adulting experience.
It’s so hard, honey.
Especially if you’re a parent. Especially if you don’t have parents yourself you can count on.
And especially if your childcare is compromised. If you’re dealing with extraordinary, extraneous pressure on top of all the inherent pressures of being an adult alive today.
So please, if you’re reading this, I hope some part of you, any small part of you, can relax and feel a little more seen. A little less self-judgmental by seeing my words: being an adult is hard for most of us.
And here’s something else I want to say to you. These challenging times you’re going through will, like a glacier carving out a valley slowly over time, carve out wide and deep capacities within you to tolerate this and so much more.
You are becoming a remarkably strong, capable, resilient person. By virtue of moving through these experiences. (And yes, I know it may not always feel like that while you’re in the thick of it.)
You are becoming one of those wise, deep elders. Whose broad shoulders can hold so much strain with ease because of the grit they earned over a lifetime.
Trust that, at some level, because of moving through all of this grind, all of this struggle, you will reap the rewards. Someday. If only in marveling at how you moved through it all.
And bear in mind this quote by Thomas Carlyle: “No pressure, no diamonds.”
Seek out self-soothing tools and supports. Resource yourself abundantly.
But also let it be okay if you need to eat popcorn and gummy bears for dinner. And disappear into Queer Eye just to get a break from your life.
Adulting is hard and if you’re struggling, if you feel overwhelmed, you are NOT alone.
You are not failing. You are not less capable than anyone else.
You’re having an appropriate response to your circumstances.
Take such good care of yourself. Be gentle on how you judge yourself right now and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I’m in this with you.
When you sit in therapy describing how you can’t keep up with laundry, how your kid ate floor popcorn again, how you served cereal for dinner three nights running while everyone on Instagram seems to be thriving, you’re not confessing failure—you’re naming the universal struggle that adulting’s not easy and humaning is hard, especially for those of us without the village that previous generations relied upon.
Your therapist understands that modern adulting, particularly for trauma survivors who lack family support, involves managing unprecedented demands with minimal resources. They recognize that comparing your behind-the-scenes reality to others’ highlight reels creates shame about what’s actually normal human struggle. The exhaustion you feel from endless dishes, the overwhelm from coordinating childcare, the guilt about screen time—these aren’t personal failings but systemic challenges of adulting in late-stage capitalism during global crisis.
The therapeutic work involves radical acceptance of what is rather than what Instagram says should be. Your therapist helps you recognize that keeping everyone fed (regardless of nutritional perfection), maintaining basic hygiene (even if that means yesterday’s clothes), and preventing disaster (while allowing controlled chaos) IS success during overwhelming times. They teach you to measure yourself against your actual circumstances, not impossible standards.
Together, you explore self-compassion practices for when adulting feels crushing. This might include permission slips for “good enough” parenting, reality checks about what humans can actually accomplish in a day, or grief work for the adulting experience you thought you’d have versus what you got. Your therapist helps you see that popcorn dinners and YouTube babysitters aren’t moral failures but adaptive strategies for survival.
Most importantly, therapy validates that struggling with adulting—especially without family support, during pandemics, while healing from trauma—is completely appropriate. These challenges are carving out extraordinary resilience within you. Every day you survive what feels unsurvivable, you’re becoming the wise elder who will look back amazed at what you endured, understanding that diamonds really do require pressure.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
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Free Quiz What’s Running Your Life?The invisible patterns you can’t outwork… |
Your LinkedIn profile tells one story. Your 3 AM thoughts tell another. This quiz reveals the childhood patterns keeping you running — and why enough is never enough. TAKE THE QUIZ → |
It’s common for high-achievers to feel overwhelmed, especially when past experiences like childhood emotional neglect taught you to rely solely on yourself. Your success often comes from an internal drive to compensate, but this can leave you feeling exhausted and unsupported when facing everyday adult challenges. Acknowledging this pattern is the first step towards building healthier coping mechanisms and seeking the support you deserve.
Absolutely, it’s very normal to feel this way, especially if you’re a self-aware woman navigating complex emotional landscapes. This feeling often stems from internalizing unrealistic expectations or a lack of foundational emotional support during formative years. Remember, ‘adulting’ isn’t about perfection, but about learning and growing through challenges with self-compassion.
When adulting feels draining, it’s crucial to recognize that your exhaustion is a valid signal, not a personal failing. Try to identify the specific tasks or situations that deplete you most and explore ways to delegate, simplify, or seek support. Prioritizing rest and gentle self-care can help replenish your reserves and rekindle your motivation.
This often indicates that your driven tendencies might be a coping mechanism developed to manage underlying anxieties or unmet needs from childhood. While you excel professionally, your emotional system might be working overtime, leaving less capacity for everyday tasks or emotional processing. This is a sign to offer yourself compassion and explore these deeper connections.
That guilt is a common burden for driven, ambitious women, often rooted in beliefs that self-sufficiency equals worthiness. Overcoming it involves challenging the idea that asking for help is a weakness; instead, it’s a strength that fosters connection and resilience. Start by practicing small acts of vulnerability, recognizing that interdependence is a healthy part of adult relationships.
Helping ambitious women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
As a licensed psychotherapist, trauma-informed executive coach, and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, she guides ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
Work With AnnieThe following statistics provide important context for understanding this topic:
The invisible patterns you can’t outwork…
Your LinkedIn profile tells one story. Your 3 AM thoughts tell another. If vacation makes you anxious, if praise feels hollow, if you’re planning your next move before finishing the current one—you’re not alone. And you’re *not* broken.
This quiz reveals the invisible patterns from childhood that keep you running. Why enough is never enough. Why success doesn’t equal satisfaction. Why rest feels like risk.
Five minutes to understand what’s really underneath that exhausting, constant drive.
