What's the difference between anxiety and just being nervous?

Anxiety is when you have mixed feelings about everything, get worried about each and every little thing no matter how insignificant and usually it's way beyond reason, being nervous is just a temporary state regarding a specific thing or event

From my own experience, anxiety comes more as a general feeling of unease, and it can be without any clear direct reason. It's more a feeling of helplessness, while being nervous is mostly apprehensions.

Anxiety is a physical force stopping you from doing certain things. its the difference between thinking: Oh man, going on the bus today is really going to suck ...why me? there's too many people and I CAN'T GO ON THE BUS TODAY! I HAVE SCHOOL/ WORK BUT I CANT DO IT I CANT DO IT!

Anxiety is more of a long term thing it doesn't just come and the go and in some cases it is more extreme than just being nervous.

Anxiety is nervousness on another level. Sometimes Anxiety can lead to panic and can just paralyze you. Everyone gets nervous, but not everyone has Anxiety. If you feel you have anxiety on a regular basis you should speak to your doctor or health care professional.

The difference between anxiety and common nervousness is that anxiety is more fear than nervousness, which is mostly hesitancy to try something new. Example: Anxiety would be that you are afraid of skydiving because you may get hurt, whereas nervousness would be you don't want to skydive because its too scary.

Anxiety is like this giant hand grasping your throat at moments and restricts your breathing and telling you that this moment is the worst whereas being nervous is just like butterflies in your stomach, makes you feel a bit sick but doesnt take long to get over.

Anxiety is like a dark cloud looming over your shoulder. The constant crippling fear that something is going to wrong, or that you're going to hurt people around you, or that you're going to get hurt. Anything could happen and you just count out all the bad possibilities. I'd describe it as the inability to feel the goodness, or to recognize all of the amazing possibilities before you. It's a lot like weather and climate. When you're nervous, you only experience that nervousness for a few moments. It's temporary, and doesn't last all that long. Anxiety can last a life time. Like an unwanted guest. It's not something you can just escape from, and it can come unexpectedly too.

Anxiety feels very prevalent throughout the day. I suffer from anxiety, and I feel anxious about almost everything I do, whether it's a simple task for work, going to a social event, or spending time with my boyfriend. Anxiety is pervasive and occurs on a regular basis. Nervousness, on the other hand, is a fleeting emotion that sometimes occurs before a test, interview, etc. Nervousness does not impair your functioning. Anxiety, on the other hand, can be crippling.

Nerves make a task difficult to accomplish, but anxiety makes it near or completely impossible to function normally.