To be irritated with screaming woman in the tbeatre

[Foxessocksarelost]

I’m probably going to be torn to shreds for this, and I know she was coming from a good place, but a screaming woman really impacted on a day out today.

Booked theatre tickets for me and DD(2), like a lot of theatres there was a steep flight of steps. We were about to make our way down when a woman who was sat in the audience let out this piercing scream, like something out of a horror movie, and flung her arm out to stop DD going any further. It made me jump and DD burst into tears. It shocked her so much that when I picked her up she was shaking.

Woman apologises and said ‘I thought she was going to fall down the stairs’

I know I am probably BU. It came from a good place and probably was involuntary. But it gave DD such a scare she took ages to calm down, so missed the first bit of the performance.

AIBU to not have wanted a Catherine Tate sketch on my (not cheap) theatre visit?

No it's annoying isn't it. When DD was little her shoe got caught in an escalator. I calmly told her to lift her foot out so that I could wrestle for the shoe, when the woman behind let out a blood curdling scream. Of course I was terrified too, but I was trying not to upset DD and deal with it, which all went to pot when a completely unaffected woman decided to terrify the life out of half the shop.

(Yes DD and shoe were ok and the shop manager completely got strong words when we got off...)

Wonder if she'd been to Cistine Chapel.

😂

I imagine a 2 year old in a theatre missing the first part of the show because she was upset was equally as irritating to others tbh.

OK, so what should I have done?

How do you work that out? I would imagine if a two year old was there it was probably a child friendly show?

YANBU OP, daft woman

When ds was 2 he had climbed (safely) to the top of a climbing frame. He was very physical, walking from 8mo and very confident at climbing, running, falling etc. I was watching but letting him do his thing.

Suddenly a woman at the playground with her own dc threw up her arms and ran shrieking at the climbing frame. It made ds wobble and fall back in shock! I caught him, as I would have done if he'd fallen from climbing, there was very little risk. If she hadn't shrieked and scared him he'd have been fine!

Like you, it came from a good place but some people's nerves must be shot to shit if that's how they act all the time.

Yeah - Julia Donaldson show. Fascinating, nail biting plot Still, was annoyed she missed a bit.

She was anxious. I'm not sure I could be irritated.
Anxiety and unsteady nerves isn't a happy place to be.

This woman would be my mum. As a teenager I was sat with her at the doctor's when she suddenly lunged forward and grabbed a toddler who was climbing on the chair near us. She swears he was about to fall but the mum was not amused. She is always grabbing my toddler DD too, once resulting in both of them falling over as she lunged at her and lost her balance falling basically on top of her. It drives me mad because she creates this sense of panic that isn't necessary and then insists her actions were perfectly normal and sane. She is a highly anxious person who sees danger in everything.

How would that be irritating to other people? I wouldn’t have even noticed a mum taking her child out of the room to comfort them and re enter later on, let alone be irritated about it. And even if I did notice, I wouldn’t think anything of it. Complete none issue and nothing to get worked up or irritated about. And if you mean people having to stand up while they went back to their seats, meh so what?
Grown arsed adults have people standing up for them when they need they need to leave the room when they go to grown up shows. A mum and her little 2 year old at a kid friendly show aren’t annoying like a single adult at a serious show is.

My MiL is like this, feels like she's in a constant state of nervousness.

My MIL grabbed and pulled what she thought was a falling buggy at the bottom of an escalator on the tube. It wasn’t falling, I’d lifted up the front wheels to get off.

we ended up in a large heap at the bottom with other people having to step over us, someone then pushed the emergency stop button. I was absolutely furious until I realised that MIL had broken her wrist.

Unfortunately, some people have the common sense of a fly.

That would have annoyed me too. I don't have the patience to pander to that kind of ott behaviour and probably would have told her she was being idiotic.

It's not, but it's also not a reason to be completely oblivious to the affect you're having on other people and to abdicate all responsibility for it. She absolutely terrified a tiny child through her overreaction.

I have PTSD and would probably have screamed too. I scream at cats, paper bags that look like cats, towels that look like cats, stairs slopes ramps. I try to do it quietly though

Theatre may not be the best place then …

Yanbu and I'd be very irritated and probably would have said something.

I'm quite an anxious person too and sometimes I can see an accident playing out before my eyes when I see a hazardous situation (I think I have a sort of ptsd as I've only been like this since my traumatic childbirth). However, I wouldn't have screamed, I'd simply have put an arm out gently if I thought it was needed.

For me, when I'm in that state, it's like time moves slowly and I just calmly do the thing (putting an arm out etc). Imo her screaming was so she could call everyone's attention to your "bad" parenting (in her eyes). I'd have given her a piece of my mind tbh