Who’s the Most Overwhelmed? Spoiler: It’s Complicated.

Overwhelm isn’t picky, it creeps into inboxes, workplaces, families, and even scrolls alongside us on TikTok at 2 a.m. But the truth is, some groups are getting hit harder than others, and the numbers don’t lie.

Let’s start with age. If life were a pressure cooker, young adults, especially Gen Z and younger Millennials, are sitting on the highest setting. Studies show that people are now burning out earlier than ever, some before they even blow out the candles on their 30th birthday. The average age for peak burnout used to hover around 42. For today’s twenty-somethings? Try twenty-five. That’s right, just as they’re figuring out rent, careers, and credit scores, overwhelm is already waiting at the door.

And when you factor in gender, the picture gets even heavier. Women carry the overwhelm crown, and it’s not a cute accessory, it’s a migraine. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of women admit to absorbing the stress of everyone around them. That’s emotional labor on steroids. Many confess they don’t even feel safe saying they’re not okay. Instead, more than half plaster on a smile and power through while stress quietly eats away at their sleep, their focus, and even their physical health. Six hours of stress a day? That’s basically a second job with no benefits.

But overwhelm doesn’t just split along gender lines, it hits harder when race and culture enter the mix. For Black and Latinx communities, anxiety has skyrocketed in recent years, climbing from single-digit percentages to nearly one in three adults. Women in these groups are especially vulnerable, balancing systemic inequities with cultural expectations to hold everything together. Asian Americans, on the other hand, often face the opposite problem: their struggles go unseen. They’re dramatically underdiagnosed for anxiety and depression, thanks in part to stigma and the “model minority” myth that says they’re supposed to have it all under control. And Native communities? They’re navigating some of the highest rates of depression, PTSD, and youth suicide in the country, while also battling the lowest access to resources.

When you put these factors together, the overwhelm isn’t just personal, it’s systemic. Being young, being a woman, being a person of color, or especially being all of the above, doesn’t just increase your to-do list. It stacks expectations, cultural pressures, discrimination, and financial stress into a Jenga tower that’s bound to topple.

So who’s the most overwhelmed? The data says: young adults, women, and communities of color are carrying the brunt of it. But let’s be real, numbers only scratch the surface. Behind every stat is a person waking up at 3 a.m. wondering how to stretch their paycheck, how to keep everyone else happy, or how to breathe through another day without falling apart.

And that’s where Find Some Fuck It comes in. Because while overwhelm may be universal, so is the right to say “no,” set boundaries, and reclaim your peace. The numbers tell us who’s suffering most, but the choice to stop letting overwhelm run your life? That part’s yours.