08/20/2026
Some people walk into a room and just exist in it. You walk in and within seconds you've scanned every face, clocked the tension, and figured out who's in a bad mood.
That's not intuition being magic, that's hypervigilance, a nervous system that learned somewhere along the way that safety depended on catching the threat first. It probably made you perceptive and reliable and great in a crisis. It also means you're running background threat-detection during dinner, during movies, during moments that are actually fine.
The exhaustion makes sense when you realize part of you never gets to fully stand down. You're not high-strung. You're on guard, and you have been for a long time.