To ask for your ‘arrggghhh why didn’t I say something?!’ moments that still annoy you?

[Booboopdeboop]

I have one that to this day still make me rage when I think about them!

Two years ago I went to the GP for a repeat prescription. All routine but they wanted to check my blood pressure, weight etc before they would issue me with another prescription. My usual GP wasn’t available so I went with whoever was free on my day off.

Different GP (who I had not met before) weighed me and said ‘Your weight is fine but...’ (pause whilst he looked me up and down) ‘... you know, summer IS coming’.

I was early 30s, average size 12, ran about 20 miles a week. The GP was a middle-aged scruff bag with food on his tie and a beer belly. I literally was so gobsmacked I just sat there whilst he wrote out my prescription and handed it to me. How dare he say something so rude and demeaning!? It still boils my piss when I think of it now, but what makes me even more cross is that I didn’t challenge him on it, or complain to the practice manager!

In my job I am used to standing up to people and being assertive, so why words failed me on this occasion I have no idea!

Please share with me your horror stories so I don’t feel so bad about mine!

16 years ago when my son was a baby I breast fed him . He was a hungry baby I didn't get the help that's more available now and I was young . Ds was constantly stuck to my breast it was exhausting so after 5 weeks I swapped to bottle . I went to my gp for post check up and he asked very patronising why I had stopped breastfeeding. I said I'm so tired etc and would of explained but he interrupted babies are tiring he said . I was so shocked at that I said nothing .
Shortly after I changed to another practice . Still pisses me off years later

Was in my doctors last week and realised I was overdue my smear test so booked it while I was there. The receptionist asked me how long it had been, then tutted at me and told me I was silly to wait so long and lectured me about how important they were! I wish I’d pointed out that I knew and that’s why I was asking her to book me one, but I was so shocked and embarrassed I just quietly agreed

When I was about 22, I did a computer training course at the local college. The tutor was a very opinionated man in his fifties, and I was the only female in a class of about fifteen. We had an exercise which involved entering data into a spreadsheet, and the example data the tutor gave us to practice with listed a load of men's names and job titles like 'computer programmer' and 'data analyst' and then women's names with job titles of 'stripper' and 'dancer'. I was absolutely mortified, and furious, and sickened, but I felt so isolated that I didn't say a word about it. Really wish I had now - I feel like I really let myself (and other women who'd have that same tutor) down.

When I was about 17 a man sat next to me on the bus and rubbed his hands up and down my legs- I told him to stop and he got off the bus at the next stop, I wish now I had caused a fuss so he could have been apprehended, but I hated confrontation and was just embarrassed at the time.
Another one that annoys me to this day was a handover meeting at work- I had asked to move teams as I was basically being bullied by a girl on the team who was very matey with the team leader (snide remarks, blatant digs, sighing whenever I spoke Etc) At the handover the team leader told my new team leader that I read papers/magazines between calls- she had actually told us all we were allowed to do that, and she allowed the rest of the team to do it with no comment, she only ever passed comment to me about it. I had stopped chatting in between calls as I was losing all my confidence thanks to the snide remarks the other team member would make and how she would gang up with the team leader. I had also been moved to sit next to that team member despite it being obvious before I even joined the team that she disliked me. Anyway the team leader commenting to my new team leader about my reading between calls really upset me but again apart from a feeble attempt to say we had been told that was fine I didn’t push it, I felt very bullied even in the handover, and I believe the new team leader saw it too as afterwards she told me not to worry about it and that it wasn’t like that on her team. I wish now that I had made a formal complaint but instead I chose to leave that job shortly after as by that point I had zero confidence in there and avoiding interacting with anyone.

I had a few MCs years ago. During one we were told that the MC was complete but another doctor found a portable scan and it wasn’t a complete MC. DD is 16 now.

And the midwife during another MC told me her son didn’t need as much pain relief as I was having when he broke his arm.

When I was a young single parent I was in the bank applying for a credit card and going over my incomings with the person who was applying (so only benefits coming in) and he was turning and gesticulating towards my son and saying I shouldn’t have children if I know I can’t afford them. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything, I think I was so ashamed of my situation in the first instance I felt like he was correct and I would only be arguing because I didn’t like hearing the truth. (Id left an abusive relationship)

@EyeChangedMyName

*My overbearing MIL, who is into natural health and had an eye condition at the time, approached me with a small dish as I tried to feed my child, and asked me to express some milk into it so she could bathe her eye.

