I'm kind of turning into a mess publically with my anxiety tics. I have terrible stranger anxiety. Not social, not general, I simply struggle to cope being surrounded by strangers when I'm on my own. As soon as I have to talk to people, it's smooth sailing pretty much. Otherwise I'm constantly on edge and moving, looking down, overly conscious of what I'm doing and look like. I'm sure I look like an aggressive misanthropist from the outside aha.

Doesn't help I'm pretty sure I have body dysmorphia developed cause of society's heavy focus on appearance, even if I try my best to not care about it. I constantly have distorted perceptions of my appearance that I have to disprove by looking in the mirror, and sometimes I feel my look isn't the best it could be which stresses me out. I understand its unreasonable since I'm aiming for perfection 100% of the time, which just isn't plausible. Even women calling me attractive puts me on edge now, cause I feel it pressures me to maintain it and that my identity is secondary for most people.

Anyways. Overall, I used to manage. I was very social in highschool and well liked. I always had people around me that could distract me from my anxiety. But after a breakup that made me realise my personality is inherently disconnected from people and that it was the reason I always felt isolated no matter how open and social I was, I've cut off a lot of "friends", isolated myself for a year and reassessed myself. 

So now I just started university. Love the education. But I'm on my own most of the time. I don't have a reason nor desire to go out of my way to socialise. I'm very introverted so this is chill for me, or at least it should be but I'm quickly realising I'm breaking down. I can't cope. And it shows. Enough for someone to say "do you think he's on drugs?" to their friend. It could be paranoia from the anxiety but I can usually reason it out logically after the fact. In this case, I think they really said it. And it stings to hear that. 

I suppose I'm simply here to vent. I still force myself to go out some days, as I know I can't keep isolating myself. But man I'm exhausted now. I have to take deep breaths to stop it getting out of hand. I feel somewhat ashamed its got this bad. And it makes me wonder if it'll impact my social life in the future, if I'll develop dependencies on other people to just function outside. 

Anyways, I take my time isolating to destress. Might invest in something to comfort me when I'm out in public. I think that sounds like a good idea.