I don't think it's exploitation. I funnel a lot of anxiety and depression into my characters to help me cope so it makes sense you know.

The biggest thing about anxiety is in low levels, its a good thing. it keeps you away from danger, it spurs you to action when deadlines are coming. but when its in overdrive, it does these things for no reason. It senses danger when there is none, it spurs you to act when theres nothing to even do.

it makes you tense and fidgety and always on alert. its different for everyone, but for me personality makes me very sensitive to sound. any little sound, a door shutting, someone coughing, it can make me react physically or even yell in fear.

My anxiety says "RUN, save yourself, whatever that was, if we dont understand it then it means us harm." "you need to do something NOW." "are you sure you did that right? what if you didnt? you'll probably die thats what."

i deal with it in a number of ways. Medication and therapy is best. but reassuring myself slowly, and breathing exercises are great.

Anxiety does not have a sound for me, but it has a physical shape, really close to the Storm Atronach in Morrowind.
It happens with anxiety linked to overstimulation, which results in depersonalization/derealization (due to autism).
But I think it's interesting for an artist (and I should do something with it artistically, one day)

One of the things that first comes to mind, and one thing that I can't stand about anxiety is the shaking of hands. I don't know if any other people with anxiety get this, but whenever I was nervous on one of my previous jobs my hands would shake uncontrollably which really sucked because I handled food in front of customers and one actually asked, "Are you alright?" While my hands were shaking which just made it worse. XD Since then I've learned some behavioral things that prevent my hands from shaking such as replacing it with an incompatible behavior (clenching my hands so they don't shake), but man, that was one of the worst parts of my anxiety.

Another horrible things is just... Ruminating. Even when I do a fine job at accomplishing something at my job or at school, I keep thinking about how I could have done it better. I also think way too much about when people have been critical/harsh on me in the past. Those things probably shouldn't still be making me feel embarrassed like, 3 years after they happen, but here I am.

Another thing is just a reluctance to put myself in situations I've never been in/avoiding situations that will make me uncomfortable.

If I had to draw anxiety it would look like a disheveled version of myself in odd colors or Black and white and dark circles around the eyes. It doesn't have to be creepy but I would draw an alert face and would be constantly behind my back whispering "you are going to fall from the stairs" "this is awful!"

I actually call my anxiety "anxiety brain" quite often, and try to identify it as a separate voice from my own. A technique for dealing with anxiety essentially involves talking through what anxiety brain is thinking, and identifying it as not real/catastraphizing, so thinking of it as separate is what helps me do that.

How my anxiety sounds can very drastically depending upon what I'm dealing with. Low level anxiety for things like making an appointment or a phone call don't have much of a voice. It's more of a discomforting buzz that makes me want to avoid doing the thing, but gets worse the longer I put it off.

A lot of anxiety comes in the form of repeating thoughts. This could be something current or old, popping up because of what is present in ones life, or out of no where. But I think that repetition is pretty common for people with anxiety (I think of it as thoughts that go in a circle, and getting out of the circle is really hard!)

Good anxiety tends to be the kind that revolves around getting something important done/doing a good job. The anxiety pushes you to work hard. But if you have an anxiety disorder it can be way too much! I have been having this problem since I went back to school. I do everything with excellence and work really hard, but I'm often making myself sick with the amount of work, and my inability to balance it instead of going full throttle on everything. Sometimes being able to sit back and get a B instead of obsessively thinking "if I don't get an A I will surely fail!" is WAY better. XD

I have mixed feelings about this! Because a "normal" amount of anxiety is healthy and helpful, but a person with an anxiety disorder is not experiencing it in a way that is helpful or healthy. Just something to keep in mind!

Hah I can relate in a way since my comic is all about trauma, depression and anxiety.

