I put this in friendship stories category bc idk where else to put. If this is not written very well pls forgive me, I am going thru high anxiety rn and i just wanna write.

ok so what happened? i wanted to go get smthn today so i thought that since i was going out anyway id take a bus to the mall farther away slightly to get smthn else i need. my mother wanted to come too, bc she said she needs smthn and my brother just wanted to tag along. so we go and keep in mind this area is where my old school was so a lot of ppl ik live here (which is why i tend to avoid it as much as i can) anyways, i enter the store, can't find what im looking for so im starting to head to the stairs up. that's when i see an ex-'friend' (though i wouldn't rlly describe them as a friend but since we hung out basically all the time ig that's what you'd call them? our relationship is complicated tbh it would take a whole other post to write about it) anyway i wanted to avoid them bc idk i got a sudden feeling of intense fear and anxiety upon seeing them. my mother picks up on this and asks who im avoiding so i say no one and tell her we should go but she wants to see who it is. my brother is also now curious and theyre walking around tryna see who which is annoying so i say 'well im going upstairs' so they come a bit after me. next bad thing is at the till shes right there in the queue and so i go look at some other stuff while my mother gets what she wants. now she and my brother come back and my mom is annoyed at this point and asks why im avoiding someone ik, telling me i should jsut say hi. i said its not someone i would like to talk to so she should just leave the matter and we should go. my luck got worse when my mother asked if she could quickly pop into a store right next to the one we were just at to see if they had smthn and i said yes (i regret that!) guess who we see? yep the same person ive been trying to avoid. and my brother was asking me about them loudly (bc he recognized who it was) and they obviously heard us discussing them (ugh!) i start heading out, my mother says she can't find what she needs but also notices me acting 'weird' again so she goes to see who this person is even tho i told her not to and she says (again loudly!) 'theyre from X school right? why dont u say hi?' i just try to get her to leave quickly so we can just finish and im getting annoyed atp bc i already told them to not discuss the matter. so ive just made a fool of myself, clearly avoided someone who probably does not give a fuck about me and just acted so weird in front of them bc of some unresolved feelings inside me (im just so scared for some reason that i cannot understand). i now feel embarrassed and stupid, i feel i massively overreacted at the time, i shouldve acted normal bc we prlly wouldnt have even entered a conversation or anything and everything wouldve moved more normally if i just acted like a normal person but now they gon think bad stuff about me and prlly talk about this with another person in our ex-'friend' group that theyre best friends with... i want to just die

i cant stop ruminating

i need outside perspective on all this, i feel like im going insane

if you read all this, sorry its long and ty for putting up with it.

what would people have thought if they had seen this on a reality TV show?

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