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.

This can’t be real but if it is, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that your short stint in teaching scarred some children for life. You lack insight into the impact you have had on those young lives and frankly should just keep your mouth shut. As if you’ve not already caused enough emotional damage, now you want to jeopardise her job?

You are awful

I think you’ve caused her enough harm. Just leave her alone and home that seeing you again hasn’t caused her too much distress.

I’d apologise to her and take some time to reflect. She’s looking after your husband well… surely that's the main thing and your ego can handle a little curtness from her given your behavior?

You sound horrible. The reason there were no complaints against you back then is because parents didn’t complain as much back then, that’s how abuse in some forms was covered up. You wouldn’t get away with it today. Smacking children and throwing a desk across a room is horrendous behaviour.

Sounds like you haven’t changed much either. I’d say well done to your DH’s doctor, why should she be cordial to you, you’re not her patient, to her you’re an abusive person.

The world sometimes reflects back to you what you put out in it! The physio should actually complain about you, leave her alone whilst she does her job. You sound like a delight!

What did I just read? You are upset that someone you abused as a child wasn't warm enough towards you. Not only that but you think that your point of view is sufficiently sympathetic that you might post on the internet and find people who agree with you.

You make excuses for your absolutely shameful behaviour and seem to think that realising you weren't suited it it AFTER you threw a desk at a child is fine.

All that is going to happen if you make a complaint is that her colleagues will find out about your appalling behaviour and sympathise with her.

The absolute irony of you failing to be professional as a teacher (to the point where you would have been rightly put in prison if it happened today) and then complaining because someone is a bit aloof with you is absolutely mind-boggling.

What you did was awful. What you did was abusive. She is not exaggerating, even if imagining that makes you feel better. There is no justification for your behaviour (and I say this as someone with extensive safeguarding training). What you describe was far beyond what is acceptable towards children, regardless of whether any complaints were made against you.

You need to stay out of these sessions - you're making his physiotherapist uncomfortable. If you had been my teacher, I wouldn't have been able to be in the same room as you. Responding to you coldly is actually quite a mature approach considering what she witnessed in your classroom.

You've clearly had a lasting impact on the children you taught. What a legacy.

Wow I really hope this is made up, if it isn't then you need to reflect on how you'd feel if as a vulnerable child you'd witnessed violence and anger like this from an adult whose job made them responsible for you. You are very much in the wrong here. Though I almost hope you do complain as I would be fascinated to hear what the response is to you admitting you abused this woman and her classmates as children and therefore she's being 'cold and aloof' - not even directly rude.

I wouldn't give you the time of day either. You probably traumatised those poor kids.. maybe say SORRY?!

I mean, it sounds like you were a terrible teacher. By your own admission you were violent towards the pupils, and whilst it was an 8 month period you’d rather forget - for the pupils it’s clearly sat with them their whole lives.

You admit the physio is doing a good job and meeting your husbands medical needs, but you feel her tone is a little sharp. What exactly do you want from a lady who was a part of the class you abused? She’s hardly going to bend down and kiss your shoes. You could take this moment to reflect, apologise to her for the way things were and be nothing but lovely to her going forward. Instead you want to raise a complaint and try to cause her problems in her work? It suggests you haven’t really changed very much at all.

Interesting nobody raised any complaints about your own behaviour back then. It’s a shame you can’t extend such grace now.

This.

I think your reaction to her experience when in your care tells you who you are.

Be grateful you have a kind and caring person to look after your DP and give him the care he needs and deserves to recover and get home.

If it's difficult to see her, plan your visits outside of his physio.

I hope this isn't real, but if it is then she is simply behaving towards you the way your behaviour towards her and her peers has guided. Doesn't matter how long ago it was, it made a lasting impression. I had a teacher in the 90s in year one who shouldn't have been in the profession or should have taught much older children, who was cruel to the class. She'd squeeze the back of necks when physically moving children, shriek if glue got on our hands when using it (6 years old cant avoid often, kept a boy in from play time for a week as he had a speech impediment and pronounced her name slightly wrong. He couldnt help it, but she punished him anyway. I'm now 37 and although not traumatised by this and having led an academically happy life as I loved school, I've never forgotten that teacher.

