What Millennials Bring up the Most in Therapy

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Receiving counseling is always helpful, but you may wonder if other people your age are struggling with the same mental health challenges. These are a few things millennials bring up the most in therapy because they relate to widespread problems. Reading about them may help you feel less alone in the fight for improved wellness.

1. Decision Fatigue at Any Age

People have more information at their fingertips than ever before. Millennials were the first generation to grow up with internet access, which led to more pressure to succeed. If you can learn anything on your smartphone, there’s no reason not to be the best in everything.

Whether millennials recently graduated from college or are a decade into their career, the pressure to succeed can result in decision paralysis or fatigue. Making a choice always has ripple effects. Could putting off a second degree for a year destabilize all future plans? Therapists can help with these issues that plague the millennial generation. 

2. The Fear of Never Retiring

You’re not alone if you don’t have a 401(k) opened or growing. A recent poll found that only 20% of millennials think they’ll retire at the traditional age of 65. That means 80% of young people don’t think they can stop working. There’s significant fear in the idea of working into old age. You’ll have to maintain the physical demands of your role and compete to keep it against a younger workforce. 

This fear often comes up with therapists because it’s so widespread for a millennial generation working for less pay than their parents and grandparents amid a rising cost of living.

3. Anxiety About Reaching Their Goals

Young people want to achieve the same milestones as the generations before them, but they’re up against more significant challenges from issues like economic and gender inequality. They may have to work multiple jobs while striving for their degrees or dreaming about buying a home. It leads to therapy sessions where they discuss their fear of failure and strategize how to overcome it. 

Failing to reach their goals by personalized deadlines may result in additional college debt, a change in careers or financial poverty at the hands of landlords increasing rent. It’s a significant fear that isn’t unfounded and often requires therapy to find comparable solutions.

4. Frustration With Dating Apps

Older generations could meet potential partners at community dances or while vacationing on their larger incomes. Their friends could introduce them to people and set them up on dates. Now young people mostly have to utilize dating apps, which result in impersonal conversations, catfishing and superficial swiping.

The lack of personal connection makes dating more frustrating. Therapists may help their millennial clients by formulating ideas on how to meet people in real life and deal with the mental health effects of virtual dating complications.

5. Anger About Their Finances

Finances are complicated for millennials, so it’s another issue that comes up the most in therapy. Their parents and grandparents could have used a full-time income to repay their student loans in full and buy houses before starting families. Today, 60% of millennials can’t buy homes because their student debt payments prevent them from saving money. 

The total cost of rent jumped 7% in the last decade as well, forcing many young people to live with multiple roommates or their parents to save any money at all. They don’t have cash left over to save for a home, much less a degree to improve their income, a car to help them commute, or nonessentials to make life about more than working and paying bills.

That kind of financial stress is debilitating to anyone’s mental health. Therapy is an excellent way for millennials to vent about those issues and find relief in changed perspectives or healthy coping mechanisms. 

Take Care of Yourself

Seeking help from a therapist is beneficial. It’s also not uncommon. If you start scheduling recurring appointments, you’ll join the many millennials looking for professional guidance in dealing with crises like these.