Why do I curl up on myself if I feel like I've done something wrong or upset someone?

It's been a thing ever since I can remember. It's most definitely associated with feelings of guilt, though it's also a response to anger around me. I want to disappear through the floor, make myself as small as possible, etc. It makes me feel better, I'm hiding ky face, etc.

I know my parents yelled a lot before I was three.

I also overapologize, which can end up with me saying sorry for being sorry.

I don't have an issue myself with these behaviors, but they seem to elicit negative reactions in others, and when they point it out it just makes my own guilt for doing something wrong worse. But to them, it feels like a guilt trip, they don't like to see or hear apologies - one, as a teenager, said the reaction made him feel like he'd just kicked a puppy. Which just made me feel worse.

Since it happens before I am fully aware, I have been trying to work on it, but the people I'm living with currently say if I was really trying I wouldn't do it, that I'm just making excuses when I try to explain that I don't remember how it started and don't know how to make it stop entirely.

Does anyone else do this outside of therapy, and have any suggestions for terminating the behavior?

theres a saying here in my location ....habits are easy to make but hard to break....one thing that helped me in breaking this kind of habit was taking assertiveness type classes like self defense classes, and marshal arts (marshal arts are things like...karate, aikido, judo, tai chi) self defense and marshal arts classes all teach how to face danger rather than run, shrink, curl up....basically learning how to stand up for what you believe in and stand up to all kinds of perceived and real dangers. most cities in the USA have a variety of these kinds of classes and sometimes places like domestic violence programs, crisis centers and colleges also teach these kinds and other types of assertiveness training classes.

Sounds like there might be an element of shame, more than guilt. Just an idea.

You may have a point, but I don't really see where it came from except perhaps the constant yelling before I was three, or being bullied since entering school to the point of getting two concussions and a broken arm in one year. The social ostracism and realizing early on that my "friends" in my neighborhood had been ordered by their parents to be my "friends" (they talked about me being from a "broken home" and going to a "Godless public school, kids that young don't say those things unless they've heard their parents say them) definitely damaged my self-esteem.

My family always praised my intelligence and while there may have been an element of shame that my father couldn't quit the drugs even when he had me back in his life a decade after their separation, but I had already been attending Alateen and knew, intellectually at least, that addiction is a type of disease that doesn't go away and doesn't mean it's your fault or if you were loveable enough that they would quit.

I'm currently diagnosed with Bipolar I, GAD, and PTSD (developed as an adult due to an assault), but while one hospital doc "didn't believe" in Bipolar II, didn't realize that just one episode of manic psychosis means Bipolar I, and thought any woman on the ward for depression just wanted attention said I was borderline after a 5 day stay and no communication with me, I think if I have any Axis Ii diagnosis it's more "Avoidant Personality Disorder". I don't let people close to me unless I'm sure they like me, I try to avoid conflict at almost any cost, I prefer to live on my own even though every time I do my other issues interfere and I forget my meds, don't keep the place clean (fibro, , etc.

The first time I was really accepted was when I got "online" at 12 (local BBSes, the information dirt road), and ended up homeschooling for two years, getting 3 years of work accomplished and entering back into school as a junior, so not in any classes with kids who remembered me). I took vicarious pleasure in seeing girls who tormented me in 7th grade being mocked horribly when their parents let them get online ecause they couldn't spell or type well and acted so immature, but people first thought I was a freshman in college when I was a 7th grader.

So I have always communicated with others through a computer screen much easier than in person, which gives me an added distance from real interpersonal activities.