Why Am I Always Apologizing? A Look at Bipolar, Autism, and My Need to Say Sorry

I do this a lot. I apologize for everything. Especially things that aren’t my fault or that have nothing to do with me. I’m not sure why I do it, though I have some theories. But it gets on my nerves and everyone else’s nerves.

I’m not sure how this all started, and I could probably delve into my childhood and other traumas to find the reason. Even growing up I was always the peacemaker. I’ve also always been very empathetic but probably too much so. I wouldn’t call myself an “empath” as I feel that gets used way too much. But when people around me are hurting or going through things, I tend to feel it too and have my own anxiety about they are dealing with, which honestly isn’t fair to them. They should be able to deal with their own anxiety without having to feel responsible for mine too.

But my wife deals with stress at work, I tell her I’m sorry. A friend’s family member is sick, I say I’m sorry. Something random happens in the world that has nothing to do with me, I say I’m sorry. Why? Even I ask myself this a lot. My therapist says its a trauma response, and I have plenty of past trauma, so no telling which one it pinpoints to

But I’ve lost friends over this because they tell me something personal they are dealing with and all I come back with is “I’m sorry” and well, that’s just not enough. And I get it, its centering myself around their troubles. Not to blame my conditions, but I’ve been told this is a very neurodivergent thing to do.

So, this seems to be an anxiety thing, I have no doubt that it is. So I find myself constantly needing assurance. So when someone says they are dealing with problem X and details everything going on, and I say “I’m sorry,” they are not having to reassure and comfort me. I realize as I’m typing this I’m sorting through all of this myself and centering myself on their issue when they are looking to me for reassurance.

Maybe a better thing I need to say now is “I’m sorry you are going through this,” or “Is there something I can do to help?” though I will admit this will take a LOT of practice to figure that out. But its something I definitely need to work on. My intentions with saying “I’m sorry” are always well meaning, but I can imagine how it comes across when someone is already upset or stressed.

I admit, I misread social cues all the time. I seem outgoing and like I’m good on picking things up, but truth is I’m guessing about 80% of the time. Fact is a lot of time I just don’t know what else to say. I can FEEL what they are going through, I just don’t always know how to communicate it. So I blurt out “I’m sorry”. I will also admit, I have a constant fear people are mad at me. So I apologize just in case they are upset because they are mad at me, but truth is whatever they are upset about has nothing to do with me. So once again, I’m centering myself and making things about me. Something I need to work on.

This goes back to centering myself. I see my wife is upset or agitated, my first thought is she’s upset with me. Fact is, she takes care of her mom and has a stressful job, and likely has nothing to do with me. But for some reason that is the first place my bipolar brain goes and starts running through any little thing I’ve done in the past 24 hrs that could have upset her. Only to find out she’s upset about an email she got from work or something that has nothing to do with me. Then when I get anxious over her anxiety, she now has to deal with me on top of whatever it is she’s dealing with. Once again, not fair to her and I really don’t need to do this to myself.

Some days I’m certain my brain hates my guts. It tells me the absolute worst things about myself constantly, or blows up the most insignificant thing into something major that I make myself sick over, and my brain literally never shuts the fuck up. It’s exhausting. My medication does help to slow it down and most times I can reason through it because I’m on the medication, I can redirect myself. But some days I can’t and I’m off and spiraling.

A problem with always apologizing like I do, is it makes any sincere apology meaningless. Like any word or phrase, when you misuse or over use it, it just loses all meaning at some point. When I actually do mess up and need to say I’m sorry, people are so sick of hearing it from me, its just like “Whatever” and I can’t blame anyone for thinking that.

Then to others, it all may just sound selfish or attention seeking. Like I said before, It takes their problem and puts focus on me, now they have to comfort and reassure me when I should be offering them support.

I’ve been pretty good about this over all past few years, but I still fall short in some areas. The key is, I need to focus on listening to what the person is actually saying, assess what is being said and slow down my response time and see if an apology is actually needed or why I feel the need to saying it. I often just blurt it out because its my goto response. I guess its a comfort phrase for no good reason

I guess by writing this blog, I’m also communicating to people my tendency to over apologize and ask for some patience as I work through this. My brain fires differently than a lot of people’s, so I am doing my best to process this and stop doing it.

My hope is my new practice of Buddhism and meditation will help me work through this and learn more self compassion and patience, and how to sort through these things. It will take time and a lot of work, but I’ve done a lot of work and growth on myself over the past several years as it is. I think its time for some fine tuning of my quirkier things that have become a detriment and see if I can use that as opportunities to grow. I almost typed “sorry for the long post” but I caught myself. Thank you all for reading and joining me on this journey. I hope this was helpful to someone out there.