GAH! Constantly interrupted when I speak!

[calmama]

It’s infuriating! I’ve got a quiet voice and fairly introverted but I’m making an effort to speak up. I also see this happening to others too and it drives me batty!

What are your tips and tricks for addressing this?

MargeryB interesting, are you like that at work?

This happens to me all the time at work! I'm introverted and shy so it takes a lot for me to build up to what I want to say, just to have someone talk over me as if I'm not even there. I don't have a particularly quiet voice so it is disheartening when it happens often. Will need to try out some of these tips to see if they help!

I've had this all my life! My family and kids do it, friends do it, work colleagues and anyone I deal with it. I'm not wallflower, I have a strong voice but ffs people. I've decided that I must bore people and they tune out

I get this at work alot. Other people think what they've got to say is more important. One person talks about themselves so much (I do try and input) that it was two years before she realised I had a second child, she was saying oh I didn't realise you had another, it was just she hadn't listened at all to anything I ever said. Totally self centred.

However my mum does it because if she doesn't say it there and then she'll forget what it was she was going to say

@TheLoveOfMoney
That's what I end up thinking, that I mustn't be interesting enough to listen to

"Oh I'm sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the start of yours?"

Loving this thread! Work with a girl who cannot physically let you tell her anything because she has always done it herself.....cannot bear anyone else to get any attention. We work in a shop and she insists on telling customers everything about her home life/kids etc...you can see they either don't care or have heard it before. Often wonder how to tell her to stfu without being rude but in the end went for a department transfer😂

I'm autistic and I find it difficult to tell when there's a gap in the conversation for me to respond. So my options are to stay silent, or inevitably interrupt even though I don't mean to.

But I doubt all the people you're speaking to are in that situation.

DH has started to do this to me. He says it is because he agrees with me, and is joining in. I say he is showing me that my words don't matter as much as his. He always, always apologises, but it makes me very sad.

Not a popular view on MN, but ever so occasionally, those who complain about being interrupted do need to reflect on the fact that conversation is reciprocal, and if you've been in full flow for a while now it might just be someone else's turn.

I do remind my kids that if people aren't commenting or asking questions then in all likelihood their audience is bored, and boring people is pretty rude too.

Just look at the person and say "as I was saying before you interrupted..."

In a professional capacity, in a work situation, colleagues who interrupt have no professional respect imho.

It is definitely a personality thing that overspills into work.
Granted, there are those who drone on & on about totally unrelated issues but out of respect you either listen or draw it to a polite conclusion.

It irks me mortally but the Thatcher way is the chosen way for me in respect of my interrupter colleague to be.... it’s going to be a HUGE challenge.

I think this is me too. I had a coffee with a friend the other week and emailed her afterwards to apologise as I felt I'd interrupted her loads of times. She said she thought she'd done it to me too! Sometimes mouth gets ahead of brain with no offence meant.

I think you know the difference between the overenthusiastic (but still annoying) interrupter and the person who does it because they genuinely think they are more important. I still remember a few years ago when my son played football and I was chatting to one of the mums. One of the other mums turned up at the end of the match, walked over to us, took no notice of me and talked directly to the other mum. I just waited for her to finish, and then I said "and as I was saying before X arrived, etc" and gave her a look. Not sure she got it, but she wandered off to talk to someone else as I obviously wasn't interesting enough for her.

Occasionally you also need to interrupt someone if you need to finish a phone call, get to an appointment etc.

Slightly connected - my mum doesn't interrupt (too much) but she has a habit of changing the subject totally. Most of the time your conversations naturally move around subjects but she decides there's something she wants to talk about and artificially changes the subject once she can get a word in edgeways. Really annoying when you haven't finished the topic you were talking about!