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I’ve started interrupting the interrupter and saying, “Excuse me, I was talking.” Yeah, it may make the moment tense for a bit, but it also points an arrow at whoever spoke over me. In most contexts, at least. It doesn’t work with my family, but with reasonable, mature people it works.
Which isn’t to say that I don’t interrupt people sometimes, but I’m working on it. If I realize I interrupted someone, I stop myself and say something like, “I’m sorry. You were talking first, go ahead. I’ll go next.” I’ve also started putting my hand up and waiting for the first person to finish, then saying something like, “I didn’t want to break your flow, but I wanted to add …”
I’m not perfect, I was raised in a household where interruptions and talking over other people was the norm. I’m still trying to unlearn some of the crappy things I was taught. Thankfully, most people seem to be cool about these screw-ups so long as I apologize and show that I’m trying to do better. It’s a process.
Respect is hot
This takes practice and I still don’t always catch it in time:
When they try to interrupt, just keep talking over them. Establish piercing eye contact, especially if you’re neurodivergent and it’s difficult. Double especially if it’s at work and you’re a minority.
You aren’t being rude. They’re being rude and need to know that.
I usually just give up trying and stop participating in the conversation. Clearly they don’t care to hear what I have to say, why waste energy over it.
Just slowly start stroking your massive invisible cock while maintaining eye contact. If they don’t notice, gradually moan louder and louder.
That always seems to bring me back into the conversational fray.
This can backfire but I do enjoy dropping a “I’m sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?”
then they sush me for being rude. it’s their conversation not mine, just because it’s my family doesn’t mean I get to be in the conversation
Aaaand that’s when I’ll absolutely escalate. Let me guess, they try to call subservience “maturity”.
that’s when they’ll be more upset then they’ll gaslight me to blame me.
wanna go no contact
Adding my support to the other comments. Going no contact with toxic relations is so freeing and healthy.
I cannot know your situation and how feasible going no contact is, but if you feel the need to do it I can say I’ve never heard or heard anyone voice regret going no contact with their toxic relatives.
Edit to add: I was surprised at being happy when my daughter couldn’t remember her grandmother’s name.
I’m in a very complicated situation and cannot go no contact without risking homelessness/deportation/losing my kids.
I understand, having been in similar circumstances. I sincerely hope the best for you. I don’t know if this will be encouraging or discouraging, but it took me until I was in my 40s to finally be able to go full no contact with my family. No matter hoe long it takes, it’s definitely worth your mental health when you can safely do it.
hopefully I’m able to do that by 40, only 3 years left, as soon as my greencard clears and I can finally work, I’ll be free
Do it. I’ve cut out people who have no respect and regret nothing.
Best decision I made in life was to never say a word to my mother again.
Fuck that, I just leave.
If you’re in a group and see this happening to someone, ask that they finish what they were saying. It’s a small thing to do that really makes someone feel better.
we have a friend that will just ramble for literal hours if you let him, needing zero input from anyone to keep going. total motor on him. we have to interrupt him or nobody will be able to talk
I wonder if he is self aware or if he would see this meme and relate to it
My personal rule is that if I get interrupted twice trying to tell a story I give up and save it for another time.
My personal rule is that if that happens, I leave.
Fuck em, I can either find some other people to talk to, or I am at the wrong party, and need to re-evaluate my social circle.
Sometimes there’s just a few too many conversions going on at the same time and it’s just not the right time for your thing.
And sometimes all of those conversations are just being dominated by self-important yappers, who are basically just shit testing your ability to recognize a social dominance hierarchy, by establishing that whatever you may have to say is less important than whatever they have to say is.
That’s true. But we also need to consider that sometimes we might be that yapper. I’m sure there’s a few people here who relate to this meme while their friends think they just keep on talking if not stopped hah.
Oh, sure, yeah.
I do this by telling people that sometimes I yap and go off on tangents, please free to interject if I’m dominating the conversation and don’t realize it, I won’t be offended.
Socializing is actually really simple when the rules are clearly and explicitly established, as opposed to a mixture of unspoken norms and boundaries that everyone just either guesses at, or assumes that everyone has the same norms and boundaries as themself.
I just go quiet for a while, then they notice and won’t let me enjoy my peace. I’m just trying to imagine what a life, where you can actually opt out of socializing would be like…
Well, it is possible to live a life where you can do most of your work remotely, do most of your interaction digitally, such that you can just … not answer a call, not be in a voice chat room, or whatever.
Its not easy to accomplish this, but it is possible.
Pull that off, somehow, and then you have much more control over how often you choose to expose yourself to obnoxious and performative social functions.
But even without that:
Stand up for yourself, politely assert your boundaries and expectations, in any kind of relational context, and if people violate them, go with either a 2 or 3 strikes rule, and then if they keep breaking them… ignore/ghost/avoid them to the greatest extent possible.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
“You were rude to me, after I told you the things I find rude.”
If they, on their own, attempt to apologize, well, judge that per the specifics of that situation.
But don’t encourage or ask them to.
Suffer no fools, ghost all assholes.
