When Sorry Seems to be the Easiest Word

Elton John once sang that Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. But that’s not always true. Sometimes it can be the easiest word, especially if you’re neurodivergent.

Earlier today I needed to check through some of the earliest emails I sent when I started my job, nearly six years ago. The fifth word of my very first email was ‘sorry’. The third word of my second email was ‘sorry’.

As I scrolled through some more emails, I kept seeing myself apologising in emails. Needless to say I hadn’t actually done anything wrong (at least in the eyes of anyone who wasn’t me).

Here are some of the things I apologised for:

- Not having previously replied to an email from my boss that she’d sent the day before I actually started work at the company.
- Not having been given access to my email account on the morning of my first day AND taking a lunch break.
- Being stuck in traffic.
- Requesting adjusted hours to work around my counselling placement working with people affected by cancer.
- Having Covid.
- Doing work that I was told to prioritise over some other work that I literally couldn’t have done any more quickly without cloning myself.

What on earth was I doing? Of course, all of these were before I was diagnosed as AuDHD, and as a lifelong people pleaser, I was clearly feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, even on my very first day of a job.

I’d like to say that I’ve broken this habit now after learning so much about myself, but obviously I’m still doing it. Last month alone I apologised in emails for asking a colleague to cover some work while I was on leave, for forgetting to attach a document and for not replying an email as quickly as I felt I should have.

Sometimes, with habits like this, you need to be aware of them before you can try to break them. Saying sorry is an important skill and I’d rather over-apologise than never do it (we all know people like that, especially politicians), but I’m going to try and catch myself when I’m about to apologise for something I don’t need to say sorry for.

So, if I’ve ever annoyed you by over-apologising, I can only say… sorry! (Sorry, I’m trying to stop…)