Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.

Dread is an unusually sharp observer. It notices the shift in someone’s tone, the thing left out of the message, the risk buried three steps ahead. Some of what it finds is real and worth knowing. The trouble is that it does not stop looking, so it keeps finding, and half of what it digs up was never there.

When you feel that searching start, try separating what you actually saw from what you inferred. Write the two lists side by side and act only on the first. The rest can wait for evidence, and most of it never arrives.