Anxiety symptoms when watching anime

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Hey everyone. If you knew me in real life you’d know that anime is a huge part of my life and has been since I was 3 years old. As I grew up that love stayed and I would watch at minimum 5-6 new shows each season and net a lot of friends through the medium.  I could tell you who directed what and who did the key animation for this scene and so on. 

 

However after stopping Clonazepam I stopped watching anime and a lot of my other hobbies. At first I thought it was because of my eye symptoms and kept avoiding it. I’d tell myself “Well I can’t enjoy it to the full extent right now anyway”. As time has gone on it’s been worrying me to go this long without doing something I love so I’d try to watch something and each time I’d get the same symptoms. I’d get hot flashes, sweating and palpitations and my fog would get worse.

 

I even tried today and picked something mellow and made sure it was something I’ve already seen before but I still get those symptoms. This might sound trivial but it’s making it hard to want to go on and is very distressing to me. I feel like the longer I avoid it the bigger of a problem it’ll be, like I’m making it a bigger problem the more I don’t do it to where it becomes a big deal when I try if that makes sense.

 

The only thing I watch now is crappy reality shows and theirs tons of drama and fighting and that doesn’t rev me up. I don’t understand what’s going on. I’d never think my hobbies and interests would cause me anxiety. Can anyone relate maybe with tv or with hobbies of their own?

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One thing I notice in anime is that it moves quickly.  Given how our minds can get a little 'slow' during withdrawal, I wonder if the speed of the presentation may be overloading you - especially, if you're trying to read subtitles.

 

Whadayathink?

 

(I'm currently binge-watching the Avatar/Air Bender series. Great fun!)

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One thing I notice in anime is that it moves quickly.  Given how our minds can get a little 'slow' during withdrawal, I wonder if the speed of the presentation may be overloading you - especially, if you're trying to read subtitles.

 

Whadayathink?

 

(I'm currently binge-watching the Avatar/Air Bender series. Great fun!)

 

I hope that’s the case. I’ve never really thought about the subtitle thing being an issue but it is something that is different than watching other things on tv so it could be contributing. I’m just scared this will never go. I’m still being bombarded with other symptoms but I wish at the very least I could use these hobbies as distractions to make time go by.

 

I can’t really play much video games either so I’ve kind of just avoided my hobbies all this time. I keep buying things anyway in hopes that one day I’ll get to play them.

 

I think I might actually watch Avatar if I recover. I’ve watched it as a kid but fell off of it pretty early. It’s gotten pretty popular again with people that grew up with it since it was put on Netflix I hear.

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Yeah I also really enjoyed watching anime long long time ago but cant now. I always go to the anime section in netflix to find out that I am not interested and I just go to the comedy section. Its as if I dont have the patience to watch it. Its something I cant really explain, I am interested but cant watch it. Totally understand what you might be going through. I watch comedies and laugh a lot now. I am very grateful for this though.

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  During acute withdrawals I was absolutely unable to watch reality anything.  I could only watch anime with subtitles, no real people or English language.  I usually rewatched simple long running series like hunter x hunter or Black Clover until I built myself back up to a wider anime diversity.  I have heard many others state that they could not watch any TV at all, but never really pressed anyone to describe what they could watch, what they couldn’t and why.

  Considering that my Acute withdrawal experience seems to be pretty much exactly opposite of yours, I would chalk it up to being the big ass symptom pendulum swinging back and forth.  That means it will get better as the severe pendulum swing of side effects Finds equilibrium. 

  It sucks, but it is temporary.

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Yeah I also really enjoyed watching anime long long time ago but cant now. I always go to the anime section in netflix to find out that I am not interested and I just go to the comedy section. Its as if I dont have the patience to watch it. Its something I cant really explain, I am interested but cant watch it. Totally understand what you might be going through. I watch comedies and laugh a lot now. I am very grateful for this though.

This is exactly how I feel. I can’t explain why I can’t do it but I can’t. It’s pretty distressing since it’s pretty much the only thing I watch other than reality tv.

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  During acute withdrawals I was absolutely unable to watch reality anything.  I could only watch anime with subtitles, no real people or English language.  I usually rewatched simple long running series like hunter x hunter or Black Clover until I built myself back up to a wider anime diversity.  I have heard many others state that they could not watch any TV at all, but never really pressed anyone to describe what they could watch, what they couldn’t and why.

  Considering that my Acute withdrawal experience seems to be pretty much exactly opposite of yours, I would chalk it up to being the big ass symptom pendulum swinging back and forth.  That means it will get better as the severe pendulum swing of side effects Finds equilibrium. 

  It sucks, but it is temporary.

Wow that’s interesting. None of this stuff makes much sense. I’ve been wanting to rewatch Hunter x Hunter for a long time, it’s one of my favorite shonen series!  I also watch Black Clover although I don’t know why lol I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either yet I still would watch it every week. Well until recently that is.

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I couldn’t watch tv esp Pixar (I have a kid) for a while. It caused DR terror and fog too. I have a coupe theories. One is that your limbic system is going haywire in WD and your brain is looking for something familiar and safe to latch on to. Anime may be familiar to you but it’s cartoon images and anything but realistic. It causes your limbic system to say “what the h is this?” and freak out. Perhaps this is why you can handle life action TV.

 

The other theory is that your brain is still very sensitive. It can’t handle the dopamine and Seretonin of the feel good stuff you love yet. Lots of buddies get revved up by sex and video games which are blasts of dopamine.

 

Ok I lied one more theory. Your brain recognizes it as safe and relaxing but your limbic system is still in alert mode so when you watch it your limbic system says “Why are you relaxing? Wake up we are fighting for your lives here! Don’t let down your guard! Where’s the danger?”

 

Just some thoughts but the cause really doesn’t matter as much as the fact that one day you will be able to catch up on all that anime and games you miss

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I couldn’t watch tv esp Pixar (I have a kid) for a while. It caused DR terror and fog too. I have a coupe theories. One is that your limbic system is going haywire in WD and your brain is looking for something familiar and safe to latch on to. Anime may be familiar to you but it’s cartoon images and anything but realistic. It causes your limbic system to say “what the h is this?” and freak out. Perhaps this is why you can handle life action TV.

 

The other theory is that your brain is still very sensitive. It can’t handle the dopamine and Seretonin of the feel good stuff you love yet. Lots of buddies get revved up by sex and video games which are blasts of dopamine.

 

Ok I lied one more theory. Your brain recognizes it as safe and relaxing but your limbic system is still in alert mode so when you watch it your limbic system says “Why are you relaxing? Wake up we are fighting for your lives here! Don’t let down your guard! Where’s the danger?”

 

Just some thoughts but the cause really doesn’t matter as much as the fact that one day you will be able to catch up on all that anime and games you miss

 

Thank you for this thoughtful reply. This makes me feel so much better and you’re right, at the end of the day the reason doesn’t matter. I hope you’re right and it rights itself one day. Thank you again 🙏🏼