Reading week research
During reading week I looked at researching anxiety using YouTube short films, ted talks, NHS symptoms different types of anxiety as well as peoples personal experiences with anxiety in order to get a better understanding of anxiety so that I can portray it well in my game. and using that research I was trying to answer the question what does anxiety feel like?
Anxiety research
​
Source: Earthbound films YouTube (Chris - living with anxiety)
​
- over 40 million people in the USA suffer from anxiety disorders
- Voice undertones
- Throwing up
- Inability to do certain things they wanna do
- Nervous in public situations (have to talk to people they don't know)
- lay in bed a lot
- close out from social situations (e.g. family)
- maintaining relationships is difficult
- self blame (believe everything is their fault in some way)
- Leg spasms (shaking)
- heart sinking feeling
Continued research
​
Source: Living with high functioning anxiety TEDx YouTube talk by Jordon Raskopauks
​
- Timid, nervous wreck
- lost for words
- scared in particular scenarios (e.g. Jordon is scared in small groups/situations but is quite comfortable talking to a room of people)
- Trembles
- Word slurring/stuttering
- Eyes begin to water (nervousness)
- Don't go to social accessions alone (fear)
- Trouble making eye contact
- Ask very few questions
- Make excuses to leave (leaves people to think your rude)
- Often speechless (worry too much about others feelings/reactions)
- Never relaxing (even when procrastinating never relax as think about the thing your procrastinating)
- Thrive when focused on one thing
- Most anxious when idle (possible anxious animation when idle????)
- Petrified of talking on the phone
- pacing back and forth
- worried people are watching and judging you
- So afraid of failure (often high achievers)
- simple tasks require huge amounts of mental energy
- if have a long list of tasks, will worry about all of them, procrastinate and get none of them done
- people with high functioning anxiety usually work/interact quite well in society
​
​
Types Of anxiety
​
Source: Mental Health UK (Types of anxiety - Mental Health UK (mentalhealth-uk.org))
​
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - you feel excessive, unrealistic worry and tension with little to no reason
​
Panic Disorder - You feel sudden, intense fear that brings on a panic attack you may break out into a sweat, have chest pain, pounding heartbeat, feel like choking/neck tightening or like your having a heart attack.
​
Social anxiety - Also called social phobia and this is when you feel overwhelmed, worry and are self-conscious about social situations
​
Phobias - (e.g. Arachnophobia - fear of spiders) fear of a specific object or situation, the fear goes beyond what's appropriate and may cause you to avoid situations e.g. going in certain rooms out of fear of spiders like a garage.
​
Agoraphobia - fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult. Or situations where help wouldn’t be available if things go wrong. (e.g. being in a crowded space like a concert crowd)
​
Separation anxiety - feel very anxious or fearful when a person close to you leaves your sight you may worry something may happen to your loved one more than often that worry is bad (e.g. fear of their death or fear of them cheating if they are a partner etc.)
In order to Better answer that question as well as looking at talks and peoples stories on YouTube and medical websites I also spoke to a few people in my life that I know suffer from anxiety and asked them (with their consent) to describe to me as to what anxiety feels like for them as what I have deducted from my research thus far is that anxiety is a very personal thing and affects everyone differently.
Person 1
The first person I spoke to described their anxiety as random itchy skin when worried that feel like a bug is crawling on their skin, this is intensified when this person sees spiders (possible arachnophobia). They also voiced that they suffer from intrusive and sometimes suicidal thoughts during anxious episodes as well as inability to concentrate on stuff properly and irritability.
​
They also told me that they suffer from stage fright anxiety when in front of a big group of people, they said that they tremble, stutter, slur and forget words as well as having thoughts of people judging them, inability to make eye contact and what they described as a heart sinking feeling and eye watering when talking in front of people for too long.
they said this limits their ability to do certain things especially they mentioned performances like plays during childhood.
​
Person 2
This person has described that they have received help from doctors in the past and their doctors believe they have borderline personality disorder (a personality disorder characterized by severe mood swings, impulsive behavior, and difficulty forming stable personal relationships.) which they are told is often accompanied by anxiety.
​
They also conveyed to me that their level of anxiousness changes with their mood with moist severe anxiety attacks coming from sad or angry mood points which also leads to them throwing up. They also get intrusive thoughts like the other person I spoke too said however this person described the experience as "thoughts I can actually physically feel in the back of my head which causes me to scratch my scalp" This person has also had a history with self harm which could be linked to their condition.
​
Person 3
The last person I spoke too said that their anxiety stems from social gatherings (social anxiety) which can effect them even in learning environments like lectures. They say that before they start to worry their heart starts racing and that their head feels heavy like theirs nothing going on inside other than the worry they feel.
​
they say they get a thought that tells them to "turn back, make a reason to leave" and that sometimes they have embraced that thought and acted on the impulse and feels like a very primal flight reflex to a situation they find un comfortable. after social gatherings have happened they still feel anxious and don't feel relieve like you'd imagine they would no they still have their heart racing but the heaviness of the head is gone instead they have doubts coming and going rapidly, they say in extreme cases it makes it hard for them to stand, speak and even breath.
​
I think that this research helped me realize how different anxiety actually is for different people and how difficult it will be to convey these within my major foci which is mechanics but I believe if I stick to portraying the experiences that people who I've studied have in common I can portray a experience of anxiety that's factually accurate to a lot of peoples experiences