What happens when you finally get what you wanted?
There is something particularly ironic and painful about working towards a life you believe will make you happy, finally getting there, and then finding yourself struggling to enjoy it. Many of us imagine that moving out will feel liberating. You imagine the new environment, the independence, the freedom to make your own decisions, the new furniture, the new routines and the possibility of becoming the person you have always wanted to be. You imagine that once you have your own space, you will finally feel as though your life is moving forward.
And then, somewhere along the way, the excitement begins to fade. The new bed becomes an ordinary bed. The new flat becomes the place where you wake up feeling exhausted. The freedom that once felt exhilarating starts to feel like responsibility. The opportunities that once seemed exciting begin to feel like expectations. The career you moved to London to pursue becomes another source of pressure, and the very independence you worked so hard to achieve starts to feel surprisingly lonely.
You find yourself asking questions you did not expect to be asking. Why am I so tired when I am doing something I love? Why have I lost my motivation? Why do I feel so low when my circumstances have, in many ways, improved? Why am I struggling to do things that used to come naturally to me?
These are some of the questions that emerge from Jafer Karausta’s account of his first two months in London. In the video, Jafer describes beginning his new life with alot of excitement, filling his days with activities, attending fashion events, developing his social media presence and pursuing his ambitions as a content creator. He then describes a prolonged period of emotional exhaustion, low mood, reduced motivation, sleeping for approximately 13 hours a day, difficulties with eating, anxiety about his professional future and uncertainty about what comes next.
He also describes something particularly important: the feeling that he has spent so much energy simply existing that he has very little left for the life he actually moved to London to build. From a psychotherapeutic perspective, what Jafer describes raises important questions about adjustment, emotional regulation, identity, self-expectations, the relationship between achievement and self-worth, and the ways in which people respond when their internal resources no longer seem sufficient for the demands of their external lives. He is talking about transitions.
It also invites us to consider the psychological experience of a person who is not simply trying to establish a new home, but trying to establish a new version of himself.
This article explores those possibilities through psychodynamic and psychoanalytic thinking, cognitive behavioural therapy, humanistic psychology, social cognitive theory and contemporary research. It is an interpretation of the experiences Jafer publicly describes, rather than a clinical assessment of him. We cannot establish a diagnosis, determine the causes of his symptoms or know his personal history from a video alone. The aim is to offer a compassionate, psychologically informed way of understanding what he has shared.
Because his account includes significant changes in mood, sleep and eating, the article will also distinguish between psychological interpretations and concerns that would warrant professional assessment.
The emotional crash after the excitement: understanding the transition
One of the most revealing things Jafer says is that the first month and a half of living in London felt productive and exciting. He was getting up, going for walks, reading, journaling, creating content and attending events. He was making things happen. Then, approximately two months into the move, he began to feel profoundly exhausted.
He describes the excitement of having a new environment, a new bed, a new table, a new candle and a new life. He compares the experience to the emotional low that can follow a period of intense stimulation. I think this is an important starting point because we sometimes misunderstand what happens when people go through major life transitions. We assume that if a change is desirable, the person making it should feel good throughout the process. Psychologically, that is not necessarily how it works.
The difference between wanting a change and being ready for everything it demands
Moving out is not one psychological event. It is a collection of changes happening simultaneously. There is the practical transition of managing rent, food, household responsibilities and finances. There is the emotional transition of no longer inhabiting the same familiar environment. There is the social transition of developing new routines and relationships. There is the identity transition of becoming somebody who lives independently, perhaps in a city that represents opportunity, success and personal reinvention.
And, in Jafer’s case, there is another layer. He did not simply move to London to live somewhere different. He explains that a major reason for moving was to pursue content creation as a full-time career. His home, therefore, is not merely a home. It is also the physical setting for a dream.
You have to understand that when someone moves to a new city for a career, the environment can become closely associated with the expectation that the move must work. Every month of rent may carry a reminder of the risk taken. Every opportunity may feel like evidence that the sacrifice was worthwhile. Every disappointing week may provoke questions about whether the decision was sensible.
A person can therefore experience a mixture of freedom and pressure. Two things can be true at the same remember. They may be genuinely excited about their independence while also feeling frightened by the responsibility of making it sustainable. This is one way of understanding Jafer’s distress without assuming that he regrets moving or that the move itself has caused a mental health condition.
Why new beginnings can feel emotionally powerful
When we enter a new environment, ordinary experiences can temporarily acquire a sense of significance. We notice the details. We imagine the possibilities. We are more attentive to the changes taking place around us. A new flat is not just a flat. It represents a different life. A new routine is not simply a routine. It represents the person we hope to become.
Psychologically, the excitement may come partly from novelty, anticipation, a sense of agency and the possibility of change. It would be too simplistic, however, to conclude that Jafer’s brain has exhausted its serotonin or that his emotional state is simply a chemical crash. His comparison with the aftermath of taking MDMA is a metaphor he uses to make sense of his experience, not evidence that the same biological process is occurring.
The more useful question is what happens when novelty gives way to ordinary life. At the beginning, the new environment itself may provide a great deal of stimulation. Later, the person has to sustain motivation without receiving the same emotional reward from everything being new. The excitement of moving becomes less available, while the responsibilities remain. This can be a difficult adjustment, especially when a person expects their motivation to remain at the same level as it was during the first few weeks.
Research on motivation offers a useful way of thinking about this. In their influential paper on self-determination theory, Ryan and Deci (2000) identify three psychological needs that contribute to motivation and wellbeing: autonomy, competence and relatedness.
- Autonomy is the experience of having meaningful choice and direction in your life.
- Competence is the experience of being capable and making progress.
- Relatedness is the experience of feeling connected to other people.
Moving to London may have increased Jafer’s autonomy. He has made a major decision for himself and is pursuing a career that matters to him. Yet his sense of competence may be under strain if his content is not performing as he wants, while his relatedness may be challenged by the demands of establishing a new life.
In other words, he can be living a more independent life while feeling less emotionally secure. These needs do not always develop at the same pace. Independence can arrive before belonging. Opportunity can arrive before confidence. Responsibility can arrive before the person has established the routines and support systems that make it manageable. This is why a major life transition can be both a positive achievement and a psychologically demanding experience.
The loss of novelty is not the loss of potential
I would want to explore a particular possibility with Jafer: whether the emotional experience of moving to London has become entangled with his expectations of what success should feel like.
Perhaps, during the early weeks, the newness of everything helped him feel that he was moving towards something significant. Even when individual days were tiring, the larger story was exciting. He was in London. He had opportunities. He was building his brand. He was living the life he had imagined. When the excitement faded, ordinary difficulties may have become more visible.
