Why am I always checking things?

Hello! To provide some info, I have anxiety, specifically social anxiety. But, one thing that's been happening lately is that I have the feeling to check things over and over until I know that it's in my mind and that I know that thing. I can't really explain it.

For example, this sounds silly, but when I have to change to my gym clothes in gym class, I have these thoughts running through my head, such as "are these clothes actually on me? am I just imagining that I'm wearing clothes?". I have to check over and over that I actually have clothes on. I would grip my sweatpants and force myself to feel the fabric, look at myself in the mirror, anything that would make me realize that I'm not imagining the clothes, they're a reality, they're on my body. But I still would have this fear/these thoughts that I'm walking around without clothes on.

Another smaller example is that I feel like I'm forgetting something. When I go to school in the morning, I feel like I'm forgetting something at home, although I know for a fact that I have everything I need, I did everything I had to. So I check to make sure I did all the homework I had to, or if I brought my supplies with me, although I know that I already have them.

I mean, just last night I was worried about this field trip tomorrow. I'm not going to school for it, it's a science workshop/conference thing with my teacher. I was thinking about if I had the papers me and my mom had to sign, if I knew where we had to meet up, what time we were leaving, all that. I knew all of the information already but I was worried that I actually didn't. So, me being me, at 3 AM I had to check the paper. As you can probably already guess, I already knew the information.

I wasn't always like this. It started happening recently, about a couple months ago, near the end of 2017. I'm not sure if this is just my anxiety acting up, scaring me into thinking that I don't actually know anything. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me if this is just my anxiety or something else.

The first time I went to a psychiatrist for my anxiety, they gave me a test to gauge my level of anxiety, and one the questions on there was, "Do you repeatedly check mundane things, or repeat sentences over and over to yourself in your head."  I answered yes, because I did and still do that.  So I'd imagine it can very well just be anxiety, if it appears on a test to gauge anxiety.  Hope that helps a little.

Okay, that makes me feel better about this. Thank you!

You're welcome.  I tend to do the same, but for me it's mostly repeating things in my head.  Pointless things, like this sentence, may repeat 100 times in my head, lol.