For me anxiety is a little weird, it doesn't have a voice or form, it's more of a force. Maybe a plant, because it's like a deeply rooted primal thing in my brain that takes over, and I'm constantly fighting against in social and nerve wracking situations. Sometimes it's just noise, it can be my own voice telling me how awful I am or how badly I failed at something or how I shouldn't trust someone, other times it's this panic brought on by a feeling of total emptiness. Each one is overwhelming in it's own way.

This probably isn't helpful at all, but that's how the experience is for me. Social and general anxiety are not fun. Lol
Good luck with your character brainstorming and your story!

• I think anxiety would either be completely quiet or they would talk everyone's ears off (there's no in-between)
• On one side they would never get passed out drunk or have an overdose, but they would blow everyone's phones with messages and missed calls and voice messages if they didn't respond in less than a second, and then they would start crying because they would think they had been abandoned.
• I think their voice would be high pitched and would constantly crack, and they would either sound nervous or angry most of the time.

Have you ever played Celeste? It has some pretty heavy anxiety symbolism you might be able to take inspiration from.

Best of luck with your comic!

Anxiety personified is just a mr bubz, let's be real. 50% Screm 50% Fear. Always feeling like the world is going to end or something bad is gonna happen despite nothing happened. That is the face of neurosis.

Warning, TMI ahead. Rather rant-ish.

I turn anxiety into all kinds of characters because, well, there are so many kinds of anxiety. However, it has been such a thing in my life, it felt so normal. I didn't realise I was doing that. I didn't know I had GAD and I didn't realise I was giving my characters various features like it.

Anxiety can make you gain 50 stone, it can make you a stick. It always tries to put you into some sort of extreme and allows for no grey area. In the attempt to control these powerful instincts, your mind (without your say) can try to apply 'reasons' with 'rules' and give you OCD. Which can make things so much worse if the rules set in (regardless of how "harmless" the request is). Which they usually do, because you don't see it coming. No one is taught or trained to recognise it. "You're just shy, get over it." "You clearly don't do X enough, with enough training it will go away."

You don't realise it, but you are both obsessed with perfection but also apathy. You only have so much energy and its hard to control where it ends up (though some OCD will certainly 'help' structure some for you). Even little mistakes that you KNOW won't derail the project but its YOUR FAULT, YOU FUCK WHY DONT YOU JUST DIE.

Agreeing with SleepingPoppy about making Anxiety a misunderstood friend. Clinical anxiety has destroyed a lot of my life. Its the main reason I struggle to get any work. People think I'm lying (regardless of referrals) that I have all this experience because once panic sets in I will forget terms about things I know inside and out. It doesn't matter that I have 10+ years of experience. Thanks to anxiety I never had late work. Thanks to anxiety teachers thought I was a drama queen despite the fact I never spoke up because the thought of disrupting anyone made me want to kill myself.

If you want to have a "good" representation of anxiety, you NEED to have a 2nd anxiety character that represents the clinical condition. Clinical anxiety is not your friend. Its that toxic, abusive significant other that has gaslighted you into thinking you'd be useless without them. Except you can't dump them, you can't run away. You are them.

I actually did this myself in my Slice-of-Life/Comedy comic Rants and Rambles.
Since the main character is myself/my avatar and some of the things that happen are based upon my real life, and I struggle a lot with my anxiety always turning things into "what-ifs", I thought it would be prudent to represent this.

I knew one thing going in:
Even though it causes me trouble, the anxiety I experience is a part of me, and despite being way too over-active, it is there to help protect me. Therefor, it should reflect my avatar in some fashion.

In the end, what I came up with was an inverted version of my avatar (inverted to show that it's a part of myself) that regularly "glitches", and the glitches get worse the worse the anxiety is (it glitches in order to show that, despite being a part of me that is meant to help me survive, it is far worse than it should be, and is thus "broken" or "glitchy".)

My normal (chibi) avatar:

Anxiety, dubbed "Glitch" to make conversations about it easier:


(Note: While Glitch may appear to not have a border, he really does. The border simply does not appear on the forum's white background, as when black is inverted it turns white.)

I don't know if this will help you, hopefully it does, but it probably won't.