Feeling Seen: A Maryland Counseling Intern’s Reflections on Inside Out 2’s Depiction of Anxiety
NOTE: The blog below contains spoilers for Inside Out 2. Please proceed at your own caution.
“My job is to protect her from the scary stuff she can’t see.”
In 2024, Pixar Animation Studios released a sequel to their 2015 hit film, Inside Out, which tackled themes of childhood emotions. Inside Out 2 expands on this world within a young girl’s head by adding a wave of new emotions to the picture during the difficult transition from middle school to high school. Notably, Anxiety was included as one of the newly featured emotions, sparking many discussions about mental health among moviegoers. Whether you are someone who struggles with anxiety on a daily basis, knows someone who constantly faces anxiety, or are curious about how to manage those bouts of anxiety we all face, Inside Out 2 provides a strong and beautiful characterization of anxiety.
How Inside Out 2’s character, Anxiety, replicates feelings of anxiety in real life
When she is introduced, Anxiety immediately begins changing the balance of Riley Anderson’s mind, throwing Riley’s other emotions into disarray. She acts impulsively, plans far into the future, sees every possible scenario… it is a big shift from what Riley’s core emotions are used to! Anxiety herself moves in a sporadic way. It is hard to follow her every action on the screen, as she moves from one corner to the next. A lot of these qualities are very reminiscent of a typical experience with anxiety. People can feel overwhelmed and confused, like their mind is running a million miles per hour or they are frozen in place. In many ways, the initial characterization of Anxiety is a very realistic picture of what many anxious people experience on a day-to-day basis.
Anxiety is not our enemy
As the film progresses, Anxiety starts to become the antagonist of the movie. She throws out Riley’s sense of self and locks up Riley’s original emotions to prevent them from restoring it. The interesting thing about this depiction though, is that while Anxiety is directly opposed to Joy and the other core emotions, never once is she actually a “villain” like we typically see in kids’ movies. She’s actually the opposite. Anxiety seeks to help Riley, to protect her. This is something Joy has to learn throughout the film. Anxiety has Riley’s best interests at heart as much as Joy does, however, her methods stem from a place of fear and worry.
This portrayal of Anxiety fits well with what many people experience daily with anxiety in the real world. Anxiety can often feel antagonizing, as if it is holding you back and destroying who you are. But the interesting thing about anxiety is that, while it can feel like a personal villain, it actually serves to protect you.
The film reaches its climax with a poignant panic attack scene. During an exhibition hockey game, Riley gets benched by her coach and begins to panic on the sidelines. All of a sudden, Anxiety begins to create this tornado of worry around the “Control Panel” in Riley’s mind. None of the other emotions can even approach her. As Riley continues to panic, Anxiety’s tornado grows stronger and stronger. Things begin to feel hopeless until Joy breaks through the wall that Anxiety had built.
When she gets inside, she finds Anxiety frozen. Paralyzed by fear. This moment provides one of the most poignant and real parts of the film. Anxiety can easily take control of how we feel and cause us to panic and overthink. Yet, we simultaneously feel frozen, as if we cannot do anything to stop this whirl of emotion. This dichotomy of feeling the world rushing and falling apart around us, yet being so unable to do anything about it is very real and illustrative of what people with anxiety disorders face on a day-to-day basis.
Learning to manage anxiety with emotional regulation and coping skills
Joy eventually convinces Anxiety that she does not have to change Riley and face the future alone, allowing the panic attack to end and the other emotions to help regulate Riley’s current emotional state. As the film nears its end, the emotions learn to work together and manage Riley’s day-to-day. Anxiety becomes another part of Riley: something that is always there but might need help being understood sometimes. Again, this part feels very realistic in terms of how anxiety manifests in people’s lives. Anxiety is something we all have, something that is always there. We learn to cope and manage our Anxiety, but that doesn’t make the moments where it appears any less daunting.
Inside Out 2 builds upon the focus of childhood emotions and expands to include new emotions, namely Anxiety, that people face as they grow up. The portrayal of Anxiety in this film is very humanizing and realistic. Anxiety appears as a frantic, overthinking, and impulsive character, whose unorthodox ways of helping Riley cause the other emotions to take a step back. However, through her complex depiction, it becomes clear that Anxiety is just as real and difficult to navigate as any other emotion. For anyone struggling with their own anxiety, lost in an abyss of worry, or having trouble managing a difficult transition, Inside Out 2 is a great film to watch to feel seen and even begin to understand your own anxiety.
Inside Out 2 was directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Pixar Animation Studios
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Written by: Jackson Borchers, Counseling Intern at LifeSpring Counseling Services
