'Anxiety: The Magazine' addresses mental health with humor

Finally, a new place (i.e. not your brain) to access all your deeply held anxieties.

Behold, Anxiety: The Magazine. This imagined publication covers all your biggest daily fears — from your friends, to your colleagues to your bare feet.

Twitter user @CrayonElyse is the designer behind the mock covers. Though she declined to reveal her name, she tells Mashable via email that she is a PhD candidate in her mid-twenties who draws inspiration for the covers from her own experience with anxiety.

"I was having a moment where I was really getting down on myself, and then it struck me suddenly how, frankly, silly I sounded," Crayon says. "Like, why do I spend my time coming up with new things to worry about when I could be doing literally anything else?"

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Mental health is by no means a light subject-- An estimated 18.1% of U.S. adults experience an anxiety disorder over the course of any given year.

Crayon acknowledges that not everyone feels comfortable joking about the subject, and that for many people, anxiety can be a "deeply painful" experience.

"Some people felt that this wasn't truly a representation of anxiety, that anxiety isn't funny, or shouldn't be talking about [it] this way (which I get, and I'm really sorry to anyone who feels hurt or misrepresented by my work. I hear you)," she wrote.

But for Crayon herself, confronting anxiety with humor provides a certain level of solace.

"I give way too much credit to my own self-criticism—it seemed fitting to give it its own publication," she said. "Making a joke out of my internal monologue reminds me not to take it seriously."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

[H/T: My Modern Met]

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.