I Still Become Who I Used to Be Around Them

Dear Delyara, I can go months feeling relatively grown and solid inside myself, and then I spend one evening with family and suddenly I am back in older emotional clothes. More careful. More apologetic. More alert. Less spontaneous. More likely to edit myself before speaking. It’s strange how family can preserve versions of us we no longer want to live from, and still bring them back so quickly. Sometimes I leave those gatherings feeling tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.