I’ve had this for about 2 to 2.5 years now, but it’s recently gotten worse. I am 14 male btw. But basically, when I’m walking and there is another person or especially a group of people walking and I see them in front of me, it makes me very nervous. I get really anxious, especially if they look intimidating or if they are around my age or even worse if I know them from school. It’s recently gotten worse because I just went back to going to school and everything started to open again after being in lockdown for so long. I am pretty much never my true self at school, I have friends, although I wouldn’t consider them real friends, it’s fine though since I don’t really like having too many friends anyway. I really want my anxiety in general to just stop. It affects my life way too much, my parents know about it but they just say I’m shy and that it will get better when I get older, I just gotta socialise more. I think they’re right but idk about the fact that I’m just shy, I’m more than just shy. The thing that makes me so nervous about walking past people (mainly when they are facing me) is that I don’t know where to look or how to act or what to do. I get so nervous that sometimes I grind my teeth or even sweat a little. The fact that I get this nervous about stuff like this is too much, and idk how to help it, please comment anything that could help me or any of your own experiences no matter your age, gender or wether you think it’s helpful or not. School starts tomorrow for me, and I’m already very nervous of going back. The thing is, my parents think I hate school because I don’t like the learning part of it. Well the truth is that I actually enjoy some lessons, and that’s not the problem. The problem is I have to socialise 5 days a week with hundreds of strangers and a few “friends”. I really dislike it. One last thing: I come from Italy, and I left Italy when I was 3, but I grew up and I am growing up in an Italian household. The thing is, with Italian people and kids, I have like no anxiety at all! I love how friendly they are and how they make you feel so at home. When we go on holiday back in Sicily where I was born, (sicily is an italian island), I can just walk around and talk to everyone and anyone. I feel so free and happy and everything is great. Here in the UK, everything is so depressing, and people are generally so cold and they just cause me anxiety. In Italy, my anxiety goes from 100% to like 8%. It’s crazy. Thank you a lot for reading this, if you don’t have anything to say please upvote so more people can see it. Thanks again :)