AIBU to want to make a complaint about a physiotherapist?

[Toooldforallthisnow]

DH currently in hospital (NHS) after a fall, doing ok, but can't come home yet. He is being well looked after and has a physiotherapist who is seeing him regularly.

I visit DH most days, and I have seen this physiotherapist several times now. I have no complaint about the care she is giving DH and he seems very happy with her, indeed she is incredibly personable towards him - however, when speaking to me she is somewhat aloof to the point of rudeness. I am not one to let this sort of thing go unnoticed, so when I saw her yesterday, I asked her if I may have a word in private.

I told her that I was aware of her attitude towards me, and how I'd done nothing to warrant it, so asked if she could explain the reason for being so curt. She looked me in the eye and said that while she didn't expect me to know who she was, she remembered me from when I taught her in junior school.

I had a very brief career as a teacher during the very late 1980s. I hated everything about teaching, so much that after qualifying and taking a position in a school, I only spent eight months in the job. I left without completing a single academic year. I then retrained into another and completely different field, and moved some thirty or more miles away. I almost never speak of my time in teaching as it was the lowest point of my life, and I went on to make a new life for myself. Teaching was not for me and put it all behind me.

Long story short, physiotherapist said while she appreciated she had been one of the more (to use her words) "lucky" pupils, and that I'd only ever shouted at her, she remembered well how I'd smacked some of the other children, and even thrown someones desk across the room.

I cannot deny this, I was young (26) and although it wasn't technically allowed, smacking was something which still went on in schools. I don't remember doing it very often. I do remember shouting, and I do remember the incident with the desk, after a child had pushed me to my limit. It was soon after that I went on long-term sick. But no matter what, I never had a single complaint made against me by anyone.

I am shocked this woman remembers so much, I even wonder if in her mind she has exaggerated some of it, but regardless of that I think she is using it inappropriately to influence the way she speaks to me. She told me that while she realises she has been abrupt, she cannot forget the way I had been towards a group of children (from memory they would have been aged 9 or 10). She said I was more than welcome to make a complaint about her, but given that I am not her patient and that the reason for her being the way towards me has nothing to do with what she called the "protected characteristics" (I had to look that one up), there wasn't a great deal I could expect.

I have to admit, this altercation has riled me further. I am not denying my past, heaven knows I have admitted it here, but do I really have to be held hostage to it?

YABU - don't complain

YANBU - complain, this is not professional behaviour in this day and age.

Well, you traumatised children and used smacking, throwing a desk ?! I mean wtf. Being curt is very polite considering what other people may do to you if they were subjected to your charms.

Good on that physio for having the strength to call you out . I want to give her a hug.
You need to be very grateful that she, or someone else from your class hasn't reported you for abuse because to hit a child is a criminal offence. Being stressed is no defence against that. You adversely affected the lives of a whole class of kids. Have a read up about ACEs (adverse childhood experiences).
Then do some reflecting on your own behaviour, you arrogant arse hole.

One rule for you and another rule for her by the sounds OP.

you are holding her to a standard you do not hold yourself to.

It doesnt appear that this option has occurred to OP.

Same! This has really riled me and I will likely send the rest of the day having flashbacks.

I thought this would turn into a thread where the physio was making passes at the husband etc whilst being "mean" and shutting out the wife. Then we were told why the OP was getting a frosty reception. She is lucky the woman doesn't complain now

Yes, true, have you apologised to her @Toooldforallthisnow ??

Wtaf have I just read?
You were physically abusive towards little children AS A TEACHER and you’re wondering why this poor woman isn’t polite?

Op you mention no one ever made a complaint about you when you was teaching dispite behaving in a poor way at school so do you think that should be a trigger to you and leave well alone. Count your lucky stars no complaint was made about you before you rush off to get this person into trouble. Let it go.

So you want further humiliate someone who was witness and victim to your abuse by complaining that she's 'aloof' towards you, not the patient, and trying to get her into trouble in her job? One that she's doing, by your own admission, well and professionally, because it's uncomfortable for you to be reminded of the way you behaved?

Tbh you don't sound like you learned anything from what happened when you were in teaching and want to blame everyone else for your poor behaviour. And accusing her off exaggerating when you admit you can't deny what she remembers, is just another way you're avoiding responsibility for what you did.

These are the concequences of your actions and you're now seeking to blame one of your victims for the fact you feel uncomfortable facing what actually is a mild consequence for what you did, someone in a professional setting being not as friendly as you'd like towards you because of your own actions. You're seeking to make yourself a victim and have some power over this physio to make yourself feel better for how you behaved.

Suck it up and deal with it because it's an issue of your own making, you're not being held hostage to anything, but you're trying to now force someone you abused into being nice to you so you don't feel bad. You're coming across as a really shitty person.