The question then becomes whether he can tolerate the ordinary, repetitive and sometimes disappointing middle of pursuing an ambition without interpreting it as evidence that something is going wrong. Most of life is boring. When I work with clients, I ask them. When you were doing the maths about your future and making your dreams become a reality, how much room did you leave for life. As in for things to not work out, for it to be mundane, and to cultivate patience whilst still working away? Many clients say maybe 5%. But of course the maths is wrong. Life is 95% boring and not working out and 5% success.
This is not an argument for dismissing his exhaustion as a normal adjustment. Feeling persistently low, losing motivation and struggling to carry out ordinary activities deserve attention. Rather, it is an invitation to distinguish between two things: the inevitable reduction in novelty that accompanies a new life, and the more serious emotional difficulties that may develop alongside it.
A dream can remain right for you even when the process of living it becomes difficult. Equally, loving a dream does not mean you should have to sacrifice your health to pursue it. Both statements can be true.
When the body says what the mind has been trying to ignore
Jafer repeatedly describes feeling as though he is putting every ounce of energy into surviving. He says that brushing his teeth, eating, getting out of bed and moving his body can feel like significant tasks. He describes not having enough energy to meet a friend or respond to messages. He explains that he has been sleeping for approximately 13 hours a day and has felt unusually low for about a month.
I would pay close attention to this part of his account. It is easy to focus on the more entertaining aspects of a YouTuber’s personality: the humour, the confidence, the expressive storytelling and the ambition. But beneath those elements, Jafer is describing a change in his capacity to function. He is not simply saying that he has had a few unproductive days. He is describing a period in which activities that once formed part of his everyday life have become difficult to sustain.
Is this burnout, depression or an adjustment difficulty?
These are possibilities to assess, not interchangeable labels. Burnout is often used to describe a state of exhaustion associated with prolonged demands. The term is particularly familiar in relation to employment, but people also use it to describe the experience of pursuing demanding personal projects.
An adjustment difficulty may arise when someone struggles to adapt emotionally to a significant change in circumstances. A depressive episode, meanwhile, can involve persistent low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, reduced energy, changes in sleep and appetite, and difficulties with concentration or everyday functioning.
Jafer’s account contains features that would make a clinician want to explore depressive symptoms carefully. NICE guidance recommends assessing not just the number of symptoms but also their duration, severity, course and effect on functioning. It also recommends exploring relevant life circumstances, previous mental health difficulties and any history of mood elevation.
That does not mean that we can diagnose depression from his video. We cannot establish the full clinical picture, and we do not know whether there are physical health factors, medication effects, other stressors or a longer history of similar episodes.
What we can say is that the duration and functional impact of what he describes make it worth taking seriously. The fact that Jafer says he does not like calling himself depressed is also worth exploring, without assuming that his reluctance necessarily means he is in denial.
Perhaps he associates depression with a particular image of what it looks like. Perhaps the word feels too serious, too uncomfortable or too far removed from how he understands himself. Perhaps he simply does not want to use a clinical term without having been assessed. All of those possibilities deserve an open conversation rather than an interpretation imposed upon him.
The problem with explaining everything as burnout
Burnout can be a useful description, but it can also become a way of minimising distress. If a person says, “I am exhausted, I am sleeping most of the day, I have lost my motivation and I feel lower than I have ever felt,” the response should not automatically be, “You just need a holiday.”
Rest may help, but the clinician needs to understand what is happening. Is the person experiencing sustained low mood? Have they stopped enjoying activities they previously loved? Are they struggling to concentrate? Has their appetite changed? Are they experiencing shame, hopelessness or anxiety? Are they withdrawing because they need rest, or because social contact has started to feel overwhelming? Have there been changes in their physical health? Are there safety concerns?
These questions help distinguish ordinary tiredness from a more significant problem. In a therapeutic setting, I would also want to understand what Jafer means by surviving. Does he feel emotionally overwhelmed? Is he frightened about money? Does he feel isolated? Is he struggling with the pressure to succeed? Does he feel that he has lost control over his routine? Or is there a combination of factors?
We should not presume that the answer is purely psychological. A GP assessment may be important where fatigue, altered sleep and significant changes in eating persist, because physical health and psychological wellbeing can affect one another.
The body is not a moral failure
There is a wider lesson here. People often interpret changes in their energy as evidence of personal weakness. They tell themselves that they are lazy, undisciplined, ungrateful or incapable of handling adult life. This interpretation can make the original problem worse.
A person who is already exhausted may begin to criticise themselves for being exhausted. They then carry the original difficulty alongside a second burden: the belief that they should not be struggling in the first place.
From a cognitive behavioural perspective, that second burden is important. The initial experience might be, “I do not have enough energy to film today.” The additional judgement might be, “I am failing at the one thing I moved here to do.”
The first thought describes a difficulty. The second turns the difficulty into a verdict on the self. A compassionate therapeutic approach does not remove responsibility. It changes the conditions under which responsibility can be exercised. Instead of demanding that a person function as though nothing is wrong, it helps them understand what has changed and what support they need.
A psychodynamic perspective: what happens when the life you imagined meets the life you are living?
Psychodynamic psychotherapy invites us to look beneath the immediate problem and explore the meanings attached to it. The question is not only, “Why is Jafer exhausted?” It is also, “What does being exhausted mean to Jafer? What does he believe it says about him? What feelings become difficult to tolerate when he cannot perform as he expects himself to?” We cannot know his unconscious motivations from his public statements. However, we can identify some possible lines of therapeutic enquiry.
The ideal self and the experienced self
Many people carry an internal image of who they are supposed to become. This image may be shaped by childhood experiences, family expectations, admired public figures, peer relationships, cultural messages and personal ambitions. It can be motivating. It can give a person direction and help them persist through difficulties.
Yet the ideal self can also become unforgiving. Imagine a person who understands himself as ambitious, charismatic, energetic, creative and destined for an exciting career. He sees himself as someone who makes things happen. He believes that when an opportunity arrives, he should be ready to take it.
Now imagine that this person wakes up and cannot summon the energy to make a video. The difficulty is no longer just about making a video. It threatens the person’s understanding of who he is. He may begin to think, “If I am really the person I believe I am, why can I not do this?”
This is one possible tension in Jafer’s account. He speaks with confidence about being made for entertainment and wanting to become a successful luxury fashion, beauty and lifestyle creator. He also describes being unable to post for several days and struggling to maintain his previous level of activity.
There is nothing inherently problematic about having a strong vision of oneself. The issue arises if the person can only feel secure in that identity when they are actively demonstrating it. If I am creative only when I am producing, successful only when opportunities arrive, disciplined only when I maintain my routine and valuable only when people respond positively to my content, what happens when I become tired?
Where does my sense of self go when I cannot perform? These are questions of identity and emotional security, not merely productivity.
