Do you know how you would react if a fight happened in front of you? It is not something that I’ve ever thought about because I’ve never even seen a fight. However I was unfortunate enough to find out on Saturday after an ‘incident’ in a local shopping centre when a group of boys started a fight with my husband.
My first reaction was disbelief and shock that this could happen during the afternoon in a busy location; then I felt helpless because I didn’t know how to stop it. However when one of the boys punched my husband and then moved towards me I instinctively grabbed him! I’m still shocked by this behaviour and I don’t remember what I did afterwards.
So having been involved in my first fight, I’ve been wondering about how I will react if I find myself in a similar situation in the future. One thought is I will be more mentally prepared, but I suspect that I will actually be less likely to get involved because I’ve had time to think about about the worst things that could happen.
Have you had any experiences like this?
Wheel of life January 2008: making progress
I am so sorry to hear about this. I hope everything is fine with you and your husband.
I have never been in a fight before but I have witnessed it. I was walking out of my dorm room and saw a friend of mine being pushed around. Because he was outnumbered I did the next best thing. Called the campus security and the police.
They arrived 5 minutes later and the boys just ran. I told the police what I saw
Wow, that reminded me of the time while travelling in Italy 14 years ago my husband and I ran into some Gypsies. They tried to harrass and pick pocket my husband. They were pinching him on the soft fleshy part of his arms to distract him and getting quiet rough.
As they moved to me I suddenly had an adrenalin rush and screamed at them to **** Off and my fists came up ready to fight. Goodness knows where this came from. But suffice to say this mad women ranting and getting ready to fight was enough to scare them off. We laugh about it now 14 years later, but was very scary at the time.
Feli,
Yes things are fine now, particularly as my husband’s black eye has almost gone. Fortunately the shopping centre security arrived very quickly and broke up the fight and the police were outside.
It was also my first time in a police station when I went to give my witness statement, so altogether it was a day full of new experiences!
Wendy,
I think I have reached the stage where I can laugh about it now, it was such a bizarre thing for the boys to do. It was not nice waking up the following day and hearing on the news about the increase in youth knife crime; things could have been a lot worse.
The whole incident was apparently caught on CCTV and I’m not sure if it will bring back all the scared feelings if I ever see it.