Anxiety Attacks

Checkout

My experience with social anxiety when I am ordering food or buying something:
I walk up to the cashier. My heart pounds faster, my throat starts to close up. Thoughts, unreasonable ones, fill my mind. "You look like an idiot." "They probably think you're ugly. "You're being annoying." "What if you mess up?" "You're going to mess up." "What if you take too long to take out your money?" "You're wasting your time." And more just spill in without stopping. I don't say anything, hoping to avoid a conversation. I just want to buy and leave without looking like an idiot. "That'll be $6.46 please," the cashier says. My hands shake as I reach out my wallet and pull out a ten dollar bill. Is this too much? Am I being annoying by having them give me change? Oh god what have I done.
They pass me my bag with the change. My eyes are watering and I can feel bile creeping up my throat. I leave the store with heavy breaths and hoping I didn't look like an idiot, but my thoughts tell me I did. They point out all of my mistakes and I can't stop thinking about them all day. Why did I have I buy something there? I'm just an idiot, that person probably hates me. But how can someone hate me in a five second interaction? I have a feeling they do. I made mistakes, that makes me worthless. I'm just a huge fuck up. That person was better off not knowing me. I'm a useless bastard in everyone's way.

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Most of that was my thoughts as this process happens. It's hard for me and people with social anxiety to do seemingly simple tasks. With those few paragraphs I barely scratched the surface of how it feels like but I portrayed it somehow. If you know someone with social anxiety and they ask you to order something for them or check out something then just do it. Helping can mean the world to us.