Freud and the demands of the ego ideal
Freud’s work offers one historical lens through which to consider this tension. In On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914), Freud explored the relationship between the ego, ideals and the investment of psychological importance in the self. In his later work, particularly The Ego and the Id (1923), he developed ideas about internal conflict and the agencies of the mind. Freud’s concepts should not be treated as a modern diagnostic explanation of Jafer’s behaviour. They can, however, help us think about the psychological consequences of internal standards that become difficult to satisfy.
A person may carry an internal demand to be exceptional. The demand may initially inspire them to work hard, take risks and develop their abilities. Over time, however, it can become a relentless internal authority. The person no longer asks, “What can I reasonably do today?” They ask, “What should a person like me be doing?”
The difference is subtle but consequential. The first question takes account of the person’s actual circumstances. The second compares the person against an internal ideal, which may not make allowances for exhaustion, illness, uncertainty or the ordinary limits of being human.
If Jafer has a particularly demanding internal standard, a period of low productivity might activate feelings of inadequacy even when there is no evidence that his long-term prospects have fundamentally changed. But we must remain careful. We cannot conclude from his confidence or ambition that he has an unusually harsh superego, a narcissistic defence or any other specific psychodynamic pattern. Those would be hypotheses to explore collaboratively, not conclusions to make about him.
The loss of a familiar identity
A major transition can disrupt the routines through which people recognise themselves. Before moving, Jafer had an established life. After moving, he was required to construct new routines while simultaneously pursuing a career. In the first weeks, the experience of change may have supported his sense of possibility. Later, when his energy fell, he may have found himself without the same reliable sense of continuity.
Psychodynamic work might explore whether his previous routines did more than organise his time. Did they also reassure him that he was making progress? Did creating content help him feel connected to the person he wanted to become? Did being busy protect him from uncertainty or uncomfortable feelings?
These are questions, not assumptions. Sometimes activity is simply meaningful activity. Sometimes it also becomes a way of managing feelings that are difficult to sit with. Often, it is both. If a person is accustomed to responding to uncertainty by doing more, a period when they cannot do more may feel especially threatening. The loss of activity can expose feelings that had little space to emerge while life was moving quickly.
The therapeutic task would not be to convince Jafer that his ambition is a defence or that his success is somehow inauthentic. It would be to help him discover whether he can remain connected to himself when he is not actively progressing. A secure sense of self allows room for ambition without requiring constant proof of worth.
Carl Rogers and the pressure of becoming the person you think you must be
Carl Rogers offers a different, and in many ways complementary, perspective. In his person-centred approach, Rogers emphasised the importance of the individual’s subjective experience, the therapeutic relationship and the conditions that enable personal growth. He also explored the relationship between a person’s actual experience and their self-concept.
One useful concept is incongruence: a mismatch between what a person is experiencing and the way they understand or expect themselves to be. Think about Jafer’s account. He wants to be a successful content creator. He values creativity, visibility, independence and professional growth. He has taken tangible steps towards that future. Yet he is experiencing exhaustion, low motivation and a need to withdraw from some of the activities that previously energised him.
The mismatch may be between what he feels able to do and what he believes he ought to be able to do. He may think that because he wanted this life so badly, he should feel consistently excited about it. Because he has worked hard to get here, he should be able to keep working hard. Because he has opportunities, he should feel grateful rather than depleted.
But human experience does not always fit neatly into the stories we tell about ourselves. A person can be grateful and exhausted. They can be ambitious and frightened. They can love their work and need a break from it. They can feel proud of a decision and struggle with its consequences. These experiences do not cancel one another out.
Conditions of worth
Rogers also wrote about conditions of worth: the conditions people come to believe they must satisfy in order to regard themselves as acceptable or worthy. In everyday life, these conditions might sound like:
- I am worthwhile when I achieve something.
- I am lovable when I am entertaining.
- I am successful when other people recognise my talent.
- I am disciplined when I never allow myself to fall behind.
- I am deserving of rest only after I have done enough.
We cannot know whether Jafer holds any of these beliefs. But his account offers an opportunity to consider how such beliefs can affect people pursuing public-facing careers. Social media provides frequent opportunities to evaluate oneself. A video receives views, comments, shares and brand interest, or it does not. An invitation arrives, or it does not. A talent manager responds, or leaves an email unanswered.
The person may begin to experience professional feedback as personal feedback, even when the two are not the same. A video performing poorly is information about that piece of content, its audience, its timing, the platform’s distribution and many other variables. It is not a reliable measure of the creator’s worth as a human being. Yet when a person’s professional identity becomes tightly bound to their self-concept, the distinction can be difficult to maintain.
What would a person-centred therapist do?
A person-centred therapist would not rush to correct Jafer’s thinking or tell him to change his ambitions. They would seek to understand his experience from within his own frame of reference. They might ask something like:
- “When you say you feel as though your life is falling apart, what does that mean to you?”
- “What do you feel when you wake up and realise you do not have the energy to create content?”
- “What is the most frightening thing about the possibility that your career might take longer than you expected?”
- “When you say you are born for entertainment, what does entertainment give you that feels important?”
- “Can you allow yourself to be tired without interpreting it as a sign that you are becoming the wrong person?”
These questions are not intended to expose a hidden weakness. They are intended to make room for experiences that may be difficult to acknowledge when a person feels under pressure to remain confident.
Rogers’s approach reminds us that therapeutic change is not always achieved by giving someone a better plan. Sometimes it begins when the person no longer has to defend their experience or pretend to feel differently from how they actually feel.
The person who says, “I should be grateful; I wanted this,” may need permission to add, “And I am struggling.” The person who says, “I know I can make this work,” may need permission to add, “And I do not know how to make it work yet.” Both statements can belong to the same person. That is not a failure of confidence. It is a more honest relationship with reality.
Cognitive behavioural therapy: when a difficult week becomes a judgement about your entire future
Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, offers another useful way of understanding Jafer’s experience. Rather than concentrating primarily on unconscious conflict, CBT examines the relationships between situations, thoughts, emotions, bodily responses and behaviour. The central question becomes: what happens between experiencing a setback and deciding what that setback means?
Jafer says that his life has been going downhill, that he feels as though everything is falling apart, and that he is struggling to do the things he previously managed. He also worries about his engagement, his career direction, his lack of motivation and the fact that he has not posted on TikTok or Instagram for several days.
These are real concerns. But when several difficulties occur together, the mind can begin to combine them into a single, much larger conclusion. One disappointing video becomes a sign that the content strategy is failing. A few days without posting become evidence that momentum is being lost. An unanswered email from a talent manager becomes a possible sign that the industry does not recognise his potential. A period of exhaustion becomes a fear that he is no longer capable of pursuing his dream. The difficulty is that these conclusions may go further than the available evidence.
The cognitive cycle of pressure
1. The situation
A video receives fewer views than expected, or Jafer has insufficient energy to post.
2. The interpretation
“I am losing momentum. I should be doing better by now.”
3. The emotional response
Anxiety, disappointment, shame, frustration or hopelessness.