I bloody well did it, and I still kick myself. *

Ffs crying laughing, can't believe your MIL bathed her eye in breast milk ,

@namechange1041
@EyeChangedMyName
so funny 😂

Every time I see my sister. Yesterday in particular. I’m still fuming about what I could have said but I’m too much of a coward to actually say anything

Consultant when pregnant with DS.
Firstly he was referring to blood tests for a woman who was not me. I politely and quietly pointed out they weren't mine and he was rude and shouted at me that he knows his job. His nurse bent over his shoulder, moved the slips round to mine and then walked, neither acknowledging or apologising.
He refused to hear me out on why I had been marked a high risk pregnancy. In fact he called me a neurotic time waster, mid twenties so like anything would go wrong. I tried one more time to explain that in my previous pregnancy, on having my DD she was squashed as bits of me are fused to other bits that shouldn't be and I lost a pint of blood. I had been told if I got pregnant again I would need to be monitored from 6 months due to the risk of tearing internally. He patted my leg at the thigh and said "no dear, I know what I'm doing, don't worry that little head of yours". All in a sneering tone.
I wish to fuck I had of told him not to bloody ignore me and be so rude and pigheaded.
2 weeks after that appointment my water broke and a week after I had DD due to Placenta Previa at 28 weeks.
He's 12 now and everytime he's ill I feel responsible. I gave myself a nervous breakdown when he was 8 months as I thought everyone thought it my fault. He has COPD.

I was in a long queue to pay at the local petrol station, which is mostly staffed by Asian men. They are all nice, polite and perfectly pleasant.
One of them was at the counter counting cash, very quietly whispering in a language other than English as he did so.
Some woman a couple of people ahead of me yelled at him something like: 'Speak English in our country!'
He was very startled and apologised, telling her he was only counting.
She said 'Well, for all I know you're talking about me' and the poor guy was mortified.

I just wish I could've come up with something clever and cutting, about how amazing it must be to be able to speak two languages and how it was absolutely none of her business that maybe he preferred to count up cash in his first language.

After I finished uni I worked for a big company's call centre to save up so I could go travelling. The training was so humiliating, one exercise in particular I remember having to play fruit salad (or something similar) where we all had to stand up and run around the circle if we'd had sex the night before.
The same day I was called in to the office by a supervisor and asked if I was wearing tights or leggings. When I said 'tights' (they were really thick 80 denier ones) I was told my skirt was too short to be wearing only tights, and if I wanted to wear it again it would have to be with tights. Not sure what having footless legwear as opposed to tights had to do with anything.
Wish I'd told them to shove their job up their arse, it was the most sexist, racist and abusive company I've ever had the misfortune to work for.

I was staying in hospital due to losing lots of blood during early pregnancy - was 12 weeks. Had just found out on a scan that my baby had now died and the consultant doing the follow up told me not to get upset about the miscarriage as ‘it was just a piece of meat now’. Was too shocked & upset to say anything at the time. Not the most sensitive thing to have said and my file had big stickers all over it saying that my last baby was stillborn. Maybe he was just a piece of dead meat to him too

When I was waiting for an appointment after a late miscarriage the department nurse wouldn't let me stand up in the waiting area. (No visible bump) I was stood out of the way and had a problem with my back which sitting made much worse, had also just spent 2 hours in a car seat in traffic.

I kept telling her I really was fine thank you and I need to stand because of a back injury. It wasn't said in a caring way, she just couldn't accept my need to stand and said I was making the place look untidy. Kept huffing and pointing at me when speaking to other staff. This went on for over an hour.

Then told me I need to update my address because it's wrong on the file. Gave me a huge lecture about how wrong I was to not update it....I told her twice that it wasn't my file, the name was spelt incorrectly and the DOB was for an 8 year old.

Kept telling me that I was wrong and it was my file. In the end I placed it on the desk and walked off.

I wish I had said "fuck off you stupid, incompetent fuck knuckle. How could I possibly be 8 years old and to possibly show some compassion whilst I wait for a scan to see the "progress" of my loss."

Some of these are terrible, it's making me angry just reading them!

Here's one I did much earlier when the right words did come. I was in hospital being investigated for infertility by a junior doctor who was rotating between departments for experience. He did an internal that was so rough I actually bled. Then later he came on the ward where everyone could hear and started spouting how infertility was caused by stress in women's heads; he knew because he'd read all the textbooks. I was so angry I sat up and tucked my feet under me to be eyeball to eyeball and gave him both barrels, politely. I told him he and the textbooks were clearly confused between cause and effect. Then I suggested he should forget any idea of specialising in gynae work and consider a future in surgery or pathology because anyone he did an internal on needed to be either unconscious or dead first. Every other woman in the ward was holder her breath and listening. He fled the ward to laughter and a smattering of applause and never came near me again.

When I told my father in law that he did something because he was a Classic Virgo and he told me that in order to believe in anything like that he would need to see several, independent studies, all demonstrating proof.

The man is a devout catholic and goes to church. I wish I'd asked him about the multiple, independent studies he'd seen to demonstrate proof of that being true.

One day it will come up again and I'll get my chance....

