I still assume I will be misunderstood before I assume I will be met with care

Dear Delyara, It’s there before difficult conversations, before emails, before any room where there is even a small chance of criticism, distance, or disappointment. I soften too quickly. Explain too much. Make myself easier to manage before anyone has even truly asked me to do that. It is exhausting living with a nervous system that still trusts harm faster than kindness. And the saddest part is how often this happens under the surface, beneath language, beneath awareness, in the little tiny shifts of posture and tone that make a woman look calm when what she is actually doing is preparing to survive being read unfairly. I don’t want to keep moving through life like that. I just haven’t fully learned another first response yet.