Anxiety or not?

While I understand that this forum is not the place to identify disorder, and hence I am not going to ask you for that, but simply have a need to have somewhere to vent and maybe find someone who can share an opinion about this.

Lately I've been avoiding certain things because they produce a really bad feeling in me. For example I can no longer watch horror movies or read stories which are sad or slightly darker themes, even sometimes I have to be carefully to what I watch. I even avoid certain situations which have conflict in it. I need to be careful because it feels like walking on a land mime, and if I land my foot in the wrong place it will trigger. Mind you I've never been like this before I used to love watching horror and gory movies, but now I can't and I don't know why?. It feels like having a sort of panic, sometimes feel a bit nauseated, but mostly having a very unpleasant feeling in me.

Once I stopped watching a series because there was a character who has no sense of personal space, and somehow watching him made me feel horrible to the point that I was not able to bear watching it any longer. It's strange and it's frustrating.

Did this start out of nowhere or has a potentially traumatic event occurred recently that might've triggered your anxious feelings?

It started fairly recently like less then a year. I am a person who has a low self esteem and easily succumbs to negative thoughts which I often end up becoming very depressed. However lately I've been trying to control my thoughts and trying to avoid myself from becoming depressed, so it might be that the anxiety towards certain things is a subconscious by-product?. Also I've been really stressed lately with my studies so it might also be part of the trigger?

It gets a bit annoying because somehow I feel that I need to be always careful what I do ( for example I cannot bear to watch news or read articles that are related to some tragedy, or some topics), because I get depressed or anxious. It feels like I am walking on needles.