4. The behavioural response
More pressure to perform, difficulty starting, withdrawal or avoidance.
5. The reinforcing effect
Reduced activity may increase anxiety about falling behind, strengthening the original belief.
An illustrative CBT formulation based on the themes in Jafer’s account, not a confirmed description of his internal thought patterns. This is one possible maintenance cycle. It does not mean that Jafer’s thoughts caused his initial exhaustion. His low mood, changes in eating, sleep difficulties and other factors may have arisen for several reasons. It means that the way he interprets those difficulties could potentially make them harder to manage.
The more a person believes that they are falling behind, the more urgent it can feel to catch up. Yet urgency does not necessarily create energy. Sometimes it creates more anxiety, more self-criticism and greater difficulty beginning a task.
All-or-nothing thinking
CBT would explore whether Jafer sometimes evaluates his progress in all-or-nothing terms. For example, a creator may feel productive when posting consistently and unproductive when missing several days. A week of low engagement may feel like failure rather than a temporary fluctuation. A career that has not yet become financially sustainable may be experienced as either a dream coming true or a dream falling apart.
But careers rarely develop in such a straightforward way. There is a considerable difference between saying, “My engagement is lower than I want, and I need to understand why,” and saying, “My engagement is low, so I am failing.” The first statement identifies a problem that can be investigated. The second risks turning a practical difficulty into an identity judgement.
Another possible pattern is catastrophising: anticipating a much worse outcome than the available evidence supports. If a creator has not posted for three days, they may worry that their audience will disappear, their reach will collapse and their professional opportunities will dry up. Some consequences may be possible, but the scale and certainty of the feared outcome require examination. A therapist would not simply tell Jafer that he is wrong. The purpose would be to help him distinguish what he knows from what he fears.
The difference between a fact and a prediction
Think about these internal statements: Observation. Interpretation or prediction. I have not posted for three days. I am losing my chance to succeed. My recent videos have had fewer views. I will never build the audience I need. Several talent managers have not replied. No one in the industry believes in me. I feel exhausted and unmotivated. I am not cut out for this career.
The observations may be accurate. The interpretations may contain important feelings, but they are not established facts. This distinction is particularly important when someone is tired or distressed. It is sensible to take their thoughts seriously without automatically treating them as an accurate prediction of the future. A CBT therapist might ask:
- What evidence supports this conclusion?
- What evidence might point in another direction?
- Am I judging my entire future on what is happening this week?
- What would I say to a friend who was experiencing the same setback?
- What is one practical action I can take without needing to resolve my whole future today?
These questions are not exercises in forced positivity. They help restore perspective.
Behavioural activation: doing less, but doing it deliberately
Jafer describes a loss of motivation. One response might be to encourage him to return immediately to his previous routine of walking, reading, journaling and posting content. But that could inadvertently recreate the pressure that is already overwhelming him.
Behavioural activation, a CBT-based approach, works with the relationship between activity, mood, avoidance and reinforcement. It can help people gradually re-engage with meaningful activities rather than waiting for motivation to arrive first.
However, the approach needs to be proportionate to the person’s condition. If someone is significantly exhausted, the aim is not to fill every available hour. It is to establish a manageable level of activity that supports functioning and helps identify what improves or worsens their mood.
For Jafer, that might mean identifying a few essentials: getting up at a reasonably consistent time if possible, eating regularly, attending to basic self-care, getting some daylight, maintaining contact with a trusted person and setting aside a limited period for work when he feels able. A filming schedule could be temporarily reduced. A smaller task might be more appropriate than trying to produce a polished video. Rest could be planned rather than treated as a reward that must be earned.
The objective is not to make him productive at all costs. It is to help him recover a sense of agency without making his wellbeing conditional on his output. And because his symptoms have been significant and persistent, behavioural activation would not replace a proper assessment of his mental and physical health.
Albert Bandura: self-efficacy, ambition and the danger of losing confidence in your own capacity
Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory provides another useful perspective, particularly because Jafer is trying to build a career in an uncertain and competitive environment. Bandura (1977, 1997) explored self-efficacy: a person’s belief in their capacity to organise and carry out the actions needed to achieve a particular outcome.
Self-efficacy is not the same as believing that everything will work out. It is the belief that you can take meaningful action, learn from experience and respond to difficulties.
This distinction matters quite alot for anyone pursuing a creative career. Jafer clearly expresses a strong sense of ambition. He literally said that he has posted everyday for the last 3 years. He believes that entertainment suits him, wants to build a recognisable personal brand and hopes to secure relationships with major brands and talent managers. He has already had experiences that he describes as significant achievements, including fashion events and brand opportunities.
Yet he is also encountering the less rewarding aspects of the industry: inconsistent engagement, uncertainty about his content strategy, unanswered emails and the need to generate income. These experiences may challenge his confidence, particularly if he interprets setbacks as evidence that he lacks the ability to succeed.
Confidence in the dream versus confidence in the process
A person can be confident in their ultimate ambition but uncertain about the steps required to achieve it. For example, Jafer may believe that he has the personality and creativity to become a successful content creator while feeling unsure about how to develop consistent engagement. Those are not contradictory positions.
The first is a belief about potential. The second concerns a specific skill or problem that may require experimentation, feedback and time. A useful therapeutic question would be: Can I believe in my potential without expecting myself to know every answer already? Some things take time. You cannot know them through theory, you have to live them and experience them. Some of success is not getting the prize, but what we are learning about ourselves and are becoming in the process of getting the prize. Sometimes that has far more value and equity.
Bandura’s work helps us understand why this matters. Experiences of mastery, modelling, social persuasion and interpretations of physiological states can all influence self-efficacy. In practical terms, people often build confidence by successfully completing manageable tasks, observing others, receiving credible feedback and learning to interpret difficulty without immediately assuming incapacity.
For Jafer, this could mean shifting away from the demand to prove that he is destined for success and towards developing evidence about what works. Instead of expecting every post to confirm his talent, he could treat content creation as a process of learning. He might experiment with different formats, review audience responses, develop his storytelling skills, seek constructive professional feedback and evaluate results over a realistic period.
A video that performs poorly is not necessarily a failure of the creator. It may be useful information about the format, subject, presentation or audience. Likewise, an unanswered email is not a definitive assessment of his future.
When confidence becomes dependent on results
There is a further issue worth exploring. Confidence can become fragile when it depends on constant external confirmation. A successful post provides reassurance. A brand opportunity provides excitement. An invitation to an event provides evidence that the career is progressing.
But what happens when those sources of reassurance become less frequent? If the person has not developed a way to tolerate uncertainty, they may experience ordinary setbacks as threats to the whole project. This is not a reason to dismiss ambition or to pretend that external outcomes do not matter. In a commercial career, engagement, contracts and income have genuine consequences. The point is to separate the factors a person can influence from the factors they cannot fully control.
