The uncomfortable middle: Why major life changes trigger anxiety

Have you ever found yourself standing in the middle of a new house, unpacking in a university hall, or sitting at a new desk, and instead of feeling excited, you just feel like you’ve made a terrible mistake?

We’re told that big life changes are supposed to be highlights. You’re expected to celebrate starting a new career, moving to a new city, or reaching a milestone. But for many people, the reality feels less like a celebration and more like a slow-motion crisis.

If you’ve recently started a new phase of life and found yourself more anxious than happy, there’s nothing wrong with you. You might just be experiencing what researchers call being “trapped in transition”.

Why anxiety loves the in-between

Anxiety is one of the leading reasons people seek therapy in the UK. And in my experience, it’s almost always loudest when you feel like things are moving under your feet.

I have worked with clients who were genuinely baffled by their own reactions to success. One woman had spent years working towards a specific promotion. The week she finally got it, she didn’t celebrate. She stopped sleeping. She told me she’d sit in the car park with the engine off, ten minutes early every morning, trying to talk herself into opening the door.

Why? Because she wasn’t just gaining a job title. She was losing the version of herself that knew exactly how the day would go. She was losing her competency, her routine, her safety.

When we move from one stage of life to another, we lose the identity we were comfortable with. If you’ve spent years being the student and now you’re the professional, or you were the one with the plan and now you’re winging it, that shift is jarring. You aren’t just learning a new routine. You’re grieving a version of yourself that no longer exists.

The weight of being lost

There’s a specific, heavy kind of stress that comes from being between two worlds. Your old life has ended, but the new one hasn’t started to feel real yet.

During this time, your old ways of doing things stop working. You feel like you’re fumbling in the dark, trying to figure out the unspoken rules of your new world. This uncertainty is exactly where anxiety takes hold. It makes you second-guess your decisions, stay awake replaying conversations, and feel a strange disconnection from everyone around you.

It isn’t just mental, either. It’s physical. Your chest feels tight. You’re constantly on edge. You’re exhausted despite not doing much. Your body hasn't decided yet whether this environment is safe. Until it does, it stays on alert.

The “true self” and the safety net

This is where we can go a bit deeper. In my practice, I work with the idea that we all start life with a clear sense of who we truly are. But as we grow up, our experiences, especially in childhood, often teach us that we have to act a certain way to be accepted or loved.

We build up adapted versions of ourselves to stay safe and fit in. These patterns become our safety nets. But when a major life transition happens, those nets are often pulled away.

Suddenly, the version of you that worked so well in your old job or your old relationship doesn’t seem to fit here. You feel stuck. The anxiety you feel is actually a signal. It’s telling you that your old safety strategies aren’t working anymore, and it’s time to find a new way of being.

How therapy can help

If you feel like you’re drowning in the details of a change, the most important thing you can do is stop judging yourself for not being happy enough.

In therapy, we start by acknowledging the loss. It’s OK to miss your old life, even if you hated your old job or couldn’t wait to move. You’re allowed to grieve what you’ve left behind.

We also look beneath the surface at the rules you’ve been living by. If you’ve always felt you had to be perfect to be loved, a new job where you’re a beginner again is going to feel terrifying. We work to soften those patterns.

And perhaps most importantly, therapy provides a quiet space where you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to perform for a boss, a partner, or a parent. You can explore who you are now.

Moving forward

Big changes are difficult because they require us to grow, and growing is often uncomfortable. If you feel lost in the middle of a major shift, your identity is probably just catching up with your life. It’s OK if that feels messy.

You don’t have to navigate that transition on your own. By understanding your patterns and reconnecting with who you really are, you can move through the in-between and start making choices that are actually right for you.