WovenGalaxy, I had a similar thought process for many years, and still must be on guard against it.

When my mother questioned me, it rarely felt like an innocent question. For example, if she asked "How was your bike ride today?" it always felt more like "Why the h**** did you go on a bike ride?" Her questions (and comments) typically made me feel criticized, less than. It usually seemed like like whatever I was doing was wrong, and I was just wrong as a person.

So, as an adult, if people asked me questions I would tend to automatically feel attacked, when in reality people generally were asking completely innocent, friendly questions. It took a lot of therapy to help me do what you were describing, to hold off for a minute and realize that the person was just genuinely interested, not automatically critical. I still need to be attentive about that.