My mother still makes me feel like I am twelve

Dear Delyara, I am an adult with children of my own, and one phone call with my mother can still reduce me in minutes. It isn’t what people might imagine. She does not scream. She does not threaten. She simply knows exactly how to speak to me in a way that makes me start explaining, softening, defending, and doubting myself before I’ve even worked out whether I’ve actually done anything wrong. Yesterday she made one comment about how tired I always sound and how “this is what happens when women try to do too much,” and I felt myself shrink immediately. Not because the sentence was huge. Because it landed on old wounds that are always waiting. After the call, I was angry for an hour. Not only at her. At myself for still being reachable in that old place. I hate that she can still do that to me. I hate even more that some part of me still lets her.