Jafer can influence the quality of his work, the consistency of his approach, the relationships he develops and how he responds to feedback. He cannot completely control a platform’s distribution system, a manager’s inbox, a brand’s budget or the timing of opportunities. A sustainable sense of efficacy requires recognising both sides. The aim is not to become indifferent to outcomes. It is to remain capable of acting constructively when outcomes are uncertain.
Social media, identity and the experience of being watched
Jafer’s relationship with social media is one of the most interesting aspects of his account. He explains that he has been posting on YouTube and TikTok for approximately two years. Initially, he was willing to publish a broad range of content because he wanted people to see him. As he began receiving attention, he became more intentional about developing a personal brand.
He now wants to be recognised as a luxury fashion, lifestyle and beauty creator. However, he says that his coming-out video remains his most viral content and that material related to that experience tends to perform well. He does not want to be defined by that one part of his story. This is more than a question of content strategy. It raises questions about identity, audience expectations and the tension between being known and being understood.
The difference between being visible and being recognised
Visibility means that people can see you. Recognition means that they understand something about you that you want them to understand. On social media, the two do not always coincide. A person may receive substantial attention for a story they no longer want to centre. They may be rewarded for a version of themselves that they have outgrown. They may feel grateful that a particular post helped them build an audience while also wanting the freedom to move beyond it.
For Jafer, the coming-out video appears to have become an important part of how some viewers encounter his work. He is trying to broaden that identity while retaining the audience and opportunities he has worked to develop. There is a genuine tension here.
The audience may be responding to what it already knows. The creator may be trying to introduce something new. The platform may continue to distribute content according to patterns that do not necessarily match the creator’s longer-term intentions. None of this requires the audience to be acting maliciously. It is a structural tension between personal development and a digital environment in which familiar content can remain commercially valuable. Part of psychological maturity is understanding that different spheres operate on different rules. Even if they cross over. The more you want out of life the more parts of life cross over each other and become entangled and complicated. Let me put it like this. If he stayed at home and did content that was one level. If you move away and have your own apartment, you add layers. Such as rent, cleaning, bills. You may be doing all that when at home, but the systems are established.
The psychological cost of becoming your own product
I remember listening to Lady Gaga years ago say that she had to step away from 'Lady Gaga' and get back to Stefani because she was losing herself. Everyone expected Gaga, and while she was incredibly successful and helping millions of people, she was losing Stefani in the process. When social media becomes a career, the person is both the worker and the product being presented. Their personality becomes part of the brand. Their appearance may become commercially relevant. Their private experiences may become content. Their everyday life may become material to film, edit and publish.
This can make the boundary between living and performing more difficult to maintain. A creator might ask themselves whether they are enjoying an experience or thinking about how to document it. They might wonder whether a particular opinion is something they want to express or something their audience will respond to. They might feel pressure to remain recognisable even as their interests and ambitions change.
For someone who wants to make a living from their personality, these questions can become particularly complicated. The person is not necessarily being inauthentic. They are navigating a professional role in which self-expression and commercial presentation overlap. The danger arises when the creator begins to experience every part of life as a potential performance, or when the ability to earn an income becomes dependent on maintaining a version of themselves that no longer feels comfortable.
We see this with countless couples who build their lives around content creation. Breakups feel almost inevitable because when your entire life becomes content, the lines blur. There are no boundaries. Part of maturing into psychological adulthood is recognizing the need for compartmentalisation, creating clear boundaries between different aspects of life. As children, our parents set those boundaries for us, but as adults, we must learn to establish them for ourselves.
When audience metrics become a measure of personal worth
Views, likes, comments and engagement rates are measurable. Personal worth is not. Yet measurable outcomes can become emotionally powerful precisely because they offer immediate, visible feedback. If a creator has a difficult day, a low-performing post may feel like another piece of evidence that things are going badly. If a post performs well, it may temporarily restore confidence. The person can become increasingly dependent on external feedback to regulate how they feel about themselves.
This possibility is worth exploring in Jafer’s case, although his video alone cannot establish how strongly his self-worth depends on social media metrics. A useful distinction would be between evaluating content and evaluating the self. Content evaluation asks:
- Did the video reach the intended audience?
- Was the opening engaging?
- Did the format fit the subject?
- What can I learn from the response?
- What might I test next time?
Self-evaluation asks:
- Am I talented enough?
- Am I interesting enough?
- Am I falling behind everyone else?
- Do people still care about me?
The first set of questions can support learning. The second can become painful when every professional outcome is treated as a referendum on identity.
A note on the research
Research on social media and wellbeing is complex. It would be inaccurate to suggest that social media inevitably causes poor mental health, or that everyone who works online experiences burnout. Outcomes vary according to how platforms are used, the person’s circumstances, their relationships, their working conditions and many other factors. However, social media can form part of the wider environment in which eating difficulties and other psychological problems develop or are maintained. NICE’s eating disorder guidance specifically recommends considering the influence of the internet and social media when assessing a person’s circumstances.
For Jafer, the important clinical question is not whether social media is inherently harmful. It is whether his current relationship with content creation is supporting his wellbeing, undermining it, or doing some of both.
He may need to retain his ambition while changing the conditions under which he pursues it. That could involve setting boundaries around analytics, reducing the expectation that every day must produce content, protecting some experiences from being turned into posts and developing professional measures of progress that are not entirely dependent on immediate audience response.
Eating, restriction and emotional regulation: what might be happening beneath the surface?
Perhaps the most clinically significant part of Jafer’s account concerns his eating. He describes a week in which he was eating substantially more than usual, sometimes continuing to eat despite feeling physically full. He also reports sleeping for long periods and feeling profoundly low. After that period, he describes restricting his intake to fewer than 1,000 calories a day, becoming preoccupied with food, taking a long time to eat small meals and drinking water to make his stomach feel fuller. He says that he has repeatedly gone through periods of wanting to lose weight, even when he does not identify a clear external reason to do so.
These experiences asks that we have careful attention. It would be inappropriate to diagnose an eating disorder from this account. Plus counsellors do not do that anyway. We do not diagnose. We do not know enough about the frequency, duration, circumstances or psychological features of his eating episodes. We also do not know his medical history, the extent of any weight change or whether other factors contributed. However, his description raises questions about the relationship between restriction, hunger, emotional distress, body image and the need for control.
The restriction and overeating cycle
One possibility is that Jafer has become caught in a cycle in which restrictive eating is followed by periods of eating that feel difficult to control. When someone consumes substantially less food than their body needs, hunger can become increasingly intrusive. Food may occupy more of their attention. They may find themselves thinking about what they can eat, when they can eat and how they can suppress hunger until the next meal.
If that person then begins eating more freely, the experience can feel alarming, especially if they have developed rigid expectations about what they should eat or how much they should weigh. They may interpret the increased eating as a lack of discipline. In response, they restrict their intake again. The cycle can then repeat. This is a possible explanation for part of what Jafer describes, rather than a confirmed account of his particular eating pattern.
