I still feel younger than I am when the family mood changes

Dear Delyara, A certain tone, a certain kind of disappointment, a certain silence after I say something real, and suddenly I can feel my emotional age dropping. I start explaining too much, losing certainty too quickly, treating the room like an authority instead of a room full of equal adults. I know better than that. In theory. In practice, family can still reach places in me that no one else gets to touch so quickly. Then later I feel angry with myself for becoming small again, as if knowledge alone should have been enough to stop it. It wasn’t. Not this time either.