For a long time, sorry was my most used word. Sorry I am late. Sorry I have to cancel. Sorry I need to sit down. Sorry I cannot do that today. Sorry, sorry, sorry, like my existence itself was an inconvenience I needed to constantly apologize for.
After my diagnosis, and a lot of years after that honestly, I started noticing how much of my apologizing had nothing to do with anything I actually did wrong. I was not late because I was careless. I was late because getting dressed took longer than expected and my joints decided to be difficult right when I needed to leave. I was not cancelling because I did not care. I was cancelling because my body had other plans that I did not get a vote in.
So I made a list, mentally at first and then actually written down, of things I decided I would stop apologizing for. I want to share it because I think a lot of people with chronic illness are carrying around guilt for things that were never theirs to carry.
I stopped apologizing for cancelling plans last minute. This was the hardest one to let go of because I genuinely believed it made me a bad friend. The truth is, chronic illness does not give advance notice. I can feel completely fine at 9am and be unable to leave my bed by noon. For years I would apologize three different ways and offer to make it up to people, like my body misbehaving was a personal failing I owed compensation for. Now I just say I cannot make it today and leave it there. The people who matter understand. The people who do not were never going to understand no matter how many times I apologized.
I stopped apologizing for using mobility aids or accommodations in public. I used to feel like every cane, every handicap placard, every request for a seat was something I needed to explain and justify to strangers who had no actual stake in my life. I do not owe anyone my medical history because they raised an eyebrow at me parking in a accessible spot. If you need it, you need it. You do not need to perform your disability for an audience to earn the right to exist comfortably.
I stopped apologizing for eating slowly, or carefully, or differently because of MCAS. Food reactions are not a personality quirk and they are not me being difficult at a restaurant. For a long time I would over explain every dietary restriction like I needed to convince the table I was not just being picky. Now if someone asks I give a short honest answer and move on. I do not owe anyone a TED talk about mast cells to justify what I put in my body.
I stopped apologizing for resting. This one took me embarrassingly long to internalize. I grew up believing rest had to be earned through productivity. If I had not done enough, I had not earned the right to sit down. Chronic illness eventually forced me to unlearn that, but the apologizing lingered long after the belief itself faded. I would still say sorry for resting even after I knew logically I had nothing to apologize for. Now I rest without narrating it as a failure.
I stopped apologizing for asking for help. For years asking for help felt like an admission that I was somehow not managing my life correctly. Needing someone to carry something, open something, drive somewhere, or just be present while I dealt with a flare felt like proof I was failing at independence. Now I understand that needing help sometimes is not a character flaw. It is just true for a lot of people, disabled or not, and the people who actually love you want to be asked.
I stopped apologizing for talking about my health. I used to feel like I was being a burden every time my illness came up in conversation, like I was making things awkward or oversharing. But my health is a real part of my life. Pretending it does not exist to make other people comfortable was costing me more than it was ever helping anyone else.
I stopped apologizing for not looking sick. This one is sneaky because nobody ever directly asked me to apologize for it, but I felt the pressure constantly. People would say things like you do not look sick, as if that was a compliment, and I would find myself almost apologizing for not performing illness in a way that matched their expectations. Invisible illness is still illness. I do not need to look a certain way to validate what is actually happening inside my body.
I stopped apologizing for taking up space, literally and otherwise. Needing extra time, extra accommodations, extra patience from people around me used to feel like an imposition I had to soften with constant apology. I have stopped treating my needs as inherently inconvenient to others.
Here is what I want to say to anyone reading this who still apologizes constantly the way I used to. The apologizing does not actually protect you from judgment. People who are going to judge you for being sick are going to judge you whether you apologize seventeen times or zero times. The apology does not change their mind. It just costs you energy you do not have to spare, and it reinforces in your own head that you are something to be sorry for.
You are not something to be sorry for. Your body doing things outside of your control is not a moral failing. Needing accommodations is not weakness. Resting is not laziness. Cancelling because your body said no is not unreliability.
I am not saying never apologize for anything ever again. If you are actually late because you procrastinated, apologize, that is just being a decent person. But if you are apologizing because your body did something it does not ask your permission to do, that apology was never yours to give in the first place.
Take inventory of your own list. What have you been apologizing for that was never actually your fault. Write it down if it helps. Start noticing when sorry comes out of your mouth automatically for something you had zero control over.
You might be surprised how much lighter things feel once you stop carrying guilt for a body that is just doing what it does.