I’ve caught myself thinking this more than I want to admit. Not out loud. Just in the background. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I’m making it bigger than it needs to be. Maybe I just need to handle it better.

It’s easier to land there. Easier than sitting with the idea that something doesn’t feel right. Because if it’s me, then at least there’s an answer. Something I can adjust. Something I can fix. So I replay things.

What I said. How I said it. Whether I should have said anything at all. I think about how it might have sounded from the outside. I try to see it differently.

More reasonable. More calm. More… acceptable. And the more I do that, the less sure I feel. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting the way something felt in the moment. I started checking it against everything else instead.

Other people’s reactions. Other people’s expectations. Other versions of what “normal” should look like. Until my own response started to feel like the one thing I couldn’t rely on.

And that’s the part that sits with me. Not whether something was right or wrong…but how quickly I questioned myself before I questioned anything else.

I don’t know if that changes overnight. I don’t know if it’s something you just decide to stop doing. But I’m starting to notice it.

That moment where I turn it back on myself first. And maybe that’s where it shifts.

Not in having the answer…but in not dismissing it straight away.