To have slight concerns about Inside Out 2

[Rainallnight]

We loved Inside Out. DC are 8 and 6. 8 year old is v emotional (this is relevant).

I’ve seen a trailer for Inside Out 2, and I’m a bit concerned about the Anxiety character. I’m not keen on the current tendency to label normal worries and discomfort as ‘anxiety’, and it’s not really an idea I want to introduce to the DC (DD in particular).

What do other people think? Anyone else share my mild concern?

(NB I’ve deliberately not posted this in AIBU because I’m up for a chat about this not a big row. Thanks)

So you don’t ever feel anxious, so you think nobody should?

And that talking about anxiety might be a bad thing. That giving an emotion a name might cause people to experience it?

My mind is blown.

@PandaRosie That’s great that you never worry, but surely you must be aware that’s quite unusual? You will I’m sure be aware that feeling nervous about a job interview/driving test/medical procedure/going on stage is perfectly normal and something that most people will have experienced at some point.

I haven’t seen the film but from others’ descriptions, it sounds fine to me.

Children need to know that worrying (aka feeling anxious) is a normal human emotion, just like sadness, joy and anger. Almost all humans will experience these feelings at some point in their lives.

Anxiety as a persistent problem that gets in the way of someone living their life is different. It’s still a normal human emotion but in this case it is excessive and out of proportion and has therefore become a mental health problem.

Agree that lots of young people these days are jumping on the anxiety bandwagon, but it sounds to me like this film has exactly the right message: feeling anxious as a response to stressful life events is ok and normal!

‘Worry’ is different from ‘anxiety’ IMO and ‘anxiety’ much better captures the emotions being portrayed.

it sounds like you might be worried about the current and/or future mental wellbeing of your DC1. And might think that things in popular culture that you might deem to be ‘overdiagnosing’ or saying things about MH that you disagree with might somehow give DC ideas about their experience, ideas that you dislike or think could be bad for DC.

Seeing things like this seems unlikely to impact on DCs in that kind of way IMO.

People don't get diagnosed with "anxiety" they get diagnosed with an anxiety disorder which is when it gets out of control. When people say "I have anxiety" that is what they mean, we are getting caught up in semantics.

Anxiety is a normal part of everyone's brain and helps to keep us safe and consider consequences. If that becomes overwhelming it is an anxiety disorder.

I find it ironic that everyone is saying they don't have anxiety but are all worried about showing a children's film to children.

This idea that anxiety is a terrible word and somehow by using it people might catch it or start using it as an excuse not to do stuff is ridiculous and really ignorant. Of course there are some people who swing the lead and use anything to help them do so, anxiety is a word frequency misused however this doesn't mean we have to pretend it doesn't exist.

If you have never suffered with an anxiety disorder then you are lucky and it doesn't mean you might have a mental health issue in the future. My husand was the most resilient person I knew, until he wasn't and he was very unwell for some years, all as a result of a horrendous work situation. He also said today he wished someone had explained anxiety to him years ago, like the film, then maybe he would have managed to recognise the signs that he was struggling before it got to the stage it did. Ignoring things and shielding people from things doesn't mean they don't exist.

Anxiety is a normal emotion, an anxiety disorder is not.

Exactly.

Ironically OP seems anxious about her DC seeing portrayals of certain emotions and stories.

I haven’t seen it but I first had panic attacks around age 19 and think the inside out character is a great idea as I thought I was dying the first time and had no idea what a panic attack was.

Anxiety and worry as English words can be interchangeable and relate to mild or severe worry/anxiety but the word anxiety is also used to mean anxiety disorder by psychiatrists. So everyone is right here about that.

Yes there's a researcher at Oxford who's been saying exactly this

Her premise js that using labels of anxiety leads children to think that that is their identity/ they can't evolve past it.

19 was when started my panic attacks too, and I really thought i was going to die as well! They arr so scary if you don't know what they are. I wish I had known I would never have ended up having the experiences I did if I had just been informed earlier.

I think this might be 2 separate issues. Labelling doesn't help, but accepting that it is a normal part of life does

Yes I've given a very simplistic explanation of her position.

Was looking for her article on anxiety and saw this which is also interesting

x.com/drlucyfoulkes/status/1796228097869521051?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Article I was thinking of

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/09/psychologist-anxiety-personality-trait-children-sick

I don’t think anxiety is a normal emotion to feel all the time or even weekly, it should be worry and not anxiety.

This strikes a chord with me because worry was the most overused word in my childhood. I heard Oh She’s just a worrier so many times and was constantly saying I’m worried about this or I can’t stop worrying about that. It was certainly not normal to worry so much and I got diagnosed with severe anxiety at 15 and it was a relief to be honest to stop brushing it under the carpet and minimising it by calling it “worrying”.
At the time (25 years ago) there was a huge stigma around the word anxiety. Being diagnosed (by a psychiatrist) helped me to understand myself and obviously I got treatment which also helped, but if I said it to people generally they didn’t know what I was talking about, or they got embarrassed or they were wary and judgemental of me. These days if I was to mention it to people generally, I suffer from anxiety they will be more understanding generally but I often get “oh, don’t we all!” Or So does my sister/ neighbour/ nephew… or have I tried this/ have I done that.
Also you can’t get near a community psychiatrist anymore, far more people are getting diagnosed which is good but it’s also harder for everybody to access treatment and waiting lists are unbelievably long which is obviously not good and a massive problem.
Im rambling and don’t even know what my point is 😅 I suppose it’s that based on my experience, “raising awareness “ of these things is generally good but can be counterproductive. People need to understand the distinction between worry/ normal anxiety and excessive/ problem anxiety. I’ve not seen Inside Out 2 (or one for that matter). I may look into it because my dd has been asking to go see it. But I really hope that it’s not one of those things that contributes to people confusion about what anxiety actually is rather than explaining it. I think it’s important to teach children about emotions, both their own experience of emotions and other peoples and what’s normal/ what isn’t, how to manage emotions in a healthy way and what to do when you can’t but I do think people sometimes forget that kids are kids, you can’t overload them with information and it needs to be very clear.

