How "Inside Out 2" Gets Anxiety Right
It can feel like hell, but it's possible to manage
There’s been a lot of press about one of the new characters from Inside Out 2: Anxiety. I live with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Everyone’s anxiety can play out differently, so I’m going to explain how it has affected me personally and why I think the Inside Out 2 character is an accurate portrayal.
The main character in the Inside Out movies, Riley, begins to experience anxiety in adolescence. But anxiety and I go WAY back. When I was three years old, I had a terrible time sleeping. As the hours wore on, I became more worried about not being able to sleep. While lying awake in bed, I twisted my hair non-stop. That eventually led to a quarter-sized bald spot on my head. Later in childhood, I demolished my nails each day, biting them until they bled, and my fingers felt painful to use.
I had my first panic attack in middle school during choir practice. Sometimes, we had to squeeze tight to get every student on the risers. Being in spaces where I feel like I can’t escape really bothers me. Suddenly, it felt like my heart kept skipping a beat. My breathing became labored. I was convinced I was having a heart attack and was going to die (that’s anxiety for you, always going to the extreme).
I went to the school nurse’s office. She thought I was okay but told my mother to bring me to the pediatrician, just in case. I had a few tests done, including an EKG, but the results showed nothing out of the ordinary. This was in the mid ‘90s and there was almost no mental health awareness then, so the doctor never asked me about stress or worries, and my mother didn’t consider it either.
During high school and college, I could be keyed up without realizing it. For instance, I had different instructors for each of my driver’s education sessions, and someone wrote in the notes that I was very nervous. “So, you’re nervous?” an instructor asked.
“Huh?” I asked.
“It says here that you’re nervous,” he said.
“I’m not nervous!” I exclaimed. I didn’t yet understand. What I was experiencing was so normal for me that I never questioned it as out of the ordinary. I claimed I wasn’t nervous, all while gripping the steering wheel, stiffening my body, and clenching my teeth and breathing heavily while taking a turn or parking. I also didn’t pursue my driver’s license until I was 19 years old, that’s how intimidating it was for me.
Social situations could be difficult for me in high school and college. When I attended a party, for instance, I felt like I had to drink alcohol or smoke weed just to loosen up enough to be “normal,” so I was able to talk with people I didn’t know well with ease. My older brother Larry struggled with drinking alcohol and smoking weed as well, and this was precisely why. When he didn’t do those things, he was one of the most nervous people I’d ever encountered. His anxiety could be contagious, rubbing off on me and others in our family. When he used substances, he was more easygoing and fun at first, but things later turned ugly as he encountered unsafe situations.
Being around people I don’t know continues to be challenging for me. Gatherings that involve a lot of people I don’t know feel awful, and I usually don’t stay long, afraid I’ll make a fool of myself. I also struggle with crowds and cramped spaces. I recently went to the grocery store where it was very crowded due to an upcoming holiday. I entered the narrow check-out lane to put my groceries on the belt. I then moved my shopping cart forward so the person bagging could transfer the bags over with ease. My husband was behind me, and I soon realized that behind him, there were four more people with full carts. There was no escape.
I’m stuck, I thought. Get me the fuck out of here, oh my god.
The cashier tried to make conversation with me, and I spoke with her in a hurried manner. “Thanks, bye!” Whenever anxiety affects me in social situations to the point where I need to escape immediately, I feel incredibly rude, which makes me feel more anxious. I exited the checkout lane and breathed heavily for a couple of minutes with my husband standing by me until I was able to calm down.
Today, I’m well-treated for anxiety. I take medication for it and go to therapy every week. But no matter how much anxiety medication I’m prescribed, it doesn’t feel like enough, so I have to use my coping strategies. Some folks are surprised when I say that my anxiety is now a bigger problem for me than my bipolar disorder. Now that I take medication for bipolar, periods of hypomania and depression will affect me, but not totally mess my day up.
But anxiety? Anxiety is like my elderly neighbor who’d stare me down from behind her screen door as I came and went and was just trying to live my life in peace. She’s always there, lurking and judging.
Which is why I resonated with how Anxiety was portrayed in Inside Out 2. At the beginning of the film, we learn that Riley’s a championship winner, top of her class, and kind. She also has loving parents, great friends, and believes she’s a good person. Everything should be fine, right?
Anxiety doesn’t care about any of that.
Anxiety arrives and Riley’s brain console automatically turns orange, like Anxiety, to everyone’s confusion. Anxiety then introduces herself awkwardly and speaks rapidly. “I can take notes, get coffee, manage your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things, watch you sleep…” She’s so eager to please, and Joy laughs uncomfortably and remarks that Anxiety has a lot of energy.
