WHY?

I created The Anxiety Files to acknowledge how extremely intense and debilitating anxiety can be for some of us. I wanted to approach it in a light-hearted, optimistic way, offering people an alternative to the countless apps, websites, journals, and even medications that have been created in hopes of aiding peoples anxiety.

I really want to send the message to others who struggle with anxiety, that, “you are not alone”. This project is really personal to me, because it’s based on my own journey with anxiety, and incorporates some of the things I wish I had been told when I was struggling the most.

While the main goal of my project was to help aid anxiety for as many people as possible I also wanted to create a bit of a social commentary, similar to some of the exhibits I saw abroad in Scandinavia questioning societal expectations and the consequences of invalidating mental health. As women, we are constantly told in one way or another that what we’re doing is “not enough”, inevitably leading to the dooming feeling that you yourself are not enough as an individual and probably never will be with the way new expectations keep piling up on top of us, many of which aren’t even in our control. To me at least, this feels like a never-ending, metaphorical to-do list, and it is exhausting. It is always on my mind, and this is why I decided it would be a perfect topic to tackle for my Capstone project. I think it sums up my four years at Boulder very well, digging into the more unseen side of anxiety and juggling it as a busy college student. I also find it fitting, because I started out in the psychology major my freshman year here before transferring into environmental design, and tend to always be drawn to projects that relate to mental health. 

Anxiety disorders are actually the most common mental health condition globally, with an estimated 301 million people worldwide who live with it everyday (World Health Organization, 2022). Such a high statistic is surprising given society’s painfully low urgency to address it; Anxiety is not talked about enough as a serious mental health issue. 

When originally deciding what to do for my Capstone, as it was a “value-based” project,  I defined my values as balance and self-care, which are two things I constantly struggle with as a full time college-student and design major. Anxiety is a huge obstacle for me in all aspects of my life, but it especially shows up here.

As I began my research, I started to realize that all of the precedents I was picking were all revolving around societal standards, and impossible-feeling pressures put in place for me by members of society who should have control over my life yet they do in the form of Anxiety. Many of the approaches I wanted to pursue questioned societal expectations and exposed me to other people who may not struggle as much with anxiety about how much these can wear on you and attack your confidence and even physical health, which is something either people don’t realize or just don’t acknowledge/ talk about. 

Part of what made me want to focus my project around anxiety is the lack of awareness around it. It’s crazy to me that to some people, the term anxiety only goes as far as, say, the accelerated heart rate they might feel right before a difficult exam, or the adrenaline race before a race, or something more along the lines of social anxiety, such as public speaking– at the time of this project it went so far beyond that for me.

Here are some of my precedents; I was inspired by social commentary exhibits I saw abroad like the Shop of Basic Needs by Tero Puha (left). A lot of other inspiration entailed forms of graphic design that are almost romanticizing mental health in a way that makes the topic more approachable, some by SDH Paints (right).

Based on these precedents, I created a vision board to set the tone for my project….