Interesting, my ten year old saw it and eh well wasn't impressed with the film in general but to be fair I had sat through Dune for him.

His school does a lot of work on emotional health, he would use the word worry about when he knows the problem or concern and anxious or anxiety when he may have a vague idea what could be causing the feeling but it isn't defined as obvious.

Now huge drip feed, his father has severe MH issues so he has a lot more knowledge and insight than a typical ten year old. But I do wonder if the language used is coming from education resource materials that uses my sons differential ?

I would say it definitely provides a really clear explanation, one that I really appreciated and came away from the film feeling really grateful. I do feel really strongly about this which is why I've posted so many times on this thread lol, but honestly, I wish I could do my life over again knowing what I know now about how anxiety can be helpful as long as it is kept under control in that it is simply there to consider our safety and consequences of decisions etc but if it gets too much it can be harmful. That is literally what the film shows you. I think it's really important for children and parents to have this understanding.

If you are telling people that anxiety is not normal, you've never had and anyone who does is simply less resilient than you then you run the risk of making your child very anxious indeed. This is the way I was treated. I was screamed at for crying for example, and when I needed help for PND in my 20s I was told by my parents that I must not seek help as it wouldn't do to have a mental health "black mark" on my records. Just unbelievable. I'm not saying that this is what people on this thread are doing, but you do need to be so careful when acknowledging things that are simply a normal part of our psyche.

The film deals with this concept exactly.

The message is "hey kids, this is anxiety, when it goes into overdrive it's not helpful. But look, it's a part of us just like joy, sadness, anger and it's not allowed to drive us or redefine us'

So OP if you don't want DC to be ruled by anxiety then this is the PERFECT film.

It's also a great shared reference as a way into conversations around growing up. DD(9 and also very emotional) and I have already spoken about how she recognised a scene when every tiny move by each emotion resulted in a HUGE reaction by Riley.

Honestly, it will deal with your concerns directly and in the exact way it should

There's anxiety and there's anxiety disorders. Two different things

I agree that the word “anxiety” is misused as is “depressed”and “ocd”. All minimise actual mental health diagnosis and encourage the public to think those with a genuine mental health condition are the same as someone who is just saying they feel perfectly normal situational worry or sadness or like things tidy.
I think it is in part due to the adoption of terms originally used in america having changed our use of language.
My old psychologist actually recommended Inside Out 1 as a very useful way to understand emotions. I watched it and thought it was fairly good.
My young friend who is at university tells me that many of her cohorts regularly say they have anxiety just to get extensions on essays etc.
This type of behaviour damages those of us with genuine long term conditions which affect every area of our lives rather than as an excuse for not being a functional and productive person.

The word ‘anxious’ has been used as a synonym for ‘worried’ since well before anxiety disorder was seen as a medical condition (I just looked it up and the word dates back to the mid 16th century apparently). So why can’t we continue to use ‘anxious’ and ‘anxiety’ in this traditional, everyday meaning without being told we are misusing medical terms?

Anxiety and Anxiety disorder are two very different things. The character in inside out 2 is Anxiety which is not a mental illness

We took our sensitive 8 year old to see it today and I think it was a good idea. At the end of the film it is recognised that sometimes you may sometimes feel anxious but it doesn't have to rule over everything. There is a much better balance of emotions by the conclusion.

DH actually has anxiety and works in mental health so encouraging resilience in our DC is something we value and actually both the first film and the new one are helpful conversation starters about dealing with big emotions.

Went to see it today with teens & 10 and everyone enjoyed it.
The message is that it's normal to get anxious about things but if anxiety is in charge /all you're feeling that's a problem.
I really liked that when the kid had a panic attack she was seen to do the senses thing as she came out of it (what can I feel, smell, see, hear).

My 13 pointed out that the adults's emotions all have their own desks & all work together v.s the kids emotions who fight for control of the console (& the "puberty" emotions don't have their own desks in adults)

I saw it today as well!

I liked that they didn’t use the term panic attack so it didn’t pathologise getting overwhelmed.

They don’t make Anxiety into a disorder in the same way they don’t make Sadness into depression.

Riley hits puberty, she needs more complex emotions to navigate life and as someone that struggles with anxiety it can be a beneficial process.

Younger children live very much in the present with simple feelings - the new emotions relate to her feelings about how she is perceived by other people - and what she can accomplish.

The overriding theme in this movie is not the old/new emotions but Beliefs and a Sense of Self. If you think everything’s great or everything is awful - then you don’t get a chance to grow. They show anxiety, envy, ennui and embarrassment as a way to help guide what sort of person you want to become.

It wasn’t a brilliant movie like the first one, a bit too preachy. But can help with kids and discussion going forwards. But I much prefer Turning Red for puberty/friendships/emotion etc.

Feeling anxious is a completely normal, and arguably healthy, emotion and one tweens and teens will experience - exams/boyfriends or girlfriends/falling out with mates/getting into trouble with parents etc

It's important tweens and teens learn to recognise and deal with it as an emotion along with all the other emotions.

Being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder is completely different - and, again, is important that teens have some tools to be able to distinguish between feeling anxious about a situation or feeling anxious more than they should and needing to seek help.

Haven’t seen either film but I think this blurring is the crux.
Worry is what you describe- an appropriate reaction to events. Anxiety doesn't have a focus. Labelling childrens’ worries as being anxious is really harmful.