Nowhere near some of these.
Went to see the nurse about an issue I was having. She did a pregnancy test because we were trying. This was about cd23 so probably 5 days before I'd expect a positive anyway. I explained this.
Negative. As expected.
I went back to see her the week after and said I was pregnant, she wouldnt accept it. "But it's only been 8 days since you had a negative test... so how does that work?"
I did try and explain that it was too early but she just kept saying she had tested me and it was negative and how could I be pregnant now.

I wish now I'd given her a lesson in the female body 🙄🤦‍♀️

My mother was a very 'proper' lady
Quite reserved and a practising catholic
She was mortified when the consultant overseeing her fifth pregnancy told her she ought to 'learn to close her legs'.
My father was not at all reserved and the consultant was lucky to get away with the bollocking he did, because dad was also a boxer

About 5 years ago we had a workman in fixing the internet or something. He made a couple of fairly aggressively racist comments that he was clearly confident I would agree with, purely because we were both white British.
It was on the top of my tongue to tell him I massively disagreed, but i was in a block of flats which were practically empty because it was middle of the day, and everyone was at work. Self preservation kicked in I suppose, as he didn't seem like a particularly nice bloke, and I held my tongue.
Looking back I still don't know if I should have said something, but I think these days I'd probably at least ring his employer and complain.

At Pride with my 2 best friends, who are guys & gays. They were having a nice smooch sitting on the pavement, it was late on & everyone was merry. This horrible, horrible woman walked past & was pulling her face in disgust & whispering to her husband.
Don't come to pride & then be homophobic, you absolute twat!! This was about 10 years ago & it still annoys me that I didn't pull her up!

Gay!! Not gays!!!!!

Jojothe squirrel - i've never been asked at a smear how many people I've slept with. Thats awful

Vulpine that part was actually ok, it was the sexual health clinic and they did std screening (I think I maybe had that too) and treated lots of sex workers etc. If been before and that part wasn’t weird, as far as I was concerned I was talking to a medica professional confidentially, and the numbers weren’t that high, certainly not compared to some of the ladies I’d been chatting to in the waiting room. Maybe 2 in the last 6 months 8 in total. So I was maybe a little blaze and casual.
I’m more cynical now and assume everyone is thinking the worst all the time - not just because of her but she definitely helped.

Mine are birth related too.

First birth - 3rd degree tear which required a 3 hour surgery to repair immediately after an 18 hour labour. I was then wheeled onto the ward, DH sent home as it was after visiting hours. I was in agony, couldnt sit up, had catheter in. I had been left bottomless after the surgery lying on a pad to catch the blood and the blanket fell off me in the night. The call button was out of reach - i just about managed to reach my newborn to feed him. It was an awful sleepless night on a noisy ward. I did manage to fall asleep however because I was awoken by a male consultant swishing back the curtains and just entering my cubicle. All other staff on the ward said "knock knock" or checked if I was decent before entering. This man did not. He literally just walked in!

A I said - I was naked from the waist down, I was in too much pain to sit up and retrieve the blanket from the floor. I had nothing to cover myself, so I just lay there - catheter hanging out, full bush on show and I was horrified! I wish I had screamed or had made him realise his error. He talked at about the follow up regarding the 3rd degree tear, I think I just stared wide eyed back at him. My DH then arrives and I quickly ask him to pass me the blanket which he did so. But I still feel so angry at the lack of consideration shown by this male consultant. And annoyed that because I said nothing, he probably thought he did nothing wrong!

Second one was a midwife. Second birth - I had put on my birth notes no male staff as frankly I hadn't gotten over the last experience and decided I wanted no men involved in the birth process unless strictly necessary. The midwife wanted me to lie on my back and put on the fetal heartbeat monitors which require you to lie still. I was in agony and I had avoided lying on my back for practically my entire pregnancy as my first baby had been back to back (resulting in him getting stuck and needing forceps hence the tear!). There was zero need for constant monitoring so I asked for intermittent monitoring. She kept trying to make me wear it..I conceded for 20 mins then said it was enough as it was agony lying on my back during contractions- it felt unnatural. She then said nastily that she would get the consultant in and they only had males one. I KNEW she was lying! I'd chosen a hospital where the vast majority of consultants were female and I'd been assured previously there is always at least 1 female consultant on shift. I wish I'd challenged her there and called her out on just saying that to bully me into getting her way! I still refused regardless and invited her to bring the consultant and I'd tell him too! She then offered wireless monitoring so I could be monitored but could walk around/not be on my back. I couldnt understand why she hadn't offered those in the first place?? I agreed to those and thankfully her shift ended soon after so I got a much better lovelier midwife who delivered my baby. But I still feel angry for not challenging the previous one on her obvious bullying tactics and also withholding of available technology that's clinically proven to allow for better birthing experiences. Everyone knows having to birth on your back isnt ideal - yet she seemed like she wanted me to do that in order wear the machine monitoring thing. Utter bananas.