For reacting to people who treat me poorly..assaulted at the doctors surgery

I am sorry, the problem lies with you, not other people. Your level of aggression is out of all proportion to the event.

He was not trying to run her over, but he was trying to get her to move, by threatening to do so. It's another version of manspreading trying to invade a woman's space, by pushing her out of the way.

Don't let a situation like this affect your confidence. He was in the wrong, either he didn't see you, which is worrying, or saw you and thought nearly running into you was the way to make you move. Speaking to him in the surgery, did provoke him, but a normal well balanced person would have apologised for an incident like that. Pushing you and the receptionist shows that he was unbalanced mentally, not simply shortsighted, and should probably not be driving.
I wish I could speak up, like you, as although you have been upset and worried, at least you made your point of view known. I get upset after an incident, because I feel I have let them get away with their bad behaviour.

It’s difficult to know how long someone is going to take when they’re putting or getting children out of a car, you can’t see what stage of the process they’re at, or if that’s even what they’re doing.
It’s possible the bloke might have thought she’d finished, or would at least give way to him seeing how he’d made his intention to move into the space clear. The whole incident is likely just a misunderstanding, he thought she’d move out of an empty parking space and op decided she was entitled to keep standing there, because other spaces where available.
If the bloke was seriously some murderous sociopath intent on running over women and children, is it really wise to try to force an apology in the doctors surgery, wouldn’t it be better to report a dangerous man to the police to get him off the streets ?

Ok so if someone is reversing at you as they haven't seen you, you get their attention, they stop, and THEN carry on reversing at you... what would you consider it?

I'd consider it dangerous driving and a deliberate attempt at injury.. especially in the OPs case where she's already said there was NO ROOM to get out of the way and if he hadn't stopped, he would have hit her/her car.

If I was assaulted as part of my everyday work in a doctor's surgery I would report it as such. I'm sure there would be CCTV evidence of the assault and work protocol would certainly indicate that a police report should be made.

I completely agree that her reaction to adrenaline was unjustified. But ultimately, he chose to react in a physical way. And that is far worse than the OP's behaviour.

I also agree that it is absolutely barmy that people think he was trying to run her over. 😂🙄

I completely disagree with your statement, 'most people will eventually hit a point where they're fed up of being goaded and argued with though'.

Most people may hit that point, but the vast majority would not react with physical assault!

YuleDragon · Yesterday 19:07

OP.

Things to learn from this thread.

Let Men run you over.
Never stand in a space A Man wants.
Never speak to A Man who nearly ran you over.

..............

unfortunately men are the perpetrators of many hate crimes which can start like that - her example is a man starting it. I actually think you should be careful what you do on the streets, especially towards strange men, yes.

Hahaaa a day later I come back to this thread and now it's attempted murder by some accounts. Mumsnet is the gift that keeps on giving.

I haven't seen anyone justify the man's behaviour in the surgery @JayJayEl

What people have said is that this whole incident inside the building would never have happened if OP had kept her mouth shut, or at the very least, not gone for him in the way she did. It was never going to end well.

She's justifying her own actions by saying that it was down to adrenaline, while completely ignoring the fact that she caused the same adrenaline rush in him, by berating him in a public place. I am not saying that his physical response was justified, in saying that her own reaction to 'adrenaline' was also unjustified.

Also, the fact that a couple of posters think that he actually intended to run her and the baby over, beggars belief.

JayJayEl
You're right, the violence wasn't acceptable.I do think that most people will eventually hit a point where they're fed up of being goaded and argued with though.

The thing that stood out to me in the OP was that she didn't think anyone would get hurt, which suggests she only chose to go into the surgery, start a confrontation because he isn't going to get away with it, and continue to push and argue was because he was a man in his 70s. Who seriously is that bothered about winning an argument with a stranger that they get furious about a stranger's opinion of their car?

I feel sorry for the receptionist and the other people present to be honest. It was a totally unnecessary situation.

Reading your and @Naptrappedmummy 's exchange has been so interesting! It's actually made me reconsider my opinion on the OP's original behaviour. I called it "calling out", but maybe her behaviour actually was just downright unreasonable? I guess we only have one side of the story, so we'll never know for certain. However! My point still stands - NOTHING excuses physical assault, especially on the receptionist who wasn't part of the original issue. Again, we have only heard one side of the story so we don't know how hard this push was. But it's not okay and I'm surprised by how many people are justifying that abhorrent behaviour.

Naptrappedmummy
She sounds exhausting!