Restriction: Eating very little, delaying meals or attempting to suppress hunger.
Increasing preoccupation with food: Hunger, food-related thoughts and distress about eating may intensify.
Eating more or feeling out of control: The person eats more than intended, potentially in response to deprivation, emotion or both.
Distress and renewed restriction: Guilt, anxiety or fear about weight may lead the person to restrict again.
A possible maintenance cycle. Not everyone who restricts food develops binge eating, and not every episode of overeating follows this pattern. Research supports taking this possibility seriously. A 2026 scoping review by Casari and colleagues examined 76 studies and found that 53 reported evidence linking restrictive diets with increased binge eating, particularly when negative emotions or impulsivity were also present. The authors also reported mixed findings, with almost a third of the studies not finding the same association. Much of the evidence was observational and focused predominantly on adult women, so the findings cannot be applied directly to Jafer or assumed to establish causation in his case.
The practical lesson is not that restriction inevitably causes overeating. It is that severe restriction can be part of a harmful pattern, and it should not automatically be treated as a solution to concerns about eating.
What if food is serving an emotional function?
There is another question a therapist might explore: what is happening emotionally when Jafer wants to eat despite feeling physically full? Food can have many functions beyond meeting physical hunger. It can provide pleasure, comfort, stimulation, familiarity or temporary relief from uncomfortable feelings. Eating can also become a way of responding to boredom, loneliness, anxiety or a sense of emptiness.
But we must not assume that every episode of eating beyond fullness is emotional eating. Biological hunger, the effects of restriction, disrupted routines, sleep, medications and physical health can all be relevant. The useful question is not, “Why can’t you control yourself?” It is, “What was happening before you wanted to eat, and what did eating do for you in that moment?”
For example, a clinician might explore whether the urge becomes stronger when Jafer is alone, when he is worrying about his career, when he is tired or when he is trying to avoid an uncomfortable feeling. They would also ask about the periods of restriction, including what he hopes losing weight will achieve and what he fears might happen if he stops restricting. These questions help establish whether the behaviour is primarily related to hunger, emotional regulation, body-image concerns, rigid dietary rules or a combination of factors.
Why being thin does not mean someone is safe from an eating disorder
Jafer repeatedly refers to his naturally lean body and his gratitude for his metabolism. He also acknowledges that he has become preoccupied with calories and weight loss. This raises an important issue for public understanding of eating disorders.
Eating difficulties are not always visible. A person’s body size does not establish whether their relationship with food is healthy. Nor does a person’s appearance tell us whether they are experiencing significant psychological distress.
NICE guidance specifically advises clinicians not to use BMI or the duration of symptoms in isolation to decide whether treatment should be offered. It identifies restrictive eating, rapid weight loss, excessive concern about weight or shape, and associated mental health difficulties as reasons for further assessment. It also recommends considering physical health and the possibility of depression, anxiety and other coexisting difficulties.
A person can appear physically lean while engaging in potentially harmful restrictive behaviour. Equally, a person can experience significant eating-related distress at a wide range of body sizes. The appropriate question is not whether Jafer looks thin enough to be considered at risk. It is whether his eating behaviours, thoughts about weight and physical symptoms are affecting his health and wellbeing.
The psychological meaning of control
From a psychodynamic perspective, it might be useful to explore whether controlling food has become a way of managing feelings of uncertainty. Moving to London has introduced uncertainty into several areas of Jafer’s life. His career is developing, but its future remains uncertain. His engagement is not where he wants it to be. His income needs attention. His routines have become harder to sustain.
Food and weight may offer a domain in which he feels he can impose clear rules and observe measurable results. A calorie target is concrete. A number on a scale is concrete. The success of a social media career, by comparison, is unpredictable and dependent on numerous factors outside his control.
It is possible that restricting food offers a temporary feeling of certainty or achievement when other areas of life feel less manageable. However, this interpretation must remain a hypothesis. We cannot infer that Jafer restricts food to regain control simply because he is experiencing other uncertainties. A proper assessment would explore what weight loss means to him, whether the behaviour is driven by appearance concerns or other motivations, and what he experiences emotionally before and after restricting.
The danger of turning the body into another project
There is a wider issue here for people who are ambitious and highly goal-oriented. If a person approaches work, fitness, appearance and personal development through constant optimisation, the body can become another project to manage. Food becomes something to calculate. Rest becomes something to justify. Weight becomes a measure of discipline.
The person may believe they are exercising control, yet find themselves spending increasing amounts of time thinking about the very thing they are trying to control. The psychological cost can be considerable. A healthier relationship with the body does not require abandoning every goal related to fitness or appearance. It requires being able to pursue those goals without compromising physical safety, becoming dominated by rigid rules or treating normal bodily needs as obstacles to overcome.
If Jafer were sitting in a therapy room, I would want to understand how he feels about his body when he is not evaluating it. Can he eat without calculating the consequences? Can he tolerate changes in his appearance without feeling that something important has been lost? Can he recognise hunger and fullness without treating them as enemies? Can he nourish himself without believing he must earn the right to do so? These are questions worth exploring with sensitivity, without shame and without reducing a complex eating pattern to a matter of willpower.
The relationship between mood, sleep and eating
One of the risks in interpreting Jafer’s account is to treat each problem as though it exists independently. He describes low mood, a marked reduction in motivation, sleeping for approximately 13 hours a day, periods of increased eating, severe dietary restriction and difficulty sustaining his work. These experiences may be interacting.
For example, a person who is eating very little may experience increased hunger, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. Someone whose mood has deteriorated may find it harder to maintain a regular eating pattern. Disrupted sleep can affect energy, mood and daily functioning. Anxiety about work may interfere with rest, while exhaustion may make work feel increasingly difficult.
These possibilities can form a mutually reinforcing pattern. It is also possible that an underlying physical or mental health problem is contributing to several of the changes at once. We cannot determine the direction of causation from Jafer’s account. This is why a thorough assessment matters. A clinician would want to establish the sequence of events, ask about any previous episodes, understand the degree of impairment and consider whether medical assessment is needed.
The aim would not be to find one psychological explanation for everything. It would be to understand how the different factors relate to one another and identify which require attention first.
Why the first priority may not be career progression
Jafer is understandably concerned that his lack of energy is interfering with his ambition. He describes feeling frustrated that he has been unable to devote his attention to growing his social media career. But there is a danger in making career recovery the only measure of psychological recovery.
If the goal becomes, “I must feel better so that I can start producing content again,” then the person may begin treating their wellbeing as another instrument of productivity. Rest becomes valuable because it enables work. Eating becomes important because it enables performance. Social contact becomes worthwhile because it supports networking. Sleep becomes something to optimise.
