Rather Unpleasant and Unrealistic

I don't like writing negative reviews, but I am genuinely at a loss as to the point of this story. I acknowledge that everyone should write whatever they want, bigotry and harm aside, and that stories don't need a point beyond conveying an experience. It is the experience conveyed here that I take issue with, but I'll get into that in a moment.

This is an interesting premise on paper and it is a novel way of covering anxiety and blending the unreliable narrator both inside and outside of the narrator's head. The performance is competent, although I'm not a fan of the director's choices with mixing and effects.

I am just left confused and uncomfortable from listening to this. Not in a manner that emulates anxiety, but in a sense that I feel have had my time wasted and have been mocked in a bizarre and unimpressive manner. As it is relevant, I have complex post traumatic stress disorder among other conditions that anxiety and panic attacks are an element of and are exacerbated by. I have had them both to various degrees all my life and at their worst I suffered severe anxiety with hypersensitivity with a smorgasbord of different types of panic attacks. Obviously, everyone's experience of anxiety, panic attacks, and mental health are unique to themselves, but this story is presented as the protagonist who is "overwhelmed with anxiety attacks" that do not read like the experience of myself or any of the many other people I have discussed mental health with. I may be completely wrong, and if so I apologise, but this reads like it was written by a neurotypical person taking a rough stab at what having anxiety attacks are like. There is that same feeling one often finds from the tropes if 'men writing women'. This is particularly apparent in the inner monologue, especially with the voice of anxiety actually being supportive and confident at one point, only to fall back into recriminations. Anxiety can manifest as a voice or taint out inner monologue, but it is never supportive and the turn felt very odd indeed.

All in all, this seems like an almost voyeuristic portrayal of the impression the author has of anxiety, riddled with clichés and decent enough prose thatndoes nothing to actually encapsulate and convey the experience of anxiety and panic attacks. It really seems like one of those writing exercises that should have stayed in the drafts folder. ( )