V
vash88
Guest
I’ve suffered from anxiety all my life (particularly social anxiety – I was born with mild autism). So I get uncomfortable easily. And my defense mechanism in social situations that get awkward is to either apologize or resort to self-deprecating humor. I fully realize that apologizing too much can just make things worse, as it puts an extra burden on the other person to reassure you, and it reinforces the thought that you have low self-worth, both of which damage the relationship that an apology intends to mend.
It really hit me today, because about a month ago the restaurant across the street from me had a fire so I’ve been helping them clean up. I work very limited part-time. So since I have free time, I’ve felt it’s only right to help them as much as I can. But I often worry if I’m not doing things correctly, and so sometimes I just apologize out of discomfort. Today I was cleaning something, and had put it on a table while I scrubbed it. I was working on it for about 5 minutes uninterrupted, when suddenly someone says to me that they’re going to clean the table it was on, so he grabbed a chair and politely asked me to put the thing on it instead. For some reason I apologized for putting it on the table in the first place, and he sorta looked at me funny and said no, it’s okay. He said it in such a way that he was surprised that he even had to say it (and who can blame him?). That may sound like a goofy light-hearted example, but it’s the most recent one so I thought of it. There have been other examples during this time and I think the waiters and waitresses there are getting sick of it. But sometimes I just can’t help myself. Another example from the restaurant situation is one time someone was giving me instructions on what needed to be done. I’m a little hard of hearing so while I understood most of it, I missed part of it. But the person explaining it got called away. So I asked one of the waitresses (who was standing nearby the whole time) if she could run that by me again. And I prefaced it by saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch all that…” And to make matters worse – no joke – I found out later that the poor waitress I asked to repeat part of the instructions, was also hard of hearing. So I felt bad about that too.
This issue has plagued me all my life. It’s hurt my dating life and social life in general. I’m 27 years old and for most of that time I was ignorant to it, but I’ve really become more self-aware in the last couple of years. But again, even knowing the problem, I can’t seem to help myself. Not sure if it’s my autism or just the fact that a bad habit is hard to get rid of, or what, but I need help.
It really hit me today, because about a month ago the restaurant across the street from me had a fire so I’ve been helping them clean up. I work very limited part-time. So since I have free time, I’ve felt it’s only right to help them as much as I can. But I often worry if I’m not doing things correctly, and so sometimes I just apologize out of discomfort. Today I was cleaning something, and had put it on a table while I scrubbed it. I was working on it for about 5 minutes uninterrupted, when suddenly someone says to me that they’re going to clean the table it was on, so he grabbed a chair and politely asked me to put the thing on it instead. For some reason I apologized for putting it on the table in the first place, and he sorta looked at me funny and said no, it’s okay. He said it in such a way that he was surprised that he even had to say it (and who can blame him?). That may sound like a goofy light-hearted example, but it’s the most recent one so I thought of it. There have been other examples during this time and I think the waiters and waitresses there are getting sick of it. But sometimes I just can’t help myself. Another example from the restaurant situation is one time someone was giving me instructions on what needed to be done. I’m a little hard of hearing so while I understood most of it, I missed part of it. But the person explaining it got called away. So I asked one of the waitresses (who was standing nearby the whole time) if she could run that by me again. And I prefaced it by saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch all that…” And to make matters worse – no joke – I found out later that the poor waitress I asked to repeat part of the instructions, was also hard of hearing. So I felt bad about that too.
This issue has plagued me all my life. It’s hurt my dating life and social life in general. I’m 27 years old and for most of that time I was ignorant to it, but I’ve really become more self-aware in the last couple of years. But again, even knowing the problem, I can’t seem to help myself. Not sure if it’s my autism or just the fact that a bad habit is hard to get rid of, or what, but I need help.
definitely just cutting to the chase and telling them you are hard of hearing is a better approach 