I really try and make a point to lock eyes with someone and respond or ask them to continue when I see this happening to them. I can’t always catch it but I hate the feeling and would want someone to do it for me.
me at family gatherings
I have several siblings. My oldest brother must still see me as “baby sister” as he will talk over me and ignore my contributions constantly. Another brother isn’t like that - he listens and responds, but he has his own issues, and lives far from me. We mostly communicate by texting each other pictures of silly signs we see. My youngest sibling, however, adapted to this family situation by just not talking. Which sucks, because I know they have a lot to share. But I get it, it’s hard to get a word in edge-wise when the whole family is together. Oldest brother dominates the conversation, other brother (close in age to the oldest) can contribute and be listened to… but I have to raise my voice and repeat myself often to be heard even once. It makes sense to just “check out” in that environment.
it’s insane how all those toxic family dynamics you hope will be over once you become an adult still prevail.
The worst part is when you make strides in your life to outgrow and overcome the toxic behaviors you developed as a kid, but when you’re with family it’s like you revert. I’m not the same person at work, with friends, with partners, in public, etc. as I am when around family. Talking with my mom is like tearing down the walls of a therapy office - everything I worked so hard to become gets thrashed as soon as she says something to me. Working on not being a push-over? Mom knows how to guilt-trip me into doing what she wants. Trying to establish boundaries? Lol, good luck. My mom even tries to pry into HIPAA-protected information about patients I’ve worked with (and gets upset when I tell her - a former nurse - that I legally can’t tell her anything.)
Then I get asked why I’m “being this way” or “being difficult” and like… I had to learn the hard way how to socialize as a mature adult, in part because the things my mom calls “immature” are actually healthy, mature reactions. She’s got it all twisted and I know there is no unlearning that at this point for her.
those aren’t adults, those are entitled children in grown up bodies.
plus, i think that regression, where the moment I’m with them I feel like I’m 10 years old being bullied by my siblings and gaslit by my parents is a PTSD response. except that they haven’t change do the only difference is that we’re all older but the abuse persists.
Agreed. No wonder it hurts so much sometimes. No wonder I end up with dreams where I’m a lost child and nobody will help me. Childhood trauma is hard to climb out of.
found family is your favourite trope?
You could say that. My girlfriend’s mom adores me. When she found out I was going to their family’s Thanksgiving, she was giddy as can be. It’s a refreshing change from being around my family, where it’s pretty much just the kids who are excited to see me.
Having ADHD friends, this is life. Let them have fun. See where the conversation goes. It’s always an adventure down some new tangent that, with the right question (they love questions) can turn into a rabbit hole.
I just wanted to say,
It’s always an adventure down some new tangent that, with the right question (they love questions) can turn into a rabbit
hole.
I (also?) have a friend who has ADHD. This is my most favourite thing about our conversations. To look back and think “how did we get here?” is fun/interesting to me. I also feel that they are intellectually stimulating, but that may just be him.
If I get treated like that I just get up and leave.
I forgive people who interrupt, because that may be how they were raised–they couldn’t talk in their family if they didn’t interrupt. But, I also correct them politely. If they don’t take kindly to my correction, I leave and stop talking to them.
Respect is earned.
What sort or polite correction? That’s hard to do
“excuse me, I wasn’t finished” and then finish the thought
Whooooo…
You would not get along with me, nor probably any other autistic person.
You, correcting me, for interjecting, occasionally, when its appropriate?
That’s you disrespecting me.
As I said, we would not get along.
Sorry but spoiler alert for nearly all neurotypicals / people with time wasting socialization norms:
You’re nowhere near as interesting or worth paying serious attention to as you think you are.
The whole… smile and pretend I am actually interested in what someone is saying thing, because ‘that’s the polite thing to do’?
Oh I can do it. Masking is essentially a mandatory life skill; I have a lot of practice at it, in a wide array of different socioeconomic contexts.
But uh no, it’s actually rude to smile and nod when you don’t actually care, because you’re pretending, you’re emoting contrary to what you are actually thinking and feeling.
It’s deceptive. It enables the narcissism and grandiosity of rubes. It’s a kind of lying.
As you say, respect is earned.
If you’re boring, and prattling on, at great length, about something boring, mundane, ill-informed, contradictory, incoherent?
Haven’t earned anything from me other than a chuckle and an eye roll.
Why’d you put the same image in the body, I wonder? Not only that, you uploaded the same thing twice instead of using the same pictrs URL.
Let’s try not to unnecessarily waste space of your instance.
Otherwise, good shitpost.
I mistakenly posted the image twice because I was trying a new lemmy app. So I have edited my post right after I had submitted. Can you post ss.
Weird request but here you go:
I scrolled past this really fast and had to do a double take for context lmao
i guess, thanks for ss 😶
Okay yep. I just took a look at this post from dbzer0 and you indeed did edit it. It seems like it wasn’t sent out as mine or even LW did not receive the changes.
Thanks for the heads up 👍
I’m sorry but I simply cannot wait another second to share my opinions on every end of year indie rock top 25 list
