Being taken seriously

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Do you feel like no one takes you seriously? Like you can say something ten different ways and they keep acting as if they don't believe you or they think you are joking or something?

Or do you feel like if you ever express an idea or opinion, other people will just automatically disagree with you or dismiss it without even hearing you out?

Yep....I experience this fairly often in my life.

I find that, usually, this is caused by me setting off something in a person which makes that person insecure.

It turns everything into a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of situation.

All the time. Usually it's because people think I am beneath them don't have the right to be taken seriously, or what I'm trying to tell them is so frigging unusual (like my medical issues) that they don't believe it because most people with unusual stories are making them up.

"they think you are joking or something" --- I suffer from chronically re-occurring muscle inflammations, and very often as soon as one part of my body feels better, another part has come into full pain. It's seriously affecting my life, and I mean that. I have sought medical attention for it on two occasions and both time nobody really came to any firm conclusion nor even scheduled further investigation, even though this is impacting me badly. It's no laughing matter.

The other week an acquaintance sat down to chat with me in the park, and as it had been a while since she last saw me, and when she last saw me I had a severe "frozen shoulder" which was so bad that movement was very, very painful, she asked me how I was doing and if it was any better.

I told her, without smiling, that well the frozen shoulder has finally seemed to have recovered, but now the other section of muscle on the other side of my body has flared up again.

She laughed as if I'd cracked a really good joke, and said something like "well at least it's not both sides bad at the same time, hahahahah!"

I would have preferred a polite, caring "Oh sorry to hear that, how are you managing the pain? Is work okay?" Instead I get her laughing like a jackass. Didn't know that just my delivery means I could have had a career in stand-up. [/sarcasm]

And in general I'm not taken seriously. I'm often disbelieved, dismissed, not given credit for a point I raise being a legitimate one in real life situations. I feel a lot of it has to do with a combination of factors creating a "perfect storm". Height, not looking my full age meaning that strangers who I can well see are my own peers talk down to me as if they "know better," plus a high voice, childish voice -- and yes I've tried to modify it but try faking a voice as well as faking NT sometime...

Yep. When they do, people talk to me like I'm beneath them and they talk like they would talk to a 7 year old they just met.

What I've learned is that there are times when you do in fact have to interrupt ...
... be assertive, and perhaps speak a little louder than usual ...
or other people will continue talking until the cows come home
and never give you a chance.

Sometimes, I've had to interrupt more than once.
This was in a group where one person was envious of me,
and she had bad-mouthed me to her friend.

So no, they didn't like me, but they let me talk,
and learned to be more respectful of me in future conversations.
They learned that no, they really could not walk all over me ...
That I would stand up and fight for my right to be heard.
Whether they agreed with me or not didn't matter to me.

I no longer see that particular group of people.
Good riddance.

All the time!! ! It drives me crazy. If it happened ever once in a while I could make better sense of it. But I encounter this quite often even with my wife, and close friends. It makes me doubt myself, then I obsess on it because I know that I am a smart guy and not all of my suggestions can be that bad to not be considered or so easily dismissed. Then there have been times at work where it has happened, and that has felt more like a hierarchy kind of thing, and that is where things can get a little elevated. In either case, I always second guess myself and wonder if I presented it clear enough, was it not "big picture" enough or I did I miss something (I am a very details oriented individual) In the end, I think the only way it should be done is the way that I would do it.