(Spoiler alert: this article might include information perceived as a spoiler of Inside Out 2.)

Have you ever been so anxious about a thing that didn’t even happen? Have you ever had a headache caused by stress? Have you ever experienced a midnight you couldn’t go to bed because of all the worries about the future? Well, I have. And this movie, Inside Out 2, told me that it is actually okay for me to have all those worries. So, I want to introduce this movie especially to every teenagers, who struggle to define their emotions and hate what they are feeling and thinking.

Puberty

Inside Out 1 and 2 both talk about emotions. The second film focuses on new emotions related to puberty. Puberty is a phase of rapid growth, at the end of which the body reaches reproductive maturity and the growth of other body systems. Because of maturity and growth, teenagers experience physical and emotional changes. Newly grown hairs, changed body shape, and lowered voice due to puberty might be awkward in the beginning, but it is not hard to get used to them. The hard part is an emotional change. Young humans, who never had any deep thought before, become more aware of their own feelings and the feelings of others. Their emotional worlds expand with a lot of new emotions and react to every situations more sensitively.

In the movie, the main character Riley has emotions in her mind. As puberty starts for her, she grows quickly, starts to stink, and pays more attention on friendship. When new emotions arrive to her, she faces a huge emotional change. Four new emotions are Anxiety, Envy, Embarrasement, and Innui. Every new emotions have their own roles, but Anxiety is one that works as a main mind-controller and an adversary of Joy in the movie. Also, Anxiety causes what I explained on the first three questions of this article. Why is it Anxiety and does it only cause problems?

Anxiety

Anxiety is a common emotion due to hormonal fluctuations, brain development, and social pressures during puberty. Like it is introduced in the movie, this emotion looks ahead of the future and works to be prepared for possible situations. Anxiety can help to make a plan and be better prepared. However, it also can cause more stress about the future and making the best decision.

Concerns about the future only exist in people’s mind, but anxiety tends to make that imagination seems true. Based on my experience, anxiety made me to think about the worst situation I could face. The fear of failing, losing rivalry, and being unsuccessful swallowed me sometimes. I hated myself to think negative and worry about useless stuffs, because I knew that there are more positive things surrounding my life than negativity. I wanted to stop being anxious and get back to a normal mindset. However, I couldn’t do that, because it was also normal for being that anxious as a teenager.

Based on Johns Hopkins Medicine, feeling anxious is part of the normal range of emotions, just like feeling angry or embarrassed. The most of people live together with their own anxiety and they get to learn how to control and stop it, meaning that people become skillful with controlling anxiety through their experiences. So, it is completely normal for teenagers without much experience with regulating their emotions to be unable to control their anxiety. In addition, brain regions associated with the desire for attention, feedback, and reinforcement from peers become more sensitive during adolescent development. Meanwhile, the brain regions involved in self-control have not fully matured. This demonstrates how encountering new situations and creating new human relationships as an emotionally inexperienced teenager with ongoing brain development can lead to a lot of worries and anxieties. Even if you have no problematic life, you can easily experience anxiety, and there is nothing wrong with it.

The movie shows Anxiety becoming an unstoppable tornado and making Riley to face a hard time. In the scene, Anxiety seems like a villian made to destroy a happy ending. However, Anxiety is not an emotion created to destroy; it has been created to make a better result in the future. All emotions have their roles and Anxiety just tried its best to fullfill its role and make Riley happy. So, we don’t need to hate ourselve for being anxious. Anxiety is a normal emotion that can happen to anyone and it just happens more often for teenagers getting through a mental development.

Teenagers have things to take care about other than their emotional change, including friends, school, grades, family, and more. Therefore, many people feel annoying to take care of emotion and consider resolving emotional issue as an unimportant thing. But, when people leave anxiety to keep growing up and control their mind, it will eventually become a tornado that hurt themselve, like Anxiety from Inside Out 2. So, it is important to not ignore anxiety and take care of it.

After watching this movie, I was comforted by the fact that my anxiety existed to make me happy, and I could eventually accept anxiety as one of the normal emotions. I learned that it is not my own problem nor Anxiety’s problem to have emotional issues; it is a regular part of development during puberty to be an adult with a grown mind. When I feel anxious again, I will not be able to suddenly stop being anxious, but I will be able to stop being stressful about being anxious, because now I know what is Anxiety. If people pay more attention on themselve and others struggling to accept anxieties, there will be more people who get to know that it is okay to live together with Anxiety.

This article was edited by Ipek Unal.