Mother of the Year Award goes to..

[cuckyplunt]

I would like to nominate the woman that saw my extremely anxious teenage DD having a panic attack on her first solo train journey and told her “to stop being dramatic because she was scaring her child”.
Whoever you are, I hope your child enjoys tip top mental health all their life. If they are ever in trouble or distressed, then hopefully someone kind and sympathetic like you will be there to offer a few kind words.

What was your daughter doing at the time?

Maybe just “General Wanker of the year” would suffice.

It’s always so shocking when people are total intrusive idiots in public. She can fuck right off, her kid won’t be harmed by seeing a flipping panicked teenager on public transport, FFS, and no doubt will be lucky not to see FAR worse.

I would have tried to offer her at least a sympathetic smile if not something of a practical level of support. Sometimes people don’t know what to do to help and then those who are wankers seem to come out of the woodwork. Did anyone support her kindly?

I’m so sorry that your DD went through the panic attack, being a teen isn’t always plain sailing, and I hope it won’t put her off future train journeys.

She tends to put her head down and hyperventilate with her eyes shut while she composes herself.
She is mortified when she does this in public, hates drawing attention to herself. Surely kind people will at the very least ignore her. I’m not sure what calling her out and stressing her further will achieve.

Some people have no humanity at all. Your poor dd.

Absolutely..
DD has recently started university, I know that these are not “brave” things to do per se. But this is a young woman who literally could not leave the house during two of her most socially formative years because of Covid.

Some people are just dicks. Hope you DD is okay.

I would like to think most people would try to help in some way. Or at the very least ignore it!

'It' as in the situation, I'm not calling your daughter an 'it' !!

Did anyone help her OP? What happened?

Is she receiving professional help for her anxiety?

Something that really helped me when I was struggling with anxiety was to go over the difficult thing and remind myself that I survived/I’m okay/ I’m still here/I did it anyway, or whatever phrase counteracts the core fear.

It’s fundamental to retraining your brain to assess risk.

Bravery is facing fear and what she is doing is tremendously brave. The same thing may not elicit fear in everyone.

Remind her that she got on the train, it was scary but she’s okay.
And an insensitive and stupid woman was a dick to her, but she’s okay.

She’s a strong and capable young woman- I bet you’re really proud of what she’s doing.