Anxiety makes me do weird things

I was scrolling through my Tumblr feed this morning when I came across a post titled "weird things anxiety causes you to do". Normally I scroll past any text post that is more than a sentence long when I'm in no mood to use my eyes to read. But the title of this post caught my attention, and when I read the post, I was like woah, that's exactly how I feel. And I didn't even realize I did some of things.

Link to the post if you're interested.

I'm not saying that I have severe anxiety or that I have been diagnosed with anxiety or anything like that. I don't have it as bad as some people, but I do feel anxious a lot, more than the average person, I'd say.

The first point in the Tumblr post was about how anxiety can cause one to go on for a long period of time without blowing their nose because they don't want to blow their nose in front of people. I can definitely relate to that. Prior to reading this post, I didn't even realize that I never want to blow my nose at school or in any public place because of anxiety; I'd always thought that I was just too lazy. But I'm not. I recently just went through a terrible cold (in which every time I blew my nose, I'd literally have to stand by a garbage can or toilet and blow my nose for 2 minutes; never in my life have I had to blow my nose so many times and for so long). I had the runniest nose ever, for 5-7 days. Mornings were the worst. On the day that my nose was the runniest, I had a bio test first thing in the morning. I had to look down at the paper to write my test, but every time I looked down, my nose would get super runny, and I'd sniff a lot and that bugged me sooooo much. But I didn't want to get up and blow my nose because the whole class was so quiet and I worried that if I got up to blow my nose, everyone would stop what they're doing and look at me.

Another thing the post mentioned was how one would wear what they want to wear and spend the entire day worrying about people judging them. I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to wear a dress or a certain shirt or whatever and I'd put it on, walk over to the mirror, look at myself, be satisfied for 2 seconds, and then change out of it. All because I was worried about what people would think. To people who don't have anxiety over this kind of thing, it's no big deal. I mean, who cares what people think. But as much as I'd like to tell myself that, I can't help but worry about others' opinions. I can't not worry about people judging me.

I've always been afraid of changing my look, like my hair (cutting it shorter or changing up my hairstyle) or my clothes. I can't build up enough courage to change things up. It's like the all-or-none law of nerve impulses. Like nerve impulses, if the stimulus isn't strong enough to overcome the threshold, then there will be no response; if the strength of the stimulus is strong enough, then there will be a response. Most times, I can never build up enough courage to overcome the threshold. And that's why I haven't changed much of my appearance in ages. I've never cut my hair too short, in fear of change. I've never worn the dress I wanted to wear on that sunny day, because I cowered in anxiety.

A week back, I was on the bus, heading towards the mall (I think...) and there was this old lady sitting a few seats in front of me. When the bus got to her stop, she didn't know how to open the doors of the bus to exit (in our buses, you have to push the bar thingy on the door to open it), because I'm assuming she's new at the whole busing thing. Anyways, I was sitting right beside the door; I could have helped her, but I didn't. Why? Because there were other people on the bus and I didn't want to draw attention to myself; so I just stared until someone else helped her. What's wrong with me? I always think of myself as kind and caring yet I couldn't even stand up to help the poor woman, all because anxiety wouldn't let me.

Anxiety makes me do such weird things; it's not just these 3 examples, there is a profuse amount of things I do because of anxiety. Don't even get me started on social anxiety...