If what you've written is true then you were far worse, and being in the wrong profession isn't an excuse at all. Nor is the fact that no complaints were raised against you an indicator of your behaviour, as children often endure without speaking up - it was years later I told my parents about how awful my teacher was and they wish they'd known sooner.

If she is professional with her patient then you haven't a leg to stand on, and you are thenone who drew the information from her by confronting her. You can't undo the past and your own behaviour towards small children has been her guide. You have also put your own trauma of eight months in the wrong profession above her trauma as a child enduring eight months of a teacher who smacked, threw a desk! And shrieked at children, which creates stress responses which are hard to forget. The word terrorised comes to mind.

I hope you can use this interaction as a learning moment but your instinct to confront and then complain suggests not.

Sure, go ahead- if you want a reciprocal complaint made about you by her. Hers will be to the police though, about your historial abuses.

Weighing all things up, I think it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Take her comments on the chin, be grateful she is behaving in a professional way towards your husband and he is pleased with the care received. Let it be.

OP in all honesty you sound slightly unhinged. Why would you make a complaint about a physio who is providing your husband with good care, all because she is rude to you, when you admit she has valid reason to be?!

Her rebuttal to any complaint will be ‘she abused me and my classmates when we were little.’ And YOU will come out looking very very bad.

You should apologise, but something about the arrogance of your post tells me you won’t.

You’re surprised a 9 year old remembers a desk being thrown in the classroom? How curious.

Unfortunately (for you), our past follows us 🤷‍♀️

You’re not being “held hostage” to your past.
You behaved appallingly and the only consequence you’re facing is that one person’s being curt to you 35 years later.
Grow up, apologise to her and for the love of god don’t make more of a tit of yourself by complaining.

You hit kids and threw a desk across the room? YABU

To be totally clear, you were absolutely disgusting then and it doesn’t look like you’ve changed much now. What a vile woman.

It does sound like you aren’t very emotionally intelligent OP - emotionally intelligent people wouldn’t get to the point of slapping a child or throwing a desk in the first place. Most people who did get to that point, would then feel massive shame and regret. But you don’t feel that?

You're going to say ‘that was the norm back then’ - yes. That’s not good though!

If this is real, you're recklessly insensitive to the point of harm.

OMG
you brutalised children
you describe this whilst trying to minimise it and justify it because you were in a bad place !!!
so we can brutalise and assault people if we are in a bad place ?? And even if this is children ? And even if we are being paid to protect and educate them ?
and you want to complain when one of your victims is finding it difficult to communicate with you amicably ??
SHAME ON YOU

You left out an important part of your story, OP, and that's the bit where you acknowledge the truth of what she says, listen sympathetically to how your behaviour has affected her and apologise unreservedly for that behaviour - before thanking her for the excellent and totally professional care she has been giving your husband. There is nothing to complain about here. If anything she has shown great restraint and professionalism. The onus is on you to clear the air.

As an ex physio manager, please do complain.

I wouldn't want any of my members of staff to have to be around someone who traumatised them as a child. Whilst applauding her professionalism in not letting it affect her patient care, I would want to ensure she didn't have to encounter someone from her past who is so deranged that they think 'being curt' is worse than physical violence and emotional abuse.

Maybe take it higher, and complain to the CSP? Being curt is a completely appropriate way to professionally shut down a person who is overstepping boundaries. Something tells me you might be that type.

What you'll find is that whoever you complain to will apologise by proxy and say that the situation is being dealt with internally.

Or you could appreciate the fact that you have (judging by her age) an extremely experienced physio dealing with your husband, and shut up for his sake. Any replacement physio is highly likely to be much less experienced.

Better yet, apologise for being a bully rather than appropriately curt at the time you abused those children.