BPDRecovery.com: Forums

Last night my friend and I of 20 years were chatting, and we got on to how I always interrupt people and switch topics frequently. I was saying that it wasn't an issue until I was about 12 but that after that everyone else was growing out of it and I never did. She was saying that she (and my other friends) are used to it & work around me in conversations but that it's unsettling to new people and they think I'm being disrespectful. Or that I'm weird or strange.

She said that she doesn't think it presents a huge problem because I have a lot of friends anyway regardless of the fact that I'm different, but that if it was more of an issue in a social context I'd be forced to confront it. I started to get a bit upset, saying that she could remind me 65 times a day not to switch topics or interrupt but I still won't remember. I'd probably just feel hurt and withdraw. I reminded her that it's because of these differences that I receive a disability pension. I get the impression that, even after all of these years, she thinks that I can somehow control it. I told her that if I could fix it, I would have done it a long time ago.

I think most people interrupt others at times. I've noticed myself doing it, although no-one's ever mentioned it as a problem. I don't think it is much of a problem for me bc I don't do it that often. I'm extremely conscious of such things and generally don't like people doing it to me, so make an effort not to do it to others. The times I do interrupt are mostly when I'm not focusing on the conversation, which happens when I'm excited or feeling insecure. When i notice I've done it I try to apologise shortly afterwards: "I'm sorry, I think I interrupted you before. Please tell me what you were going to say". This way it validates the person I interrupted, and hopefully makes them feel that their voice is important to me. Which it is.

I haven't read much from you here Tigerlily, but what's the reason you can't change this about you? I just want to understand what the nature of this problem is for you.

I think I have more issues than just BPD.

What have you been diagnosed with?

Personally, I would probably consider that (switching topics, interrupting) to be more related to ADHD than to BPD. My father does that SO much and I deliberately go out of my way to let people finish speaking because I find it infuriatingly rude when someone interrupts me. It's as if they're telling me "I don't care what you think or say, MY stuff is WAY more important than yours and I can't be bothered to wait for you to finish." Drives me up the wall. (In fact, I can feel my blood pressure rise as I type this, thinking back to people who interrupt repeatedly.) But luckily, here at least, it's all asynchronous (not real time) communication so I can't be interrupted - nor can I interrupt others!

I suppose I would question why you believe you're not in control over your own actions.

[edited out at user's request; approved for privacy reasons]

Don't waste your energy here (unless it benefits you). I'm putting this issue to the side for a while.

This was the point at which I realized that my problems were much more complex than just BPD. Exactly here.

This was 2.5 years ago. Since then, I've had more therapy & found out I have depersonalisation, derealisation, lower spectrum dissociative identity disorder and of course CPTSD.

Have you actually been diagnosed with DID?

IMHO, bpd is a very complex disorder. Why do you say CPTSD, "of course"

In my experience, I think that some degree of depersonalisation, derealisation, and to a lesser extent, dissociative identity disorder often accompany DID... I'm undiagnosed, but I certainly have difficulties with DID, as well.

I do a lot of interrupting too and have aspects of ADHD. Adderol helps me with focus and mental clarity. Have to constantly work on not interrupting. I'm kind of a loner, so it doesn't come up as often for me just for that reason. In fact sometimes I feel like I can be pretty antisocial because I have such fears of screwing up socially. My memory gets very slow in social situations too at times, forgetting things i shouldn't when put on the spot is a huge fear of mine. Some people feel that socializing should involve a lot of questioning. Those people are hard for me to deal with.