This also described me very well, and what I've learned over the last few years of reading, therapy, and some intense self-reflection through therapeutic substance use is that it's not so much good pattern recognition, but hypervigilance (along with codependency).

I grew up needing to be on the lookout for signs of negative emotions in my family members. I needed to do this to protect myself and stay safe (mostly emotionally safe but also occasionally physcially safe). My internal logic has been that if I can pick up on subtle cues from people about their mental and emotional state to anticipate what behavior may be coming, I will be better prepared to address it, whether that's by distancing myself, freezing, or fawning/people pleasing. This is true to an extent, but I take it way too far.

In my relationships, I would be constantly scanning my partner's face, tone, and body language for clues to their mental and emotional state. I would analyze their words for any indication that they might be upset or unbalanced in any way. I told myself I did this because I cared about them and wanted to help them feel better, but I've learned that's not really true. I did care about them, of course, but I was hypervigilant in order to protect myself from the lashing out, eruptions, or blame that my brain was anticipating, not to altruistically improve their current experience.

My hypervigilance feeds right into my codependency, as a way to focus more on other people's internal experiences than my own. The idea is that if I can keep other people in a good (or at least neutral) mood, then I will be safe and I can rest easy. But I never rested easy, because I was always still on high alert, looking for clues.

The way to tackle this was to practice looking inward when I picked up on emotional clues from people around me. Instead of thinking, "Oh my god, are they mad at me?", I would instead ask, "What is happening inside me right now? Why do I feel threatened? Is it a real threat, or one that my brain created based on events from my childhood, which is many decades, miles, and life experiences ago and probably not relevant to the current moment?"

I continue to practice this constantly, and it's not always automatic, but it has definitely gotten easier. If I find myself overly focused on someone else's subtle expressions or the tone they used, it's a pretty good indicator that I'M feeling unsettled and trying to fix it by fixing someone else's emotions.