These things can all support a career, but they also have value independently of it. A person deserves to eat because their body needs nourishment. They deserve rest because they are human. They deserve relationships that are not contingent on professional usefulness. They deserve support even if their career is uncertain. For someone who has become accustomed to measuring progress through achievement, that can be a difficult shift. Yet it may be an essential one.
Career uncertainty, financial pressure and the need for a more flexible identity
Later in the video, Jafer discusses the possibility of taking a full-time job managing a designer beauty brand’s social media. He explains that he initially hesitated because his ambition is to grow his own content creation into a full-time career. However, he also recognises that relying on his savings to pay rent cannot continue indefinitely.
This is an important moment because it reveals that his distress is not only about motivation. There are practical pressures that require decisions. He is trying to reconcile two legitimate aims: pursuing the career he wants and maintaining the financial stability necessary to live independently.
The false choice between following your dream and being realistic
People often talk about ambition as though there are only two options. Either you commit completely to your dream, or you give up. Either you believe in yourself, or you admit defeat. Either you pursue your passion full-time, or you settle for something less meaningful. These are emotionally powerful narratives, but they can make ordinary career decisions unnecessarily difficult.
Taking a job does not necessarily mean abandoning a creative ambition. It may provide income, professional experience, industry knowledge and a more stable foundation from which to develop independent work. Equally, accepting a job that consumes all available energy may make it harder to pursue content creation. The decision therefore requires careful consideration of practical circumstances, not a simplistic judgement about courage or commitment. The important question is whether the arrangement supports a sustainable life.
I call it the magic of part-time. Sometimes, going all-in isn't the most strategically mature move, especially when your chosen path requires real-world experience. Take me, for example: I’d love to be a full-time author writing about men's mental health. I could quit everything and go all-in today, but that wouldn't be wise. I want my writing to be grounded in real stories and life experience, which makes working while writing the better path. Plus, being in my early 30s means I have to be mindful of things like pensions and credit scores. I'm holding ambition and pragmatism in equal balance, and that's perfectly okay. Working in Tesco and Argos warehouses while doing my counseling course helped pay for my own personal counseling. It wasn't glamorous, but it was pragmatic.
Self-determination and the meaning of work
Ryan and Deci’s (2000) self-determination theory is helpful here. A job may provide competence through developing skills, relatedness through colleagues and professional relationships, and autonomy through financial independence. It may also limit autonomy if the hours and demands leave little room for the person’s own projects.
Self-employment can offer considerable autonomy, but it may provide less financial security and more uncertainty. It can also involve isolation, unpredictable income and the pressure to manage every aspect of a business. Neither arrangement is inherently more psychologically healthy.
The question is how the arrangement fits the individual’s needs, circumstances and values. For Jafer, a full-time role might be a useful bridge towards his long-term ambition. It might also prove incompatible with the creative work he wants to develop. He would need to assess the actual demands, salary, hours, commute, flexibility and likely effect on his wellbeing. The decision should not have to prove whether he believes in himself. It should help him build a life in which his ambition has a realistic chance of surviving.
A flexible identity is not a lesser identity
There is a further psychological benefit to considering more than one possible route to success. If Jafer’s identity becomes entirely dependent on becoming a full-time content creator, every alternative may feel like a threat to who he is. A job offer can then become emotionally complicated: it offers financial security, but it may also feel like an admission that his original plan has failed. A more flexible identity allows for a different interpretation. He can be a creator who takes a job. He can be ambitious while learning a new skill. He can build his platform more slowly. He can change his strategy without abandoning his values.
This is not about lowering his aspirations. It is about allowing the route towards them to change as he learns more about himself and his circumstances. There is a meaningful difference between being committed to an ambition and being committed to one particular version of how that ambition must unfold. The first leaves room for adaptation. The second can make every obstacle feel existential.
The therapeutic formulation: bringing the different pieces together
If I were developing an initial integrative formulation from Jafer’s public account, I would resist the temptation to identify one cause and build the entire explanation around it. His experience appears to involve several overlapping areas: a major life transition, high personal ambition, uncertainty about career progression, changes in mood and functioning, disrupted eating patterns and a possible mismatch between his expectations of himself and his current capacity.
These factors may be interacting, but their relationship needs to be explored rather than assumed. An integrative formulation might look at the following areas.
Presenting difficulties: Low mood, reduced motivation, exhaustion, prolonged sleep, changes in eating and difficulty maintaining ordinary activities and content creation.
Precipitating circumstances: Moving to London, establishing an independent home, adjusting to new routines, pursuing a demanding career and facing uncertainty about income and engagement.
Possible maintaining factors: Pressure to perform, potentially rigid expectations, worries about professional progress, withdrawal from activities and a possible cycle of restrictive eating and increased eating.
Potential strengths and resources: A clear sense of ambition, creative interests, the ability to reflect on his experiences, existing professional opportunities and evidence that communicating through video feels meaningful to him.
This is a provisional psychological formulation, not a diagnosis. Relevant personal history, medical factors, social support and risk would need to be assessed.
The formulation also needs to remain open to explanations that are not apparent in the video. A thorough assessment would explore previous mental health difficulties, physical health, medication and substance use where relevant, family and relationship circumstances, and any history of periods of unusually elevated or irritable mood, reduced need for sleep or other significant changes in functioning.
The purpose of an integrative approach is not to force all the information into one theoretical model. It is to use different models to illuminate different aspects of the person’s experience while remaining open to evidence that changes the initial understanding.
Psychodynamic therapy might explore the meanings attached to success, identity and control. CBT might examine the relationship between appraisals, emotions and behaviour. Humanistic therapy might help Jafer acknowledge his actual experience without judging himself against an ideal. Social cognitive theory might support the development of realistic confidence and adaptive goal-setting. Together, these approaches can offer a fuller picture than any one interpretation alone.
What might therapy actually look like for Jafer?
The first task would not be to make him more productive. It would be to understand the severity of his distress, establish what support he needs and help him recover a sense of safety and agency.
First: take the symptoms seriously
Given the low mood, loss of motivation, prolonged sleep and changes in eating that Jafer describes, I would encourage a timely appointment with a GP or appropriately qualified mental health professional. The assessment should consider both psychological and physical health. His restrictive eating, preoccupation with calories and reported weight change would warrant particular attention, even if he remains physically lean. An eating disorder cannot be ruled in or out from appearance or a video.
If he is still experiencing these difficulties, it would be sensible to seek help rather than waiting for them to resolve on their own. If his distress includes thoughts of suicide, self-harm or an inability to keep himself safe, those concerns would need prompt assessment. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, NHS 111 can provide urgent mental health guidance, and 999 or A&E is appropriate where there is an immediate danger or medical emergency.
Second: establish what a manageable day looks like
When someone feels as though they are surviving rather than living, the temptation can be to rebuild the entire routine at once. That is often an unrealistic starting point. I would want to explore what a manageable day looks like in his current circumstances, not what an ideal day looked like when he had more energy.
