Like I said, 2016 was the most confusing period of my life so far.

I got tattoos — three of them. I developed an unlikely obsession with a Korean boy group, Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS). I questioned my faith. I started thinking that maybe… I didn’t want kids. I suffered from anxiety, especially at work. I was lonely, but wouldn’t reach out to anyone. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I felt like on the brink of depression.

I didn’t know they were signs of what most likely was a quarter-life crisis. This was how the year went by:

January – April 

Do you know the frustration when you drive out of the fast lane right into a traffic jam? These were months of the same frustration for me. Not on the roads, but at work.

After almost two years of exponential growth curve, I could feel it slowing down. As new, higher standards kept being applied to you, things that seemed extraordinary when you were a newbie began to be norms. Expected. Soon, there were more problems that I could not satisfactorily offer solutions to, than those that I could answer spot on. I felt incompetent.

It only went downhill from the moment I was promoted to Senior Consultant in February. When I heard my boss utter the words, I could not find it within myself to be happy. Or proud. There was only fear that I was set out to fail. That people would finally find out I was a fraud.

To compensate, I would insist to keep taking on more work. I could not let anyone think I was lazying around, so I kept my eyes glued to laptop screen all day, fingers typing away. I wanted perfection for anything that my team sent out. And because I was supposed to be the “senior”, I wouldn’t allow myself to share what I was feeling with anyone at work.

I needed proof that the promotion wasn’t a hand-out.

I often ended up “trying too hard”, instead. And nobody likes that kind of person, right?

May – August 

In addition to the mounting pressure I put on myself at work, I was determined to be the world’s most supportive girlfriend.

Earlier that year, my boyfriend (let’s call him Piano Man) won a prestigious scholarship and was accepted into Stanford. I remember, it was a very busy time for him. First, he was struggling to juggle between work and the whole school application processes. Then, the time came for rigorous preparations toward the big move: Days of looking for flights and apartment, weekends of group activities with other scholarship awardees, and the rest of his waking hours to coordinate with them over messenger.

I didn’t have the heart to bother him with stories as somber as mine, or to ask him to spare some time for me. So, I kept quiet — all the while growing increasingly numb.

In May, I learnt that I gained myself a stalker. It was some girl from the scholarship program who developed a crush toward my boyfriend. Of course, who wouldn’t love this smart, talented, funny and kind-hearted man?

She would assume different pseudonyms to contact me and get inside my head. Insecurities that I used to write about on this blog became her weapon. Her main argument was, I was too busy with my career that I could not possibly take a good care of my boyfriend. “You shouldn’t be so selfish; you would be better off going your separate ways.”

Like I needed more proofs that I wasn’t good enough for anybody.

So in August, I got “good enough” tattooed on my inner right arm as a self-reminder. It didn’t work.

September – December

“Caught in a loop” probably best describes my days in these last four months of the year. I would go to work, do my job with barely any pause, go home exhausted, and put off a list of things I said I’d do to improve my life till the next day.

I felt stuck in every aspect, and my thoughts grew morbid. “Did I settle down too fast, both at work and in love? Am I missing things I could have experienced otherwise? I will soon turn 30, by which I will probably have kids and my life will revolve around them for decades. Then I will die and my life will not have any meaning.” I started fearing having kids and losing my last chance of truly living.

It all culminated when, one night, I was unpacking my suitcase after a business trip overseas. A sweater that I was trying to take out got tangled in the cord of my hairdryer and, no matter how many times I pulled it, it wouldn’t budge.

To my own surprise and disgust, I broke down in tears as the result.

The thing is, with that little trigger, everything that I’d bottled up finally forced their way out. I couldn’t stop the shaking they left in their wake and collapsed to my feet, leaning to the wall for support. I felt so alone and badly needed someone to go through this surge of madness with me.

I remember scrambling for my phone and scrolling down my contacts to find just one name. One name that I knew wouldn’t judge me, wouldn’t think I was crazy, would listen to my sobbing with no questions asked.

I was lucky I found that one name that night. But that would not be the last emotional breakdowns I had between then and the early months of 2017.

How did I know it was a quarter-life crisis? 

I am no psychologist so I can’t guarantee that it is what it is. The concept of quarter-life crisis, however, made sense and gave me hope that I could get better.

The road to realization of such crisis began with my introduction to the Korean boy group, BTS. Throughout 2016, I felt that no one else would get what I was feeling — I didn’t exactly understand it either. This led me to withdraw further into myself and it was a very lonely place to be. What kept me company back then was only BTS’s music. Their songs talk a lot about youth and the pains and confusions of growing up. I couldn’t place the connection with what I was feeling right away, but I was drawn in to their music.

Only when the clouds in my head started to clear, the beginning of March 2017, that I started to see the “symptoms” for what they are.

New tattoos, unlikely idol obsession, depressing thoughts… I sounded a lot like a 40-year old going through a mid-life crisis.

It made me wonder if there is such thing as a quarter-life crisis — which would make sense since people our age are also experiencing a crucial transition from one major point of life (youth) into another (adulthood).

So, naturally, I turned to Google and came across this article on The Guardian:

Bearing all the hallmarks of the midlife crisis, this [quarter-life crisis] – characterised by insecurities, disappointments, loneliness and depression – is hitting twenty- and thirtysomethings.

It says that quarter-life crisis comes in four phases: feeling trapped, getting a growing sense that change is possible, rebuilding a new life, and cementing fresh commitments that reflect one’s new interests, aspirations and values.

What I experienced throughout the past year sounds a lot like the first phase. It did feel like I was “driving fast down a road I don’t want to be going down”.

While it seemed like a never ending road, if the experts get it right and they’d better do, it will end. And with that realization, I felt some weight was taken off my shoulders. For the first time after a horrible couple of years, I felt free. 

That, I believe, marks the beginning of the second phase for me.

Credits:

Photographs from Stocksnap and Pixabay