I’ve wanted to talk for So Long about the portrayal of anxiety in YOI but I’ve been having so much trouble putting together what I want to say in the most effective manner. I kept trying to come at this in a more analytical fashion, but considering that this is such a personally important topic to me, I’m going to try a more emotional approach. Something I don’t normally do.
So really, to start off, I wanna say that I’m so damn thankful for the way Yuuri is written. Really, seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever had the ability to relate more to character; Yuuri is close to a mirror of my own experiences with anxiety and it’s so fantastic to have a model of development and growth for me and people like me. I found the portrayal to be frighteningly accurate, from types of thoughts, behaviors, mannerisms… I think the episode that stood out to me the most in terms of Yuuri’s anxiety was ep7, aka Yuuri’s on-screen panic attack episode.
The first thing I noticed was this:
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in that exact position. I bounce my legs when I panic, just like Yuuri is doing here. Head in his hands, breathing heavily, bouncing and jostling limbs. This isn’t the Mary-Sue cutesy portrayal of anxiety–this is a real anxiety disorder. It’s not pretty. It’s not easy. It can’t be fixed with a single word or a touch or a person. Quite frankly, it’s ugly and you lose control of your body.
The next thing I saw in that episode was this line, which I don’t see talked about very often:
I know!
I’ve always thought that people think in separate forms: intellectually and emotionally. There’s a saying that the longest road is from the mind to the heart, and it’s really true. I intellectually understand that my friends and girlfriend like me, but I’m not at a point yet where I can emotionally understand that. Yuuri intellectually understands that Victor genuinely likes him and doesn’t want to quit, but he hasn’t emotionally grasped it yet. I’ve never seen anything portray anxiety like that; all the countless doubts flying through your mind at full speed that completely contradict what you know, but goddammit, they’re so loud and so frequent, you can’t help but believe it on some level.
The reason Victor fucks up so bad in this scene is that he doesn’t fully understand what anxiety does and sounds like. Also, he was panicking himself and didn’t think it through, but that’s beside the point. I’m sure Victor adopts some of his coaching ideas from Yakov, and one of them is tough love. Yakov clearly cares about his skaters, but he pushes and pushes and pushes and Victor can respond to that with positive results. Victor makes the mistake of assuming tough love and pressure works for everyone.
Oops, it doesn’t.
One of the most beneficial things you can do for a person with anxiety–in my own personal experience, that is–is to just be with them. I don’t need a lot, really, I don’t. I just need the people who love me to stand with me, beside me, a solid support, believe in me when I can’t believe in myself. Yuuri says that, too, which is really great.
Yuuri is also guilty of avoidance behavior and, honestly, me as hell.
Yuuri is locked in his own mind; he’s scared, doesn’t know how to deal with the problem, and finds himself thoroughly overwhelmed. Yuuri is a competitive person, but anxiety causes a fight or flight instinct–and Yuuri defaults to flight. Same honey, same.
I’d like to take a moment to address the Minami one specifically, though. Not only does Yuuri not believe he is worthy of such attention, he believes that he hasn’t accomplished much at all in his life. Yuuri can only see the goals he sets for himself; he’s always desperately reaching forward, so much so that he can’t see the massive journey he’s made behind him. Yuuri refers to everything the year before–and possibly in reference to his skating before Victor’s coaching–as his ‘dark past.’
And then Minami corrects him by saying this:
I think that’s a massive testament to how drastically warped Yuuri views his own life to the way others do. It’s much too easy to compare one’s insides to another’s outsides, but that’s dangerous–Yuuri thinks that if he doesn’t do everything 100% correctly and perfectly all the time, he’s not worthy of any praise or prize. I have the same issue.
All in all, Yuuri doesn’t mean to be an ass: he just doesn’t know how to address Minami so his flight instinct kicks in and he avoids. It isn’t something fully conscious, I think, it’s just a natural instinct to do this so Yuuri does it without thinking it through.
He avoids Victor in ep4 for the same reasons. Yuuri is under a lot of pressure, he feels precarious, and he doesn’t know how to deal with this. Victor of course has to drag him out and get Yuuri head on to talk about what’s happening. Little side note about that, I love that Victor just sits on the beach with Yuuri until Yuuri starts talking. Victor waits. He makes it clear that Yuuri needs to talk to him, but he doesn’t invade Yuuri’s space. That’s really amazing. When I got together with my girlfriend, she very gently yet firmly had me say what I wanted in my own time. It’s important that I–and Yuuri, too–have the experience of being vulnerable so that I know if it happens again it won’t kill me.
Also also, this is supported by less evidence and more speculation on my part, but it’s been heavily implied that Yuuri really has little to no romantic or sexual experience:
(Translation note: the term used in the show, ‘koibito,’ is a gender-neutral term for lover. It shouldn’t have been translated as ‘girlfriend.’ The dub fixes this, however.)
