Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterised by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physical and cognitive symptoms, such as restlessness, irritability, easy fatigue, difficulty concentrating, increased heart rate, chest pain, abdominal pain, and a variety of other symptoms that may vary based on the individual.

In casual discourse, the words anxiety and fear are often used interchangeably. In clinical usage, they have distinct meanings; anxiety is clinically defined as an unpleasant emotional state for which the cause is either not readily identified or perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable, whereas fear is clinically defined as an emotional and physiological response to a recognised external threat. The umbrella term 'anxiety disorder' refers to a number of specific disorders that include fears (phobias) and/or anxiety symptoms.

There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalised anxiety disorder, hypochondriasis, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, and selective mutism. Individual disorders can be diagnosed using the specific and unique symptoms, triggering events, and timing. A medical professional must evaluate a person before diagnosing them with an anxiety disorder to ensure that their anxiety cannot be attributed to another medical illness or mental disorder. It is possible for an individual to have more than one anxiety disorder during their life or to have more than one anxiety disorder at the same time. Comorbid mental disorders or substance use disorders are common in those with anxiety. Comorbid depression (lifetime prevalence) is seen in 20-70% of those with social anxiety disorder, 50% of those with panic disorder and 43% of those with general anxiety disorder. The 12-month prevalence of alcohol or substance use disorders in those with anxiety disorders is 16.5%.

Worldwide, anxiety disorders are the second most common type of mental disorders after depressive disorders. Anxiety disorders affect nearly 30% of adults at some point in their lives, with an estimated 4% of the global population currently experiencing an anxiety disorder. However, anxiety disorders are treatable, and a number of effective treatments are available. Most people are able to lead normal, productive lives with some form of treatment.

If we look at the base-level common symptoms or emotions present within all of the anxiety disorders that can make way for an artistic decision on a form that they can all share like I mentioned in a previous post about designating each type of cognitive disorder with a type or evolutionary species of monster like pokemon types or how each monster in monster hunter has evolutionary advantages in their appearance based on the land type they come from. The more unique symptoms can then be used to push the design in its own unique direction to promote the idea of how unique each cognitive disorder can be and why its so important to understand the differences when diagnosing.

For instance, general symptoms of anxiety disorders may include: feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge; worrying excessively; difficulty concentrating; restlessness; and irritability.

With selective mutism having further unique symptoms a person who is normally capable of speech does not speak in specific situations or to specific people. Selective mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety. People with selective mutism stay silent even when the consequences of their silence include shame, social ostracism, or even punishment. 

Looking at the general symptoms and the commonality of these types of cognitive disorders I think of smaller creatures often seen as prey, constantly scurrying around avoiding predators, by small I don't wish to condescend sufferers into believing their disorder is less significant than others but if the conditions were monsters/creatures and highly common they would take up more space in the world, perhaps their abundance would lead to them creating colonies or like the goldfish theory of fish growing to the size of their environment - if there is a singular fish in a large aquarium it gets all of the available resources and can grow to a larger maximum size compared to if it shared the environment with others or was placed in a smaller tank. Noting that these creatures would most likely be prey rather than predators through the symptoms of nervousness and worrying excessively, I can infer certain design choices such as the anatomy of the creature.

And this is just the eyes, we can think about the size and placement of the ears, what teeth they may have depending on diet, skin patterns for camouflage, how their limbs may look depending on how they may have to react to predators and environment and speed and reaction times they have evolved to encompass into their anatomy.

This can be evidenced in design choices with something as simple as Pokemon.

Even after changing from a prey-like form to a more predatory one, some design choices are kept to retain a sense of evolution with one form coming from the other. Same lip style and three-pronged fins as well as two elongated whiskers.