interruptions - why we hate them

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I believe Aspies say nothing and listen (quiet babies) or just blurt out what they want to say as a continuous message because they hate being interrupted and losing the thread of their conversation, through outside interference. From personal experience with my partner, who goes 'What?' at the start of a topic, so that I stumble, even before I've started, I know how annoying this can be as you forget what you were going to say.

On top of this of course, we have processing problems anyway and any input is bound to throw our attention worse than ordinary people as we have less ability to concentrate and work out what others are saying or what we want to say. In my case this means blinding headaches (migraines) as I try to maintain contact with reality, despite noisy distractions and even interesting ones too (Too much sensory overload).

This is my gripe of the day. Does it ring a bell with anyone else?

While I am quite a lot, I still like to talk, but I HATE it when I am talking and someone suddeny interrupted and people start paying attention to what that person is saying.

I always figure others can hold on to their thoughts a lot longer than I can, so if I think of something whether it pertains or not, I MUST say it right then and there, regardless whether it leads to rambling or not. If I am interrupted, I get exceptionally frustrated... and I will interrupt others just to tell them something that doesn't apply to what they are saying, because the thought is very important at the time.

Have you ever somewhat interrupted yourself? I do it all the time... start talking, think of something else, say it, get annoyed because I've already forgotten what I was saying before....

or going to tell someone how annoyed I am by interruptions and how stressful it is for me to hold on to the thought for even just a few more seconds to hear them out... I wind up forgetting entirely what I was saying and get on a rant about not wanting to be interrupted... and generally, it is me who interrupted to ramble about hating interruptions....

When I get interrupted, e.g. by a third person when I am talking to another or vice versa, I get confused and lose the thread, maybe get annoyed.
The same if it's the same person I talk to, who doesn't hear me out, or ask a question and then ask a new question without waiting for the answer to the first one. (Why then ask anyway? :p)
Or when I lose the thread, I just go like: oh, I lost the thread, what was I saying? and even if people give me a keyword, I'll be stuck in confusion for a while until at last I pick the thread up again.
Apparently, NTs are able to jump from one topic or conversation to another very easily, while it's difficult for us aspies.
Before I learned that I was an aspie, I thought that I was just kind of a bad person who wanted all the attention, and that this was the reason why I felt annoyed. I often felt guilty about that. But now I know what happens, and then it's easier to say: allright, that's how NTs communicate, and they don't interrupt to be rude or to confuse me, it's just their kind of "language", and then I can practise trying to get my own attention to another place, or maybe wait for the meta-conversation to stop.

I hate it when my routines are i8nterupted, because I like predictability. I like to know exactly what I'm going to be doing, and on what nights. I also like to do things in a certain order, in the morning. I have to be finished my morning tea, before I phone my mum, and than I like to have my breakfast, afterwards.

For me, when I am interrupted and loose my train of thought it helps to go back to the part of what I was saying that I can remember, then keep going until I find my spot.

Like, say we were talking and something happened, I would think "Okay, the last thing I remember we were talking about kittens, then I said I like orange kittens, then you said you liked orange posicles, then...aha! I was talking about pudding cups!"

If that makes any sense.

Those who know me well, all know that I cannot remember my thoughts so I will interrupt them with "remind me later to tel you about _____" and they are okay with it.

yes, vve blurr out things a lot, but also as a processig problem vve have it is painful to hear somebody cutting you tries to speak vvith a'vvhat?'(like vvhat the f**ck are you speaking to?)
it is frustrating (for aspies), and make me not have ganes to speak anymore (to nt persons almost) . yes people say or that i speak a lot or that i don't speak at all, but is cause my aspiesness, yes so much information and sesnsory overload i guess. but i love the campaign vvho says 'let autism speak' it is so nice put it. only, that i dodn' necessarily think vve aspies are the typical autism case as it has been knovvn until novv, vve may act like if vve vvere 'austistic', but i can't name it like vve suffer autism, is not the same. vve just don't comunicate like the others do, but vvhe have our ovvn vvay to communicate,almost betvveen us vve do, so there is this forum, so vve do communicate, so that vve are not 'austistic'. also, for the called high functionism ones, they don't seem to have any disorder for me, not at all just they like to 'speak' little and 'act' instead of blurring, is that a disfunction maybe? i can't see it ..

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The art of conversation ... very nuanced, very complicated, very difficult to learn. It is self-contradictory. It is not consistent. Even NTs never truly become proficient conversationalists. Conversation really is an art form. A lot of people never bother to learn the basics.

Ever watched two or three commentators discussing some issue on CNN? I've observed people who don't seem to understand when to speak and when to hold your tongue. They sometimes just talk over each, louder and louder as they try to get their point across.

I guess some people assume the loudest person in the convo automatically gets the Talking Stick.

You're interupting me!



Great subject - and well said. It's all about routine. Interuptions break the routine. Boom - meltdown alert.

I think also this explains why Aspies find it hard to get into the conversation (aside from missing more subtle cues). NT's interrupt all the time! As aspies it's the last thing we'll consciously do. So we wait patiently for our turn which may never come.