That might involve a small number of priorities: attending to basic self-care, eating regularly, maintaining contact with someone supportive, getting some daylight and identifying one achievable task. The intention would be to create a foundation rather than another performance standard.
It would also be important to avoid encouraging compensatory restriction after periods of eating more than intended. Given the eating difficulties described, support from a clinician experienced in eating disorders and, where appropriate, a registered dietitian would be preferable to independent attempts to control calories or weight.
Third: explore the meaning of success
Once immediate concerns have been addressed, therapy could explore what success means to Jafer and how he responds when progress is slower than expected. Questions might include:
- What would it mean about you if your career took longer to develop than you hoped?
- When do you feel most confident in yourself, and what happens to that confidence when external recognition decreases?
- How do you distinguish a temporary setback from a genuine need to change direction?
- What do you believe you owe yourself after making such a significant move?
- Can you imagine a version of success that includes rest, uncertainty and changing your mind?
These questions are not designed to discourage ambition. They are designed to make ambition psychologically sustainable.
Fourth: reconnect with what matters beyond achievement
Jafer speaks passionately about wanting to create content, work with brands and build a platform that benefits others. Those aspirations may be deeply meaningful to him. Therapy should respect that.
At the same time, I would want to understand what else gives his life meaning. What relationships matter to him? What does he enjoy when nobody is watching? What activities help him feel grounded? What makes him feel connected to himself when he is not producing anything?
This is where humanistic and existential approaches can be particularly valuable. A person is more than their professional identity. The ability to experience pleasure, connection and meaning outside work can provide important sources of psychological support when a career is uncertain. It does not diminish an ambition to have other things worth living for.
Fifth: develop a more flexible relationship with uncertainty
No therapist can promise Jafer that he will become the creator he wants to be, secure a particular brand deal or find a suitable talent manager. What therapy can help with is the capacity to tolerate uncertainty without allowing it to consume every aspect of life. This involves learning to make decisions with incomplete information, respond constructively to disappointment and distinguish what can be influenced from what cannot.
It also means recognising when persistence is useful and when a change of strategy is needed. The aim is not to remove all anxiety from pursuing a dream. It is to help a person continue making thoughtful decisions even when anxiety is present.
The deeper lesson: you should not have to become someone else to survive the life you chose
There is something moving about Jafer’s account because it captures a part of adulthood that is rarely presented as attractively as the beginning. We see the announcement that someone is moving to London. We see the new flat, the events, the invitations, the opportunities and the promise of a different future. We do not always see the ordinary days that follow.
The days when the excitement has worn off. The rent still needs paying. The work still needs doing. The audience has not responded as hoped. The person wakes up feeling tired and wonders why they cannot simply return to the version of themselves who seemed so full of energy.
It can be difficult to admit that a positive life change has brought emotional difficulties with it. There may be a sense that one has no right to complain because the opportunity was chosen, the move was voluntary and the dream remains desirable. But gratitude does not eliminate distress. And choosing something does not mean being prepared for every consequence of it.
What I would most want Jafer to understand is that his current difficulties do not, by themselves, establish anything definitive about his talent, his future or his suitability for the life he wants. They do, however, suggest that something deserves attention.
That might involve the emotional demands of the transition, the pressure he places on himself, changes in his physical and mental health, or several of these things together. The important thing is to investigate rather than assume.
His confidence about his future can coexist with an honest acknowledgement of his present difficulties. His ambition can remain intact while he seeks help. His professional identity can develop without requiring him to maintain the same level of output every day.
Perhaps the most useful shift is from asking, “How do I get back to the person I was before I started struggling?” to asking, “What am I learning about what I need in order to live this life well?” The first question assumes that recovery means returning to a previous state. The second allows for development.
Jafer has already demonstrated that he can take action towards a goal. He has moved, built an audience, pursued opportunities and begun making decisions about his career. Those achievements are part of his story, but they do not obligate him to keep pushing through distress without support.
The next stage may involve learning something different: how to recognise limits, how to respond to uncertainty, how to care for his body and how to preserve his sense of self when the external signs of progress become less visible. That is not a lesser form of ambition. It may be what allows ambition to endure.
References and further reading
The following sources provide a foundation for the psychological ideas discussed in this article. The clinical interpretations above are applications of these theories to the experiences Jafer describes, rather than claims that the researchers or clinicians assessed him personally.
1. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Foundational paper on self-efficacy and its role in behavioural change.
2. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman.
Explores how beliefs about personal capability influence motivation, persistence and responses to setbacks.
3. Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F. and Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford Press.
A foundational account of cognitive therapy, including the relationship between appraisals, mood and behaviour.
4. Casari, M. A., Pires, V. P., Pureza, I. M. and Busnello, F. M. (2026). Does Restriction Lead to Binge Eating? A Scoping Review on Restrictive Diets in the Development and Maintenance of Binge Eating Disorder. Nutrition Reviews, 84(1), 189–206. https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuaf163
A review of evidence concerning dietary restriction and binge eating, including the limitations and inconsistencies in the available research.
5. Freud, S. (1914). On narcissism: An introduction. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV. London: Hogarth Press.
Relevant to psychoanalytic thinking about self-investment, ideals and the relationship between self-concept and external recognition. Its concepts should be applied cautiously and not used to infer a personality disorder from confidence or ambition.
6. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). (2017, updated 2020). Eating disorders: recognition and treatment (NG69). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng69
Guidance on assessment, early intervention, physical health, psychological treatment and the identification of eating disorders across body sizes.
7. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). (2022). Depression in adults: treatment and management (NG222). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng222
Guidance on recognising and assessing depression, including symptom duration, severity, functional impact and relevant personal circumstances.. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95–103. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045357
A central text in person-centred psychotherapy, outlining empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard in the therapeutic relationship.
9. Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
Explores autonomy, competence and relatedness as fundamental psychological needs associated with motivation and wellbeing.
10. Cheng, J. et al. (2026). The Siren’s call: How social media influencers are using identity leadership to shape diagnostic label identification and self-care intentions. British Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.70078
Recent research into the influence of online creators on identity, mental health perceptions and help-seeking intentions. It is relevant to the wider discussion of how online audiences and creators shape one another, although it does not directly study influencer burnout.
Final reflection
Jafer’s story is a useful reminder that a person can be moving towards a life they genuinely want while simultaneously struggling with the emotional and physical demands of getting there.
The task of psychotherapy is not to tell him to abandon his ambition, nor to reassure him that everything will work out exactly as he hopes. It is to help him understand his experience, take his health seriously, examine the expectations that may be adding to his distress and find a way to pursue what matters without making his worth dependent on constant achievement.
Sometimes the most important development in a person’s life is not the moment they finally become the person they imagined. It is the moment they discover that they can be uncertain, exhausted, imperfect and in need of help without losing the right to become that person.