Adults who constantly interrupt/talk over you

"Excuse me, I am speaking," and then I continue what I was saying.

I do it more when soemone interrupts others, "<Interrupter>, <Person speaking> is talking. Can you please wait your turn and let them finish?"

I don't say it meanly, but I do say it assertively and with eye contact. I find both to be quite effective.

Snapping or sarcasm/jokes tend to get brushed off. When you're very direct about what they're doing, IME, it hits home a little more. No hints. Straight facts about their rudeness. And "sorry" has no place in what you say to cut off the interrupter.

Oh, yeah, that’s a tough one to deal with and not snap. Is it possible that she has adhd? I learned recently that interrupting is common with people who have adhd. I had an aha moment because a friend was recently diagnosed and she interrupts a lot. But it will say she doesn’t interrupt in a way that shows that she wants to dominate the conversation and steamroll everyone. She just has a thought and it comes out whether others are talking or not.

Generally (in my experience) these people are totally oblivious of their tendency to do that, and it takes a ‘breaking point snapping at’ to change anything.

I literally just stop talking in those situations. When it's clear they are waiting for me to talk, I'll simply ask "Are you done?". They usually take the hint pretty quick.

This is why *some* people don’t like me. <shrug> I have been known to put my hand up-like “stop” - and say something like “Excuse me. I was talking.” Sorry not sorry.


ETA: It is absolutely true that serial talkers will often hold a grudge about this. Again, <shrug>

My mil.

I understand why you snapped.

We have a customer who looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooves to talk, and will not wait for you to give the answer to the question she asked. We will stop talking in zoom and I've heard a couple of people say "ok just waiting for you to finish so we can answer your question..." but she does this EVERY freaking meeting. I can't stand it.

My SO is like that, and I call him out on it. He always feels bad when I do, but not much changes.

That's exactly what I do. And yes, assertively but not mean and eye contact. It's very effective.

My husband!!  He does it to me all the time (no one else though).. I finally called him out on it about a year ago.  He's gotten better but still does it.  I finally got to the point of refusing to finish my sentence.  Now I just look him in the dead of the eye and say.. STOP.. I am not finished.  I told him I feel like you are not listening at all and whatever you are about to spout off is so much more important than what I am saying.  He's working on it.. but it still happens.  

I will start by saying that I am this way. Before you jump on everyone who does this as an "I'm more important than you are", please know that this simply isn't the case. I don't always notice if I am doing it. When I do realize it, I really do stop. Now this isn't from a place of wanting to be right and wanting to always be the center of attention. Growing up, I was physically abused by my father and my sisters were rarely ever punished. My older sister was "old enough to know better" and my little sister was "too innocent to do anything wrong". I was also physically and emotionally abused by my sisters.
These statements came from my mom only about 10 years ago. 40 years too late, imho. Years of therapy revealed that I still talk over people because I spent my entire childhood, NOT being heard. No one would believe or listen to anything I had to say so I spoke up and over people to be heard. It is a learned behavior. It is not something that I intentionally do. While I apologize when I catch myself doing it, it really hurts when someone calls me out on it. I appreciate being reminded but to be intentionally embarrassed in front of others is just plain hurtful. I have completely shut down and broken off friendships because I was too embarrassed by my behavior. It has gotten a lot better but I still slip every now and then. Everyone has bad habits that are learned behavior and anyone tries to tell me that it's easy to stop/change all of their bad habits then you better take a long look in the mirror.

Once, I was on the receiving end of someone doing this exact thing to me. She was one of my dearest friends. Like most of you, I stopped talking but she kept going and going. What I didn't know was she was having a manic episode. I didn't know she was bipolar. Several months later, she died from an overdose. I would give anything to have her talking over me right now.

This is just another point of view. Publicly shaming someone isn't always the best way to deal with this issue.

I used to do the same. I try really, really hard to not. What I actually do now is count how many people are at the table and say to myself "you can't speak again until x number of people have spoken." I literally think to myself "it's not your turn. It's not your turn." Like a kindergartner! LOL. 

I grew up in a huge Irish Catholic family where to be heard everyone just talked over everyone else all the time. It's really hard to train yourself to not do it when it's sort of ingrained in you.