What I See in Therapy, with Dr. Andrea Zorbas
Some of the most common patterns I see in therapy are things people do not even realize are patterns. They assume everyone does it. They have been doing it for so long that it feels like a personality trait rather than a response to something that happened to them.
Here are three behaviors I see in therapy all the time that people think are just normal, but actually point to something worth paying attention to.
Apologizing Constantly
If you find yourself saying "sorry" before asking a question, before sharing an opinion, or before taking up space in a conversation, that is not politeness. That is a signal that somewhere along the way you learned that your presence is an inconvenience.
Constant apologizing often comes from growing up in an environment where you needed to manage other people's emotions to stay safe. Maybe a parent's mood shifted quickly and you learned to preemptively smooth things over. Maybe you picked up early that being "too much" got you negative attention. Now, as an adult, you are still running that old program.
The habit feels harmless. But over time, reflexive apologizing reinforces a belief that you are fundamentally in the way. Your brain hears you say "sorry" a dozen times a day and starts to believe you actually have something to be sorry for.
What to try instead: notice when you are about to apologize and ask yourself whether you actually did something wrong. If the answer is no, try replacing the apology with what you actually mean. "Sorry, can I ask you something?" becomes "I have a question." It sounds small, but the shift is significant.
Assuming Someone Is Mad at You
You send a text and do not hear back for a few hours. Your stomach drops. A coworker gives you a short answer and you spend the rest of the afternoon replaying the interaction, convinced you did something wrong.
This is hypervigilance, and it is exhausting. It means your nervous system is stuck in scanning mode, constantly looking for signs of rejection or anger in the people around you. You are reading every facial expression, every tone of voice, every pause in conversation as potential evidence that you have upset someone.
Hypervigilance like this usually develops when you grew up around unpredictable emotions. If a caregiver's mood dictated whether the household felt safe, you learned to read the room before you could read a book. That skill kept you safe as a child. But as an adult, it keeps you anxious, because you are running threat detection in environments where there is no actual threat.
Recognizing this pattern does not make it go away overnight. But naming it for what it is, rather than assuming you are just "too sensitive," is the first step toward changing your relationship with it.
Thinking Your Needs Are Too Much
This one shows up in a lot of different ways. You do not ask for help because you do not want to burden anyone. You downplay what you need in relationships. You tell yourself that wanting more from a partner or a friendship makes you needy or high maintenance.
But here is the thing: having needs is not a character flaw. It is a basic part of being human. If you grew up in a situation where your needs were consistently unmet, dismissed, or treated as a burden, you internalized a message that wanting things is the problem. So you learned to shrink. To require less. To take care of yourself before anyone else had a chance to let you down.
That self-sufficiency might feel like strength, and in some ways it is. But it also keeps you from experiencing the kind of closeness and support that healthy relationships are built on.
Therapy can help you start to untangle which of your beliefs about yourself are actually true and which ones are just old survival strategies that you no longer need.
When "Normal" Is Worth Examining
All three of these patterns share something in common: they started as ways to protect yourself. They made sense in the context where you learned them. But they have a cost, and that cost usually shows up as anxiety, difficulty in relationships, or a persistent feeling that you are not quite good enough.
If any of this sounds familiar, you are not broken. You are just still using tools that were designed for a situation you are no longer in.
Dr. Andrea Zorbas is a licensed psychologist at Therapy Now SF, where she works with clients navigating anxiety, work stress, emotional regulation, and relationship patterns. If you are interested in starting therapy, you can schedule a free consultation.