I learned how to read people before I understood them.
I noticed tone shifts. Pauses. The way something was said, not just what was said. I could feel when something was off, even if no one else reacted to it. I didn’t have the language for it yet. I just knew.
I didn’t think of this as paying attention. It just felt normal.
I noticed small changes. Tone. Timing. When something didn’t match what was being said. I learned to read what was underneath, even when I couldn’t explain it. Eventually, I stopped questioning it. I just trusted what I picked.
In adulthood, I remember a particular incident at work. There was a woman I worked with who was unpredictable. She seemed to swing between extremes⎼⎼really upbeat and happy, or frustrated and sharp, and it wasn’t always obvious what triggered the shift. She was in one of her moods one day and failed to communicate a change in the parts she was passing to me. This was causing errors on my end that I couldn’t trouble shoot right away. She was in her own world, but had to notice my struggles, yet said nothing. Once I realized she had made a change and not told me, I was instantly enraged. Why wouldn’t you perform your job correctly and efficiently and communicate? I was baffled. I blew up on her in quite a way. Once I got out my frustrations and understood the issue and how to correct it, I was fine. She definitely was not. I had triggered her. We were both quiet for the remainder of the shift, but the tension was very much present. The next day I felt it immediately at the start of the shift. I didn’t think that I was in the wrong, but in order to not have that terrible tense feeling, I apologized to her. It was like a flip of the switch and she was instantly different. She talked my head off for the remainder of the shift. This was obviously better than the tension that could be cut with a knife, and I had almost regretted the decision due to all of the exhausting conversation I had to endure for the rest of the day.
This wasn’t unusual for me. I had been adjusting to people long before I understood what I was doing. Reading tone. Managing reactions. Trying to keep things steady without knowing why it felt like my responsibility.
I thought I was just observant. I didn’t realize how much I was carrying.