This highlights what an impact teachers can have on young lives and the negative impact a bad teacher can have on them for years to come. You should have apologised for how you treated the children OP not been defensive. You were the adult and they were probably very scared of you.

she’s caring for you DH well so she isn’t letting her experience influence her treatment of your DH which is the main thing. You probably just need to own then impact you had on her and probably a lot of other kids too. You found out teaching wasn’t for you and that you hated it, but you were their teacher and they were the children you hated. That’ll stay with them.

OP, I think you are awful- rather than apologise you look to lodge a complaint. You haven't changed at all.

But I do agree that smacking did still happen in some schools in the 1980's, even the late 80s very early 90s.

The primary school I went to, in the UK smacked pupils. I wasn't smacked until year 4, January 1990. I remember as I went home and told my parents and my father went to school as was arrested - not for violence, but for refusing to leave the premises until he has met the teacher. The police actually sided with the school, and said smacking was allowed.
I was pulled out of school that day and my dad handwrote hundreds of cards and handed them out at the school gates organising a protest. The head retired and I can't remember what happened to the teacher but the school stopped smacking its pupils.

You don’t sound like you’ve changed much, OP.

Bravo to your dad! He really had your back.

Are you insane? You’re lucky she doesn’t notify the authorities about your child abuse. Give yourself a head wobble, apologise to her & beg forgiveness.
I’ve been on mumsnet for years & don’t think I’ve ever come across such a narcissistic,entitled, bizarre post. Your poor husband.

It was banned in 1986 and OP says she did 8 months teaching in the very late 80s.

I don't know of anyone who went to school in late 80s getting smacked or caned or anything physical. My parents both worked in schools, my Mum worked between about 6, and they've no experience of it happening after it was banned. Saying it still went on schools in the very late 80s like it was widespread is just wrong. The OP is either intentionally or on purpose rewriting the narrative to make herself feel better. Thinking the child had exaggerated events..... She's deluded!!

You have clearly learned little since you left that classroom, OP. You owe that woman an apology for traumatising her as a child.

Nope, what a load of made-up rubbish and so many posters are falling for it. OP is probably laughing her head off at people falling over themselves to tell her how can she be so thick as to think this is all OK.

So to clarify you emotionally and physically abused children in your care and now many years later, when one of these children, has made you aware of the long lasting impact of this (the fact she still remembers and feels upset!) rather than feel remorseful and want to apologise, you want to complain about this person. I’m actually stunned. I am so happy that you left teaching.

I don't think you're supposed to troll hunt. Why on earth would someone make up a story like this?

She doesn’t like you and she told you why. It’s a personal matter not a professional one. You probably traumatised those children. I had a teacher that smacked me in the 80’s and I was mortified and didn’t tell anyone. It wasn’t allowed and you shouldn’t have done it. Your post sounds more concerned about whether you should complain and the affect on yourself in teaching than what happened to those children.

No wonder the OP didn’t come back.

What on earth did she expect?

I would love to know why 2% that voted she was reasonable.

What a disgraceful woman.

OP has no right to complain anyway, as she is not the patient. The patient is receiving appropriate care, as OP accepts.

We can only hope from all these messages, she can accept she needs to apologise to the physio and ask for her forgiveness.

When I was 9 years old, the young female teacher ( I won’t name her) asked the class how do you spell the word any.

After a number of the class spelt it with an e, I put my hand up and spelt it any, at which point she stormed over to me and slapped me so hard across the face, I was too shocked to cry, the teacher thought I had spelt the word with an e when I hadn’t and a classmate had said I had spelt it with an a and the teacher had misheard.

I never told my mum which I should have until many, many years later, but too this day it has affected me so much I never got over her actions and have carried it through my adult life.

I was at school when belting children was still allowed in the 1970s and 1980s (in Scotland). I have memories of sadistic teachers who clearly shouldn't have been teachers and who made children's lives a misery. Most of the belting was done to children who, when I think back, obviously had signs of learning difficulties.

Even then, most teachers did not use corporal.punishnent, and throwing a desk across a room would not have been normal.

OP: you were a bully when you were a teacher. Don't be a bully again by reporting this woman.

This 👆
You're being unreasonable. She was a small child who was terrified of you and witnessed you smacking children and throwing a table across the room in a rage!!! Not good at all. You seem to think bevause it was a short temporary time in your life that it doesnt matter?! Well tou still affected children in your care. You must have been terrifying for the child to still remember you today. She has no need to be polite to you as you're not her client. There is nothing to report.

So no one complained about you slapping children and throwing furniture @Toooldforallthisnow but you want to complain about a professional who is treating your spouse for "being a bit abrupt"?

Give your head a wobble.