(Also, I’m laughing so hard at how excited Victor looks when Yuuri says he isn’t seeing anyone)
And until recently, I’ve had no romantic experience let alone sexual (ace-spectrum, hey-o!). I always avoided it because it left me vulnerable in a way that I really couldn’t handle. I have trouble now, still, but thankfully the people around me know my issues and can be patient. I think it’s entirely possible that Yuuri had the same problem for a long time; romantic entanglement is scary after all. It’s a level of intimacy that’s incredibly special and leaves you rawly vulnerable. You really have to trust the person you’re with to be able to lay yourself bare. In ep4, Yuuri tells the story about the ‘pushy girl’ from Detroit:
It’s been pretty well known, I think, that Yuuri is uncomfortable with physical touch especially during moments of what he perceives to be vulnerability. It feels intruding, he says, and I’m assuming it makes him feel pitied, too. Yuuri has been away from home for 5 years, but Minako and his family members make no move to hug him.
I thought that was particularly intriguing. I’d like to do a post one day discussing Yuuri’s and Victor’s issues with personal space and touch, but that’s for a future date. Anyway, if you’re uncomfortable with physical touch, and already have issues trusting others (hello anxiety!), it’s really hard to get into a romantic relationship even if one is intensely desired. Trust me, I’ve been there. So, therefore, like me, Yuuri has like no experience lol.
And finally, I’d like to address the whole GPF debacle. Both ones, really.
Let’s start with the Sochi GPF.
I wrote a meta some time ago about the commemorative photo scene that you can read here, if you like. It’s a really important scene to support Yuuri as insecure and an unreliable narrator. A lot of what I’m gonna say here is covered in that post, with varying degrees of detail.
So the first thing Yuuri does is call himself ‘dime-a-dozen.’ Um, no. One the surface level of the show, not only has Yuuri made it to the GPF, aka is among the top six skaters in the world, but he’s also the only male skater certified by the JSF within canon:
UM
More into detail here, while Yuuri is looking at articles on his phone you can see one as well as hear the commentators speaking. Here it is:
(Translation note: “Katsuki Defeated: Still Needs to Work on Nerves” is SO MUCH SOFTER than what they actually said. The best translation I could do was closer to: “Katsuki Crushing Defeat: Caused by Mental Weakness.” Yes, they do use the term “mental weakness,” メンタルの弱さ, which Yuuri uses later on to describe himself. I didn’t really pay attention to the article at first, and wondered for so long where he got that phrase from! So I suppose that’s an example of how the media has run down Yuuri’s confidence, too.)
One of them–I think it was Honda–says that Yuuri didn’t perform as his usual self, implying that what they’re used to seeing is so much better than this. Not that Yuuri would have you believe it, though.
Oh!! Somebody wrote a fantastic thing about Yuuri’s possible standings in the Sochi GPF after the SP. Please read it!
Because Yuuri makes some, well, rather large mistakes in one program, he now believes that the programs beforehand are invalid and he’s irredeemable. Honestly, wow, me.
Alright, let’s move on now to the Barcelona GPF. Er, well, after it really. Yuuri’s SP at Barcelona deserves a whole other post entirely, which I may do if people want to hear my theories.
Anyway.
I did mention this moment here, but it’s highly relevant to this too. Through this post, I’ve really entirely focused on Yuuri in the deepest pits of his anxiety, but I think now it’s time to appreciate the progress he’s made with a supportive and loving environment.
As Yuuri stated in the ep5 speech (the one where he confesses his love for Victor on national TV lmao), he always felt that he was fighting alone. Anxiety is like wearing horse blinders, in a way; you end up turning so far inwards to wrangle your mind to even get through the day that you get tunnel vision of seemingly impossible goals. Yuuri has spent his whole life feeling that he is desperately struggling to reach the sky without any support from the ground. Yuuri mentions in the same speech that he’s now able to feel the love all around him that’s always been there, but I think it’s really sunk in for him when he thinks this in ep12:
That’s so, so important, not only to Yuuri as a character but to me. Yuuri can now recognize that getting help isn’t shameful or wrong; in many cases, it’s absolutely necessary to have some sort of help and support. You don’t have to do everything by yourself and you shouldn’t anyway.
There are people who love and support you. These people actually want to help you. Let them. And you’ll be able to reach the stars.
I’M SO GLAD SOMEONE DID THIS!! I was actually thinking about addressing this!! I have an anxiety disorder and I really loved how Yuuri was written because of that. I also have the theory that Viktor was struggling with depression at the beginning of the series. I might sit down and type up my theories on that later if someone else doesn’t beat me to it! BUT I love that someone noticed the accuracy of Yuuri’s anxiety as well.
@starryfeathers thank you so much for reading!! Also, I 100% agree about Victor’s depression. You should tag me in your theory post if/when you write it–I’d love to hear your thoughts!
