These are tropes that have to deal with nervousness and anxiety. Check out these tropes already, because your staring at me is making me nervous.
Psychology Tropes, Fear Tropes, Shyness Tropes, Tropes to Cope and Tropes of Awkwardness are closely related; expect a lot of overlap.
- Afraid to Hold the Baby: Someone is anxious about holding a baby because something might go wrong.
- Anxiety Dreams: Dreaming about things you're worrying about.
- Appearance Angst: Worrying over parts of your appearance.
- Bullied into Depression: Being bullied makes someone depressed because they're worrying when their bully will strike next.
- Cathartic Chores: Cleaning to deal with anxiety.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Having a smoke to calm yourself.
- Commitment Anxiety
- Commitment Issues: A character feels anxious about committing to a long-term relationship.
- Distressed Drink Jitters: Showing anxiety via shaking hands while trying to hold a drink.
- Distressed Woodchopping: Chopping wood to deal with anxiety.
- Eyes Always Averted: People who are shy often don't like to make eye contact.
- Freak Out: A person experiences something so traumatic they completely lose it (either temporarily or permanently).
- Hollywood Psych: Inaccurate psychology in media.
- Hyperventilation Bag: Breathing into a paper bag while having a panic attack to calm down.
- Identity Breakdown: Being so uncertain of who or what you are leading to a complete mental break.
- Moving Angst: Having worries over moving to a new environment.
- Nervous Tics: Habits that characters unconsciously do when anxious or scared.
- Nervous Wreck: Someone who is constantly worrying and panicking.
- Neverending Terror: A never-ending looming sense of doom.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: A dream/nightmare where a character is in their underwear in public and is embarrassed about it.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Excessive sweating due to nervousness or fear.
- Performance Anxiety: When a character can't use their abilities under the pressure of an audience.
- Prone to Tears: Characters who are anxious a lot may also cry a lot as a result.
- Repression Never Ends Well: Characters who hide things build up anxiety until it comes out messily.
- Shrinking Violet: A character is extremely shy and introverted, often due to anxiety.
- Socially Awkward Hero: The hero is a good-hearted person but also has social anxiety.
- Stress Vomit: Someone gets so anxious they throw up.
- What If the Baby Is Like Me: Parents worrying that their child will have some negative aspect of themselves.
- Worrying for the Wrong Reason: One character expresses some concern about a situation, and then another corrects them with a new concern.
- You Had Us Worried There