“My job is to protect [Riley] from the scary stuff she can’t see,” Anxiety remarks. “I plan for the future.”
One thing Anxiety wants to do is ensure that Riley will make the high school hockey team. She provides her with thoughts like, “If I’m good at hockey, I’ll have friends,” and “As long as we like what they like, we’ll have all the friends we need.” Riley then pretends to be someone she’s not to impress the girls on the high school team and alienates her best friends in the process.
The childhood emotions Joy, Fear, Disgust, Sadness, and Anger are soon exiled by Anxiety, since they are “getting in the way” of Riley’s success. Even then, the childhood emotions remark how Anxiety effectively plans for everything, down to the minute, and would have thought of every last detail while encountering challenges. Anxiety then begins to rewire Riley’s brain, making her increasingly anxious.
We see how anxiety can contribute to Riley’s success but may also contribute to her potential failure. Now, she might have a thought like, “I’m not good enough” at an inopportune time, like during a hockey scrimmage when she wants to perform at her best.
Things come to a head when Riley is placed in the penalty box after a foul during the scrimmage. Breathing heavily, the anxious thoughts don’t stop. One prominent thought is the fear that she won’t make the high school team, or that she looks stupid to her future teammates.
Anxiety becomes a tornado inside of Riley’s head. When discussing this with a woman in one of my outpatient groups that I facilitate at a psychiatric hospital, she shared how she resonated with Anxiety presenting as a tornado but showing her at the center completely frozen in place, teeth clenched. When things are that stressful, I have all these upsetting thoughts, but often feel like I can’t move. The spell is broken when Joy enters that space and says to Anxiety, “You don’t get to choose who Riley is.”
“Joy, I’m sorry, I was just trying to protect her,” Anxiety remarks. This part hit me right in the feels. From an evolutionary standpoint, our anxiety was built to protect us from all manner of threats in the wilderness. Those threats aren’t as significant now given the conveniences of modern society, but our anxiety is still there.
In a surprise move, Joy incorporates new emotions Anxiety, Envy, and Embarrassment into Riley’s sense of self, along with the old emotions. Anxiety is now part of Riley but is no longer running the show.
I love how the film portrayed anxiety as both damaging and helpful. A healthy amount of anxiety can drive you to succeed. It can also prepare you for different scenarios. I’m well-prepared for everything. My planning skills are incredible, and I’ve thought of everything to the last detail so it can be carried out perfectly. Anxiety protects me too, heightening my awareness in potentially dangerous situations or making me more suspicious of people that might not be trustworthy. It’s saved my butt quite a few times. Even though I hate how she can get out of control, I recognize that some part of me needs Anxiety and that she serves a purpose.
I now have several coping skills that help prevent my anxiety from developing into a tornado. Coping can be different for everyone, but here’s what helps me:
Meditation: I’m not religious with it as I feel I should be, but it definitely helps when things feel chaotic and calms me down. By the way, meditation didn’t work for me at first. I had racing thoughts and couldn’t focus. But I kept trying it. So don’t get discouraged. They call it a practice for a reason. It takes practice!
Mindfulness: I used to find traffic very stressful, so if I’m in traffic, I now look to the side of the road here and there and notice the trees, plants, and birds. I also listen to music as a mindful distraction.
Reminding myself that I’m safe and will eventually be out of this stressful situation. I’ve survived everything else so far!
Humor: One silly thing I do: I had a lot of anxiety at work one day over something I thought I did wrong. On the way home from work, I heard, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by R.E.M. and began singing along, mocking how I felt over such a trivial thing. I now think of this song whenever go into my, “It’s the end of the world” mode. It’s a way to remind me that it’s not the end of the world.
Preparing ahead of time so in the moment, I don’t feel rushed. I get especially stressed out if I feel rushed. So sometimes I’ll prepare my outfit and other things for the following day so I’m not late for work, for example. I also make sure to make a reservation for dinner, even if it isn’t that necessary, because waiting among a lot of people stresses me out.
Exercise: I’m also not religious with this, but MAN. If I go on a long hike or get some cardio in, I feel amazing. Being in nature is particularly soothing, which is why I love hiking. One time, when I complained to my therapist that an hour-long meditation didn’t calm me down, she suggested movement. “You need to get that energy out. Jump up and down, do jumping jacks, run, whatever,” she said. I do this if I’m able to before an important meeting I’m worried about, for example.
Distraction: This is great if I’m having intrusive thoughts or need to take my mind off things. I’ve benefited from watching a fun movie, reading, engaging in a hobby, doing housework, or taking deep dives into certain topics online, gathering whatever knowledge I could about a topic I was interested in.
Here’s an article about more anxiety coping strategies, if you’re affected by anxiety too. You’ve got this. I hope this helps!
