I think work is changing my personality in ways I don’t like

Dear Delyara, I am more guarded than I used to be. More rehearsed. Less spontaneous. Less trusting of rooms. Quicker to interpret tone as danger. Quieter than I want to be around people who hold power. More likely to carry humiliation home and call it “just a bad day.” That is what worries me. The job hasn’t only tired me. It has altered the emotional temperature I move through the world with. I can feel myself becoming more defended in ordinary interactions because some part of me is still protecting against workplace disrespect that never quite gets named loudly enough to count as obvious abuse but still leaves marks. I don’t want to give years of my life to a job that pays my bills by quietly teaching me to become smaller, more cautious, less alive in my own voice. And yet that is exactly what I think has been happening.