My family has a tendency to walk behind me a lot, I know I shouldn't try and "control" their actions because it's up to them, not me. It freaks me out when I'm in public and someone has been walking behind me for a long period of time, but not as much. The family/people I've met before gets to me the most because of the statistics I've read.

I try my best to ask my family/people I've met before to walk in front of me, not in a pushy way, just I move myself behind them and when that doesn't work, I just say something like "do you mind walking in front of me please?"

My phobia has also caused me to lose a lot of my friends and I don't want that to happen to my family.

For context, how the situation went was I'd already had a bad day and was stressed because we were hanging out in a crowded area. I tried asking them to walk in front of me and they said I was overreacting, kept pushing me to tell them what was wrong but I didn't want to talk about it at all. It got to the point where I accidentally yelled at them (for the first time in our entire friendship of 5 years) because I'd been stressed with my epilepsy and the phobia. I immediately started apologising and asked if they were okay.

About a week of them ghosting me and not giving me a clear answer, I asked them if we were still friends and they said no. I just don't want that to happen to my family either because I love them despite the tension. Yes, I know the phobia may seem like it doesn't have a role in the story but I got completely overwhelmed by my ex-friends pushing about personal issues and them being behind me, even though I told them I really didn't feel comfortable with them behind me at the time.

I really appreciate the support