You're right about them being dramatic as friends. They often cast you as an emotional support human in their drama and your job is to validate what they say without question. If you suggest that the other person was wrong AND their behaviour might have escalated the conflict then there's often emotionally manipulative outburst where you're positioned as the offender and they're yet again the victim (eg "I can't believe you're saying it's ok for them to have verbally abused me!" "You're victim blaming me"). It's got an undertone of "how dare you not play the role I decided you would play".

Over time I came to realise was the sort of logic that underpinned a lot of the conflicts. I started viewing it as almost narcissistic-style behaviour where they're the main character and everything is ok as long as friends/family/strangers play the correct role, but anger is round the corner of people don't play along.

I would have said the exact same thing...I'm not sure why you've talked about "classic male aggression"? I didn't mention anything about gender - one person (rightly or wrongly) had cross words with another person, and the other person resorted to a physical attack on someone (the receptionist) who wasn't even anything to do with the original event! Who is what gender isn't important here.

Some posters genuinely think he was trying to run OP over?! 😂

I think a random elderly man just deciding to try to kill the OP is very very unlikely.😂, even if she does drive an SUV and he doesn't like them.

Tbh, if the car park is anything like the one at my GP surgery, it will be teensy and quite stressful to park in. The whole thing sounds pointless and ridiculous, and I'm sure everyone in the waiting room was rolling their eyes at the OP's behaviour.

@LolaSmiles you’re spot on. Like I said my mother was like this. She too would’ve said she ‘couldn’t bear injustice’ but my word the things she caused arguments over were hardly injustices, more the clumsy mistakes people make navigating society every day. Somebody taking the last item she wanted in the shop, neighbours doing one off DIY in the early evening, and once an elderly man who had objected to my brother cycling up and down the pavement and nearly knocking him over (my brother was about 5, fairly wobbly and unaccompanied - risk to himself and others tbh). I remember her pulling up alongside him as we drove home, putting the window down and calling him a mean old bastard 😖😖😖

It’s absolutely exhausting having a parent like this and you dread going anywhere or doing anything with them, because they just fly off the handle so easily. They’re usually very dramatic and have rocky relationships with friends/family too (if they have friends!).

If i felt I absolutely had to say something in the surgery i would’ve smiled politely and said ‘that was nearly an accident! Didn’t you see us?’

He would’ve then either said no (admitted fault, no harm done), yes (admitted fault, make himself look a total wanker) or said something irrelevant about your SUV (admitted fault and looked petty with it).

You would’ve walked away with either a civil apology or having made him look a total fool.

As it was you made yourself look a fool.

He did that in essence by driving off and parking elsewhere. At that point you had made your point and you had "won".Starting the whole thing up again in public in front of a waiting-room full of unwell people was totally unnecessary and, to be honest, pretty dim.
I agree with you.

I've known a few people who like to "tell it how it is" or "can't help" starting arguments with people.

They have several things in common:

• They seem to have regular stories of confrontations they have with random people. Usually it's accompanied with a navel gazing excuse about why they're not like everyone else.
• They are obsessed with winning so get very annoyed when people don't fall in line/when people won't engage with the random person picking a fight.
• They do a DARVO style move in situations where eventually someone tells them to back off/shut up/go away/get out my face etc. At this point suddenly they are (apparently) ever so upset and distressed at how mean the other person was, they (apparently) had no idea that people might not take well to strangers picking any fight and the whole incident was absolutely awful for them.

I don't think they've grasped that most people don't go through life compulsively looking for conflict. Most people deal with things civilly if needed and drop other things because there's nothing gained by seeking arguments with random people.

Because politely requesting them not to sit outside my house (a terrace that opens out onto the street so the fumes and noise are really horrible) has had zero results in the past. I have in the past, calmly explained to them the effect it has and have been met with abuse and foul language . They sit there with the engine running sorting out their baggies ready to go dealing and I am sick of it. Maybe I should have added some context but I am totally sick of it.

Nope. Read my post again. The fact a few people on here are actually defending the assault on OP shows there are more dicks about than i thought, which explains the current culture of bad, inconsiderate behaviour..

of course we all want to be forgiven but isn't it just good manners to apologise if you make a mistake?

He did that in essence by driving off and parking elsewhere. At that point you had made your point and you had "won". Starting the whole thing up again in public in front of a waiting-room full of unwell people was totally unnecessary and, to be honest, pretty dim.

Even OP says she’s not sure he saw/heard her. It fits the ‘aggressive man’ narrative though.

Albeit that I would have parked elsewhere, it is actually every drivers responsibility not to open a car door into the path of a moving vehicle. Where your respective cars are is irrelevant. Yes, he could have parked elsewhere. The OP could have waited to open the door and remove her child once he had parked. They are as bad as each other, both in terms of the incident, and of their respective subsequent actions.