Growing up in the ’90s and early 2000s, we didn’t always have the words for anxiety.

We had “I’m Just a Kid.”

We had “Numb.”

We had “Welcome to My Life.”

We had Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, MTV, teen movies, burned CDs, and characters who somehow seemed to understand what it felt like to be awkward, overwhelmed, left out, or completely unsure of yourself.

Looking back as millennials, it’s kind of wild how much of our childhood entertainment revolved around feeling misunderstood, trying to fit in, disappointing people, dealing with family expectations, and desperately wanting to figure out where we belonged.

Maybe we didn’t call it anxiety back then.

But we definitely felt it.

The Songs That Said What We Couldn’t

Remember blasting Simple Plan and thinking they somehow knew exactly what was happening inside your head?

“I’m Just a Kid” — Simple Plan
That feeling that everyone else was living while you were somehow stuck on the outside.

“Welcome to My Life” — Simple Plan
For every teenager who felt misunderstood but couldn’t explain why.

“Numb” — Linkin Park
The pressure of trying to become the person everyone else expected you to be.

“Complicated” — Avril Lavigne
Growing up, changing friendships, figuring out who was genuine, and wondering why everything suddenly had to be so complicated.

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” — Green Day
Loneliness wrapped inside one of the most recognizable songs of our generation.

“Unwell” — Matchbox Twenty
Mental health was right there in our music. We just weren’t necessarily talking about it the way we do now.

“Because of You” — Kelly Clarkson
A reminder of how the things we experience growing up can follow us into adulthood.

“The Middle” — Jimmy Eat World
The reassurance a lot of us desperately needed:

You’re still figuring yourself out.

Give it time.

The Movies That Made Us Feel Seen

Our movies weren’t exactly anxiety-free either.

Mean Girls showed us the exhausting pressure of fitting in and worrying about what everyone thought of us.

The Princess Diaries gave us an awkward, insecure teenager suddenly expected to become someone completely different.

Freaky Friday captured that classic teenage feeling that our parents couldn’t possibly understand what being us felt like.

Matilda was practically the ultimate story for kids who felt misunderstood by the adults around them.

Finding Nemo explored fear, overprotective parenting, and how scary it can be to let someone grow up.

Lilo & Stitch gave us loneliness, grief, complicated families, and the reminder that family doesn’t have to be perfect to matter.

And later, The Perks of Being a Wallflower put some of the darker parts of growing up and mental health on screen more openly.

Then Inside Out came along when many millennials were already older and gave us something we could have used as kids:

Actual words for our emotions.

And Our TV Shows Were Full of It Too

Then there were the shows we came home from school to watch.

They were funny and colorful, but underneath all of that were characters dealing with some pretty relatable fears.

Hey Arnold! dealt with loneliness, complicated families, bullying, crushes, insecurity, and kids trying to understand a world that wasn’t always easy.

Rugrats literally showed the world through anxious little minds where ordinary situations could turn into enormous adventures.

Lizzie McGuire captured the constant internal monologue of growing up: Did I say something stupid? Do they like me? Am I embarrassing myself? Who am I supposed to be?

Honestly, Lizzie’s animated alter ego was basically our overthinking brain before we knew what overthinking was.

That’s So Raven gave us a character who could literally see pieces of the future—and then panic while trying to prevent things from going wrong.

Sounds a little familiar to anyone who spends half their life thinking about every possible outcome?

Boy Meets World grew up alongside us and tackled friendships, relationships, family expectations, failure, insecurity, and the terrifying realization that eventually we were supposed to become adults.

SpongeBob SquarePants even gave us Squidward—the exhausted, frustrated adult we didn’t understand as kids and somehow understand way too much now.

And Arthur deserves some credit too.

For a cartoon about an aardvark, it dealt with school pressure, friendships, embarrassment, bullying, jealousy, family problems, and plenty of childhood worries.

These weren’t necessarily “mental health shows.”

But they showed us emotions we recognized.

Maybe We Were Talking About Mental Health All Along

Sometimes I wonder whether millennials suddenly became more anxious—or whether we’re simply more willing to openly say:

I’m anxious.

I’m overwhelmed.

I’m struggling.

I don’t have everything figured out.

Because when I look back at the music we screamed along to, the movies we watched repeatedly, and the TV characters we related to, those feelings were already everywhere.

We just expressed them differently.

We made burned CDs.

We changed our AIM away messages.

We put dramatic song lyrics in our profiles.

We watched Nickelodeon and Disney Channel after school.

We replayed the same comfort movie until we practically knew every line.

We put headphones on and stared dramatically out the car window like we were starring in our own music video.

And maybe that was our version of saying:

I’m having a hard time, and I don’t know how to explain it yet.

Now we’re adults.

We’re learning words like anxiety, boundaries, burnout, emotional regulation, and generational trauma.

We’re learning to talk about things that previous generations may have kept quiet.

But sometimes I think that anxious kid is still somewhere inside us—sitting in front of the TV after school, listening to Simple Plan later that night, and wondering if anyone else feels the same way.

Turns out, a whole generation did.

The Millennial Mind

We didn’t always have the words for what we were feeling. Sometimes we just had the soundtrack—and our favorite show waiting for us after school.