Someone asks why you did something, and you start defending yourself. Someone’s tone changes, and you get tense. Someone doesn’t answer your message, and you check your phone again, wondering whether they’re angry or avoiding you.
It feels as though you noticed what was happening and then reacted to it. But often, the reaction had already started. You don’t have to consciously think, I’m being criticized, before you become defensive. You don’t have to think, They’re angry with me, before you start trying to make things okay.
The response doesn’t wait for you to understand what is happening. You can feel rejected before you’ve considered whether anyone actually rejected you. You can feel accused before you’ve stopped to ask whether anyone accused you. You can start preparing for trouble before you know what trouble you’re expecting.
This is easy to miss because the explanation comes so quickly. They’re annoyed with me. They don’t care. I need to defend myself. Once you have an explanation, it can seem obvious that the explanation came first.
But sometimes you were already defensive before you knew you felt criticized. You were already trying to fix things before you knew you thought someone was angry. You were already pulling away before you knew you felt rejected.
This is why you can hear yourself explaining something nobody accused you of. It’s why you can leave a conversation and only then realize you disagreed. It’s why you can think you were angry and realize later that you were frightened.
The response was already happening. Then you understood it.