Back2School Prep Anxiety

Social anxiety strikes again! Naturally, I am pulling together last minute school preparation, including clothes shopping for my internship. A "normal" person would probably be ecstatic about going shopping, and don't get me wrong I really do like shopping and browsing just from the comfort of my own house... This is probably the epitome of my antisocialness.

Today, I went to our teeny, tiny local mall in hopes to find something decent. There are about five stores for me to shop from in hopes of finding nice, work-worthy clothes for a good price. Here's the run down of my social anxiety mixed with shopping...

First place I went was old navy, I tend to find good deals and clothes that I'm looking for on the sale rack for really cheap. I walked in browsed the original prices items, slowly making my way to the back. When I get there, my brain goes blank, I don't remember what I'm doing because there is someone else standing in the section I need to browse through. I walked about looking at other things to clear my mind and decided to look else where until I could come back.

Next was The Bon Ton. This past spring I needed business attire for meetings I had in Albany for my school's research project and was able to find decent clothes here. The thing about this store that nerves me is that I don't understand where a 21 year old fits into their layout. The "mom" clothes are mixed in with the older lady attire and it confuses the crap out of me. I always walk the loop of this store scanning the contents of racks from a "safe distance" until I see something that might be appropriate for a young, professional look. No such luck today...

We have a Maurices, which does have a nice selection of the young, professional look that I am going for, but I ended up passing that one up because it intimidates me way too much (no particular reason - anxiety) plus I know they're high priced and not worth it. So, i moved right along to American Eagle, which was my go to place in high school and I have found decent tops that could be pulled off as professional. Styles sure have changed in the three years that I have been out of high school. I couldn't even causally browse my way to the back. I did the I'm-too-cheap-walk-of-shame to the sale rack, that ended up having nothing of interest to me.

My last stop was JcPenny's, where again I use my tactic of looking over the racks, but ending up confused with age group these clothes were targeting. I was feeling nervous and dissappointed so I left the mall empty handed (I didn't even walk into the game store!).

I did, however, stumble upon an online consignment shop for adults, and I found some really great deals that I'm super excited about.  I was really impressed with the website itself - thredup.com. As soon as the package comes in I intend on doing a full on review of this website's service.