So nervous, timid, frightened of telling people what to do

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I absolutely SUCK at authority. I suck at it so bad, that the way I suck at it worries me, because a lot of my other social skills are rather satisfactory.

Being in authority over people makes me really anxious. I just can't do it. Like the other day at work, (I work as a cleaning lady at a care home) and there were 2 residents (with Dementia) verbally attacking each other and worrying the rest of the residents in the room. I was the only staff in the room and I didn't have time to run and find a carer, so I felt I had to do something. But as I approached the fight, my hands started sweating and I didn't want to be in that authoritive posision. But I knew I had no choice, so I took a deep breath and said timidly "um, let's calm down..." One of them yelled at me, and I backed away nervously, like Piglet from Winnie The Pooh, and ran to get a carer.

It's like I feel affected by every person's emotions around me, and I'm trying to be passive and please everybody, and it's hard. I wish I could filter out emotions of myself and others and just be able to be confident and 'in charge' but I just can't.

It makes me feel stupid. Why am I so avoidant of authority?

I know it's annoying when someone brings age into it, but I was exactly the same when I was your age, and I improved over the years so that I'm not so much like this anymore. It just started to be something I got more confidence with as I got older and older.

I know we're all different, but there might be a chance that you might go the same way as I did, and find that as life goes on and different experiences accumulate, you start feeling more able to do that kind of thing.

I'm still not great at it but I'm quite some degree better at it now than when I was younger. So, you too might have improvement to look forward to in this; it's the kind of thing that sometimes gets easier as life goes on, for some people.