Body language, intonation, facial expressions, (repeated) audible sighs, sudden tension in the room, changing the topic regularly, interrupting you when try to speak.


Those are signs someone might be annoyed.

If none of those are readily available, I would agree that backing off and playing "wait and see" would be the best course of action.


If the person continues to engage you without you having to prompt them, then they're not annoyed. If they follow suite and stay silent, they probably were annoyed.



I don't always want to tell someone they're annoying, the person might find it rude and offensive, sometimes the truth is impolite so you provide people with non verbal hints.


However, I have had to tell a co-worker that I find her extremely annoying at times, so much so that I want to commit acts of grievous bodily harm. But I was sure to mention that its not all her fault, sometimes I'm just annoyed and her being naturally annoying, doesn't help.


So now when my bipolar has my tolerance for annoyance at an all time low, I just give her a look and she knows to back off for a while.


So yeah, it's not always easy to communicate things like this because people's feelings are involved, sometimes you don't want to come across as an absolute b!tch and hope that the other person can catch a hint.


Ps. I would be instantly annoyed (bipolar mood swing or no) if someone repeatedly asked me if they were annoying. That in itself is absolutely annoying. If you think you're being annoying, just stop being annoying. You obviously have an idea of what might be annoying since you suspect you might be annoying. So just quit doing that part.