"How can you tell me to relax when there's Carnivorous Gazelles about?!"

Alright. Has constantly being on edge helped you deal with the carnivorous gazelle? Or has it just tired you out so that by the time you actually have to solve the Problem, you have no resources left?

People who want an apology pretty much never want to hear "I'm a stupid idiot." If someone is actually trying to get you to say you're a stupid idiot, it's not because it will make up for a mistake you made or harm you caused. It's because they want you to feel like a stupid idiot. People who care about you do not want you to feel like a stupid idiot and it hurts them when they see you putting yourself down in their name.

and the reverse: people who ONLY "apologize" by putting themselves down are rarely genuinely apologizing, whether or not it's intentional lack of apology on their part. it's good to recognize this in yourself and work on changing, if you often try to apologize by putting yourself down, because what is actually happening is not an apology.

it's an attempt to get the other person to soothe or absolve your emotions by assuring you that you aren't a stupid idiot.

in some situations, this becomes the other person CONFIRMING you are a stupid idiot. this is a kind of toxicity or abuse.

in some situations, this becomes the other person ASSURING you repeatedly that you aren't a stupid idiot and it's okay, really it's okay! this is a kind of toxicity and has the potential to become abusive if it's a pattern, in which you are not actually apologizing and instead outsourcing your emotional management to the person who deserved an apology.

in some situations, this becomes the end of a relationship. people who realize they aren't getting real apologies might set boundaries or withdraw or cut ties.

bc tumblr is tumblr, i'd like to remind you that relationship dynamics aren't black and white. if you realize you-- for whatever reason-- are veering into harmful patterns, it doesn't make you a stupid idiot abuser who must self-punish or seek absolution from another person. "abuser" or "abusive" are not permanent labels on a human. it means you now have a responsibility to work on changing the pattern to improve as a person.

if you have never been taught, here is how you apologize:

"i'm sorry for [doing/saying x]. that was wrong."

that's it.

many people, especially neurodivergent people or trauma survivors i think, have an impulse to reverse engineer their own behavior and explain in an attempt to prove that they weren't acting maliciously.

but "i'm sorry, i was trying to [x]" or "im sorry, but you did [y] and it upset me" are not apologies. they're defenses.

an apology should not be defensive.

you might need to unpack your own behavior. you might need to work though the thing you identified as a trigger. you might need to analyze a misunderstanding.

that's for after, and sometimes it's with someone else entirely.

the lowly yeast cell creates the vintage the grape is unaware of