I can not nod any slower.
Then nod faster?
I only have this problem with my sister who will spend 30 minutes just to get to the point after grabbing my attention with 1 foot out the door as I am trying to leave.
I always feel that it’s a sign of disrespect to forcefully hold my attention instead of just saying what they want.
It’s even worse when they start to stutter or loose their train of thought.
It would be better if they never loosed their train of thought on you in the first place.
I grew up getting talked over at home. At school I was bullied and ostracized. After entering the workforce, I’ve been quietly beaten down at every workplace and made to feel like I should STFU at all times.
Today, people ask me why I’m so quiet most of the time and why I don’t attend non-mandatory work functions or teambuildings anymore. I can only smile faintly and fakely while agreeing with them that I must be shy or simply have nothing to contribute.
It is what it is.
Ah that sucks mate. Do you have any ND friends?
I don’t have any friends, really. Not since Covid.
That really sucks. One can’t survive without friends. Can’t you endeavour to make some ND ones? They tend to be way more in sync.
People use so much fluff and crap filler talk…even emails I get, cherry pick information all over, cut the garbage out and a 4 paragraph email is 2 sentences.
Give information and facts and leave your stories and deep thought explanations out of it. It’s useless and horribly inefficient
It’s funny you say that. I’m actively working to add intro sentences to more of my emails to add “fluff”. Asking how their weekend was, commenting about the weather, sharing a one-sentence story about an experience I’ve had, etc.
I’m trying to build connection with people and not come off as terse/abrupt. My wife calls me out for it all the time.
I only struggle when someone pauses after making a point that seems complete, only to start adding more points the moment i begin to reply. The most annoying part is that i feel like an asshole for just trying to engage. So then i sit there trying to multitask listening, holding into my response, editing it, and managing anxiety, which leads to missing most of their additional points. This varies wildly individual to individual.
Luckily people are pretty forgiving…
Strange… I don’t remember making this comment and yet it’s here already.
Are you me? This is literally me IRL ALL THE TIME!
In my experience though some people are forgiving, others not so much. But the ones that are often times can become friends
Hahaha yeah…
It’s taken me waayyyy too long to recognize that someone being unforgiving about it is a red flag.
It took therapy to realize there are things i can’t change about myself and this might be one. Still have to work on it but can’t beat myself up over it.
The hardest part is not beating yourself up for things about yourself that you can’t change
That’s definitely a hard part. This is probably a non-sequitor but I always felt like others had their shit together and assumed them to be valid when they talked and my own thoughts/emotions to be subject to that validity. But that just leads to an internal unwillingness to communicate those feelings out of fear of invalidating them and the faulty logic that i must be invalid when in reality both people have real, immediate experience and emotion. So i would beat myself up instead of pressing them to meet on the same level.
Bleh, anyways, theres a nugget in there which led me to be more willing to assert my own validity. That helped a lot with my anxiety. But i still walk away from every social interaction over analyzing everything and being critical of myself. I’m just learning to be a little more critical of others too, that they made a choice in how to interact with me, and that i either appreciated it or not.
Pick one:
A) Sit there and try to listen while repeating your response in your head so you don’t forget it, but you put too much attention towards that and miss everything they add
B) Listen intently, but forget what you wanted to say.
ADHD sure is a superpower!
This just seems like something everyone does. Is this an ADHD symptom?
Hohoho boy
Look at meme: “I’m pretty sure i got the condition”
Look medical resources: “This list of symptoms describes me.”
Everyone you know: “I’m pretty you i got the condition”
The therapist: “That will take 6mo and $5k. to figure out and first we have to address the symptom of the condition to make sure the symptom isn’t cauaing the condition, not included.”
This on really irks me as two people in my family are this way… but always wrong. It’s like having a conversation with an autocomplete engine that’s always wrong. If you just let me finish my sentence, this would go way faster.
I miss Bob
Im more on the
“I need you to repeat that second half because something you said in the first half sent me down an entirely different line of thinking and i stopped listening to you and only pretended to”
Side of things
Sounds very similar to my, “I have something relevant and important to say and you’re moving past the past where it’s relevant!” And it’s always with someone who acts like I’m always interrupting when actually they are constantly interrupting.
Two words: Group. Therapy.
I’m immensely grateful for the help and support it’s provided but holy hell this happens a dozen times a session.
That doesn’t sound like something I can convince my co-workers to do, and it probably won’t change them any.
