Both of these films have made me cry now.
Trigger warnings for mental health issues.
I recently watched Inside Out 2 with the kids and cried.
A lot.
It’s when Riley has her panic attack, when Anxiety is racing around the console and the other emotions can’t get to her, get through her, get through to her.

I felt that very deeply.
I cried during the first film as well, but this second film, I have never seen anxiety laid out quite so well before and I felt it very deeply. Riley’s panic attack was my panic attack. her attempts to fit in similar to mine, the embarrassment and anxiety, the way she even jiggled her leg.
It was a lot.
I was always a shy kid. I was out of self-preservation. My mum worked, and my dad drank, so I was surrounded by loud (and often drunk) people. My cousins were older than me by five and six years, and my aunts and uncles were all teenagers. I became the quiet one because I was a kid and not quite like them. Not to say I am hugely different from my family; I see the similarities all the time, but I definitely coped differently.
Shyness became anxiety as a teenager. I was massively afraid of answering the phone, and I still don’t like to, but having a job that required it was like exposure therapy. I was scared of upsetting my dad, which became frightened of upsetting anyone so I stopped sharing many things with people.
I turned my emotions inward. my anxiety grew into very physical panic attacks, rocking, kicking, shaking, etc. I started self-harming to deal with anger. All of this grew until I was experiencing full-blown psychosis and was actively suicidal.
That was 15 years ago, I’m not that kid anymore, although I am still quite anxious.

Panic attacks, while, most have the same symptoms, can feel very differently for each person that experiences them. while yes, the feeling of panic is the same, and we might describe it in similar ways, there is nuance to it that people might not realise. The way we visualise it, categorise it or even personalise our experiences go into how we feel when we’re having a panic attack and how we look back on it.
For me, it felt like I had chains around my chest. Around my lungs. they were always there, always heavy and I was always aware of them. and sometimes they were tighter and sometimes they were so tight I thought I might die from the constriction.
It also felt like I could not keep control of my thoughts, something I didn’t learn was called intrusive through to until much later. this included everything from racing thoughts that I had no control over, to random thoughts, visions and ideas popping into my head. This is something I still have a lot of trouble with, having kids has made it worse because oh my god worrying about them is a full-time job I am not getting paid for.
I think Inside Out 2 did a good job of conveying what anxiety and a panic attack look like. Especially given how hard is it to verbalise any mental health condition, let alone the irrationality of anxiety and also the way you rationalise your choices when you’re anxious. Anxiety was doing this for Riley, so she would have a good future, so all the worst-case scenarios wouldn’t happen. and so often the choices you make out of anxiety are to avoid the worst-case scenario happening. Sometimes because you’ve already experienced a worst-case scenario, experience bad things.
Sometimes, your brain is just a funky little thing going its own way.
An understated part of the film is when the mum’s anxiety pops her head out and the core five memories urge her away. the mum has anxiety, it just doesn’t control her much. I am still an anxious idiot, just, not as much. I’ve gone from not leaving the house for six months (seriously) to standing up on stage in front of a couple of hundred people to thank them for coming to my pride event.
We all have anxiety, and sometimes it controls us and sometimes we can get a handle on it. for some people it feels like a whirlwind. For some people it feels like shutting down.
However it’s experienced, I was pleased to see it on screen (even if it did make me cry).
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