Sorry

I apologize for everything.

There are multiple factors for this, and I'm not going to go into them all today because that is "probably several sessions with a therapist" kind of material, but the why doesn't matter at this point. What does matter is that my chronic apologizing and my feelings of guilt for -- wait for it -- things that are not my fault/don't necessitate guilt/insert daily event here are probably driving the people around me crazy.

How bad is it, you ask?

When I apologize for something, and someone points out that it's not actually something that I need to apologize for? I will then apologize for apologizing.

Yep, that's me.

I believe that telling people you're sorry goes beyond apologizing for things that you've done. It's a way to offer empathy; telling someone you're sorry when they say they've had a terrible day, for example, isn't owning the terrible day they've had but rather offering them compassion -- you're sad for them that they had a day filled with suck.

I do that.

But. You can't find your shoes? I'm sorry -- I should have made sure they were findable. We're out of paper? I'm sorry, I should have purchased some. You need gas in your car? I'm sorry, I should have asked you about that. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Last night, we had a small kerfuffle with dinner and had to run out at the last minute for an ingredient. You might be thinking, well, you could have left it out, but it's very hard to make spaghetti without any pasta. I was sure we had some, so I didn't buy any when I went grocery shopping. I was wrong.

I apologized to The Fella roughly 3743647364732 times. He pointed out that this was not necessary, it was fine, the store wasn't far. Finally, he said: "No more. You cannot say you're sorry again."

So I had to stop talking. Because otherwise I was going to start apologizing for apologizing. It's an endless cycle.

I'm not sure how to fix it, either.

Sorry.