Hey man, I'm 23 too and I'm kinda resonating with your words. I'm in a totally different field (sciences) and I saw my friends graduating years before I did myself while I was struggling with depression and health issues, failing year after year.

I never could really shoo away the idea of being "behind" but frequently putting it all back into perspective helps. Now that I'm back on track I slowly realize that once I'll have graduated myself all this delay will amount to nothing over time. I'll get to write my own thesis and finally do true research not unlike my friends do right now, it'll come in time. You'll get to work on big time projects yourself and when you do you'll realize too that it doesn't matter how late it is in your life, what does matter is that you finally do.

I had the chance to meet people who had similar paths to mine and still were in freshman years in their 20s, and it helps a lot to share and dissipate the illusion that you're alone : in fact many more people out there share your feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness than you think. Before then I tended to work my ass off alone because everyone around me seemed younger, I just didn't take the time to look around and see the couple peeps that were in the same boat as mine. But with company it gets way easier to deal with inadequacy. Do you take part in IRL or virtual artist circles? Maybe you could find people like you with whom to make progress together without that little spark of shame you might feel with people generally younger than you who share your skill level.

I'm rooting for you to reach your goals no matter how "out of place" the world might make you feel. Keep going and you'll get there, what matters is that it happens, not when it happens. Godspeed 🤞