There are times when my language abilities fall short.
The resounding silence after a cabbie and I decided that Spanish would solve our communication logjam.
The recent encounter with a Ukrainian fellow, visibly brightening to hear his home language, only to have me forget the word for “cat.”
My child’s indelible memory of an embarrassing exchange with a Venezuelan Uber driver over whether the bright lights of an Orlando hotel were a Disney “parque?”
Even in English, when it comes to mental health, I often feel my language skills aren’t up to snuff. Fred Rogers — of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” — and “Sesame Street” did their best with me, but I was more likely to take away shoe-tying tips and whatever was brought to me by the “Letter K” than understanding difficult emotions.
I’m happy that younger generations are developing that vocabulary — even to the extent emotional machinery gave rise to the highest grossing animated feature film of all time.
“Inside Out II,” which came out this summer, raked in more than the “Barbie” blockbuster last year.
While you can make the case that any story worth the price of admission contains some kind of inner conflict, journey or development, the “Inside Out” films, true to their name, break it down by giving emotions “main character” energy.
The first movie in 2015 follows tween Riley through the upheaval that comes from a family move, giving voice to battling emotions of Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black), and Fear (Bill Hader), tackling the false “Joy-above-all-else” narrative, and showing how feared emotions contribute to growth.
Riley is 13 in this summer’s chapter, when Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Envy (Ayo Edebiri) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) enter the big-screen picture. As a teen-parent I found it extremely entertaining. But what I appreciated even more was that the movie, underpinned by social-personality and psychology consultants, didn’t stop at language. Because as we, as a society, acquire the language of mental health, language can be misused, creating even more fear around certain emotions.
Instead of doing the easy thing in making Anxiety the ultimate villain, “Inside Out II” did the novel thing in showing its healthy side — just as the first one showed Sadness’ relationship to Joy.
A recent BBC article makes the case for non-clinical anxiety’s benefits and how our perception of it — in research showing that recognizing its role in problem-solving and test taking — helped people turn their stomach knots “into bows.”
Like all emotions, no two people experience them the same way, and anxiety also can have serious and debilitating consequences, especially when it turns to catastrophic thinking.
But the idea of being able to “reappraise,” to recognize and question over-generalized beliefs regarding emotions, feels healthy.
As does the success of a “kids” movie based in these concepts.
Just as language crosses the threshold to communication, I have hope that what starts with words can lead to a better understanding to how we tick.
And, as in the past when language failed me, that anxiety makes a terrible translator.