I noticed how quickly I apologized

Dear Delyara, I apologized three times in one conversation today and none of them were necessary. I caught myself doing it in real time and still couldn’t stop. Sorry for asking. Sorry for clarifying. Sorry for needing more information. Sorry for taking up a little more room than absolute silence would have. I don’t know when apology became my default social posture, but I’m tired of how automatic it feels. It’s as if some part of me still believes that the safest way to exist is to soften my own presence before anyone has the chance to object to it. That must be such an exhausting way to live. And yet it still lives in me.