I Stopped Apologising for Taking Up Space

The apologies started so early I cannot locate their origin. I am sorry to bother you. I am sorry, this is probably a stupid question. I am sorry for taking so long. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

By the time I was in my twenties, apologising was not something I did consciously - it was a reflex, a kind of pre-emptive self-diminishment designed to neutralise any objection before it arrived. I said sorry for having opinions that differed from the room. I said sorry for asking questions in meetings.

I said sorry for being emotional, for being too direct, for not being direct enough, for taking up time, for needing time, for existing in any way that required adjustment from people around me.

I had internalised, somewhere along the way, the idea that my presence was something other people had to accommodate rather than something I had a right to. In professional settings this manifested as a consistent pattern of underselling: in meetings I would have an idea, wait to see if someone else said it first, and then either let them take the credit or introduce my version with a qualifier that immediately undermined it - 'This might not be quite right but...' or 'I am not sure if this makes sense but...' My manager at 26, a direct and perceptive woman named Kavitha, pulled me aside after a team meeting and said something I will not forget: 'You said three things in that meeting that were the best ideas in the room.

And you introduced all three of them as if you were apologising for having them. Stop doing that.' I went home and wrote down every apology I had given that week that was not actually for an error I had made. The list was long enough to be embarrassing.

The shift from that point was gradual and required constant conscious correction. I replaced reflexive apologies with functional alternatives - 'excuse me' instead of 'sorry to bother you', silence instead of self-undermining qualifiers, direct statements instead of heavily hedged suggestions.

I started practising, in low-stakes situations, the experience of taking up space without apologising for it: asking for a table I actually wanted at a restaurant rather than taking whatever was offered, having an opinion in a group conversation and just stating it, letting silences be silences rather than filling them with self-deprecation.

None of this was a complete transformation. I still notice the apology impulse sometimes, especially under pressure. But I know it for what it is now, and I know that every time I choose not to make myself smaller, I am doing something my younger self needed someone to teach her.