Oh, I’m not saying take them to group therapy. It’s just that it happens a lot in that setting.
Ooohhh yeah.
I’m on both 😁👍
Omg, I hate this feeling.
If I’m drunk I just can’t handle it, and end up attempting to truncate what they are saying with a graceful and quick demonstration of my understanding to move things along. Mixed results ensue.
hopefully, also *hilarious *results.
My partner does this all the time. Unfortunately, they’re often completely wrong about what I was trying to say. Suddenly we’re having two completely different conversations simultaneously.
If they didn’t interrupt you would still be having two conversations since they misunderstood what you were trying to say, but it would take longer to catch on.
I’m talking about situations where my meaning would become clear if I weren’t interrupted before I finished what I was saying.
It’s fine, though. I’m learning to front-load my main points. Instead of trying to say “Hey, I know we said we’d clean the basement this weekend, but I think it’s more important that I spend that time fixing the car,” and getting interrupted with thoughts about the basement before I’m able to mention the car, I try to say “I’d like to work on the car this weekend. I think the basement can wait.” Takes practice, though.
Agree to some extent, but the meaning would only become clear if they continue to listen instead of assuming they know what you’re about to say and zoning out.
I have some of both with my SO and I’m not sure what’s more annoying, being interrupted or explaining exactly what you mean and having none of it be absorbed.
Yeah, leading with the important part so the reat of it has context seems to work a lot better for a lot more people in my experience. Especially in your example where you are trying to front load the thing to do followed by the thing not to do. That way they don’t jump to speculation halfway through the sentence :)
On a somewhat nonscientifically aupported personal observation, if the sentence structure has a ‘but’ in the middle the audience is very likely to start mentally guessing what is coming up and will have more trouble listening to what it being said. It can often sound like a rug pulling moment, where what they thought was true is suddenly switched up and most people don’t like that. So if thinking ahead it is better to reverse a sentence like in that example to avoid the middle ‘but’.
I like explaining things. Just let me have this.
ADHD aside interrupting people is rude.
my nd friend group has a protocol for this! if you think you already understand what the other person is saying, you just say “avocado”. then they either ask some questions to confirm or just say “ok but i wanna info dump anyways” and then it’s COLLABORATIVE info dumping!
That’s pretty cool but requires a tight group of cognizant NDs.
i gotta lotta unconditional love for my homies lol
Congrats, I too have a solid group of ND friends all exploring their condition and we have similar mechanism to acknowledge communication issues and trying to make them more palatable for the group in an honest, fair and kind way that brings us all up and doesn’t shut us down. I am incredibly lucky and I love my bros unconditionally too.
Happy to hear you have a community like that too.
This also happens to me in reverse. I get half a sentence out, the other person nods and says “yup” or “K”, and then i say “yeah k so then anyway” and on to the next point
You’d go crazy in places like Japan where it can be common to use these verbal confirmations they’re listening. Even considered rude or that you’re not paying attention if you don’t…
Also annoying though are people who think they “get it”, stop listening and be interruptive after a few words, and totally miss the crucial part that comes later.
Other neurodivergent people are hard to hang out with, except for sharing our grievances in memes :-)
I find that ND peeps are much easier to get along with.
Yeah i have realized all my friends thru the years are some kinna ND. I didn’t plan it that way obviously. We NDs tend to find each other naturally
Just like stand users!
My wife has ADHD as well as myself. How often I’m trying to make a point by starting off on points that lead to that point, and she makes the point for me, conducts a counter argument, and wastes 30 seconds of me back pedaling to say that’s not at all what I’m trying to get at.
There is a whole house of people I know like that. I visited for Labor Day, and people were constantly talking over each other. They wonder why I don’t visit too often anymore.
crucial part that comes later.
Put the crucial parts first, before the fluff.
Sometimes context is important!
Or
Context is important sometimes! (If you want the point first)
That is a beautiful bit of word play there to show a point succinctly. Love it, well done!
The word play, Love that! Succinct point put beautifully. Well done!
If you are going to make a long winded statement, its not crazy to preface it with something.
But then they think they heard the only important part already and miss the context which equally matters.
Its not prefacing it with a summary, its letting them know you have a point at the end they should wait for.
I actually prefer the type of conversation that goes back and forth and tangents, but there is a place for more long form cohesive ideas, and you should wait to hear it all before speaking.
Yes, this is a serious problem with some people. Far worse than OP’s issue.