21 Totally Irrational Problems Only Anxious People Will Understand
16. Someone Asking What You've Been Up To
Immediately every great accomplishment you've ever achieved vanishes from your mind, and you're left with nothing but a brain fart. You then have to give either the most generic of answers; the non-committal, 'Oh you know, the usual' or you stumble around in your brain in a panic, eventually plumping for 'Just working and stuff...' rather than being honest and telling them you spent four hours yesterday watching re-runs of 'Barefoot Contessa' with a tub of ice cream and no spoon.
15. Seeing A Film Alone
Seeing a movie alone is one of life's little pleasures - you get to choose the movie, the time, the refreshments, and don't even have to make awkward small-talk with the person you're with. However, you're still an anxious person in a cinema full of people. Automatically you go into defensive mode, feeling that everyone is judging the hell out of you for being in the cinema on your own and mocking you behind their bags of candy. Chances are they're actually either a) not thinking about you at all, or b) marvelling at how confident you must be to do that on your own when they couldn't. Of course you don't realise this until you've left the film, having eaten your body weight in popcorn as recompense.
14. Forgetting Someone's Name In Conversation
We've all done it at least once; gone to address someone at a party or new job and you just... cannot remember their name for the life of you. Cue awkward sweatiness, desperately trying to back-pedal and try to save the conversation from what - to most people - is a minor mess up, but to you it is an apocalyptic social scenario that will make everyone around you consider you an utter idiot.
13. Doing Something Embarrassing In Public
Okay, nobody likes doing something embarrassing in public (unless they think they're living in some kind of Zooey Deschanel movie or a re-run of Happy Endings), but for anxious people, the very idea of doing something embarrassing in public is so debilitating, it turns us into house-Hobbits. Not eating in public for fear you'll look weird or spill food down yourself, or becoming convinced you're somehow going to trip and fall, and everyone in the vicinity will point, laugh and/or judge in some combination. It'll probably never happen, but all the same, probably best not eat that meatball Sub while wearing your fresh white shirt and new shoes.
Seeing a movie alone is one of life's little pleasures - you get to choose the movie, the time, the refreshments, and don't even have to make awkward small-talk with the person you're with. However, you're still an anxious person in a cinema full of people. Automatically you go into defensive mode, feeling that everyone is judging the hell out of you for being in the cinema on your own and mocking you behind their bags of candy. Chances are they're actually either a) not thinking about you at all, or b) marvelling at how confident you must be to do that on your own when they couldn't. Of course you don't realise this until you've left the film, having eaten your body weight in popcorn as recompense.
Okay, nobody likes doing something embarrassing in public (unless they think they're living in some kind of Zooey Deschanel movie or a re-run of Happy Endings), but for anxious people, the very idea of doing something embarrassing in public is so debilitating, it turns us into house-Hobbits. Not eating in public for fear you'll look weird or spill food down yourself, or becoming convinced you're somehow going to trip and fall, and everyone in the vicinity will point, laugh and/or judge in some combination. It'll probably never happen, but all the same, probably best not eat that meatball Sub while wearing your fresh white shirt and new shoes.