I've been seeing shadow people since I was sixteen. 

Every time I've seen them it's been in daylight, or in large crowds, or if it is in the dark of night, when I was completely sober.

I don't want to be a downer or dismiss the idea of shadow people being real because I do have experiences but I'm really scared of facing them and having to deal with it being real y'now? (It's almost easier to think you're out of it.)

Every encounter I've had has been the same where they just stand and stare at me. I never see their eyes or any distinctive features. They're a diffused, human-shaped, black mass that just stares at me and while I never feel like they're... malicious or demonic in any way, it's just so unsettling to be stared at. To feel like they have intentions for looking at me like they do. And it's all by different shadow people too, since they have different shapes. They're like silhouettes of different people behind a thin screen, hazy like the heat on a scorching road.

It's like, because I saw one, more and more of them just come and stand near to be seen by me. It's like they want to be noticed.

I've gone to a psychotherapist about seeing them, thinking they're hallucinations from mental illness (I've been battling depression and other issues for a while), but as far as she's said to me, what I've been experiencing isn't something she's really heard of. She told me most hallucinations were much more violent towards the one hallucinating and often the result of sleep paralysis or some other causes. She was befuddled that I see them in daylight and with a (presumably) rational mind. And then she goes further to ask me if I had any sixth sense abilities or anyone in my family has had them. Freaking out by the fact that she was feeding into (what I thought at the time) were my hallucinations and delusions, I stopped going to see the psychotherapist and just sort of mentally checked out of the world. (Not my brightest idea but I was a scared sixteen year old.)

I kind of distract myself since with movies, tv shows, comics, anything to keep me from seeing the world or anything beyond it. I've trained myself to emotionally disconnect and just go through the motions.

I'm about 22 y/o now and while I haven't seen shadow people at the rate I used to, I'm beginning to see them again.

I was getting ready for bed and I had just come back from dinner with my coworkers. I was sitting in bed, reading on my phone when I looked up and in the corner of my room, not ten feet from my bed was a shadowy figure. I was paralyzed with fear and I couldn't bring myself to blink for a good minute. Once my eyes began to water and my body involuntarily blinked for me, I thought that the figure would disappear as they have done in the past.

It did not.

It, in the blink of an eye, stood only a foot or so away from my face. I didn't see it move it just appeared there, its featureless head staring right at me. I felt hot and cold, like my whole body was being electrified. My sight started to white out from panic and fear and then I blinked again. It was at that point that the figure actually disappeared and my body began to unwind from adrenaline.

I haven't seen that specific figure since but I've been noticing shadow figures in the crowds, or standing around when I'm at work, or outside my home when I'm pulling into my driveway. More and more just start to... loiter around recently.

While at this point, I think I've got my mental issues under control and I'm a functioning person, I'm still seeing them so I honestly don't know what to do anymore about how to stop seeing them.

Is there anything anyone can suggest about preventing experiences without shutting down oneself? Because I don't want to be an unfeeling shell of a person anymore. I want to let myself have and express emotions healthily and reconnect with people instead of isolating myself, but I can't handle the idea of having to deal with seeing shadow people again on the daily.

Any advice?