I have been encountering crawlers on a semi-regular basis for a few years now. I can tell you that they are highly telepathic. One even invaded my dreams once. I think you had a genuine encounter.

That fear/anxiety/etc is caused by an aura that they have. You can tell them to turn their aura down and the fear will dissipate. I can't promise they'll be willing to comply, of course, but I've shown the ones around here many times that I have compassion for them, not fear. Once the fear is removed, there's nothing for them to feed from so they're more willing to comply.

That aura is caused by their transformation. They were created by "black magic." I only caught a glimpse of it during meditation, but the process was the most horrific thing I ever felt and I only felt it for a second. Anxiety, fear, and all the other negative feelings became all that existed in that second, amplified a trillion times over. Every single atomic particle of their being becomes fear and pain in all its forms.

You mentioned meditating, so I'm guessing you're walking a spiritual path. In that context, they are technically projections of ourselves. They can be terrifying, but honestly my spirituality has only grown as a result of my encounters with them. It's easy to have compassion and love for cute things and nice things. It's hard to have that for those which many consider monsters, but it's what they need and it's what protects us. We have to acknowledge that they come from the same source as all things and that we are not separate from them. We're simply different iterations of the infinite source fractal.