Ever been threatened/attacked?
 

If it's too emotional/personal and you don't want to talk about it, I completely understand. Have you ever been physically threatened or attacked? Did you attempt to flee if possible? Did you "take it?" Fight back? If you stood your ground and/or fought back, how did you overcome the "instinct" to stay safe and avoid conflict?

Thanks,

Adrian

A French saying would say :" I see you coming with your shoes as big as a house."

Anyway...

I've hardly ever been attacked but avoided quite a few conflicts by just staying calm, showing some serenity and that I haven't got a sudden rush to leave, keeping talking and eye contact, even joking.

I was punched one time by a guy in Buenos Aires I didn't wan't to give my watch to. I didn't hit back. I just walked away and he stood there just waiting for some reaction and never chased after me. I'm not a fighting guy but even if I was I don't like to give bastards what they want, and I couldn't care less if someone I don't know, and would most certainly despise anyway, thinks I'm a coward.
That was in 1998 and I still have my watch, and it's got this extra sentimental value now :).

Unless your (or anyone's) life is really in danger, and there's no other choice to end the incident, there's no need to figh back, imo, it will just make things worse, short and long run.


Ponrauil

I've fought, I've ran and I've done nothing. But I've never given up, I've always kept whatever it is they've wanted or made them not want it. If I'm around, you don't attack my friends. I don't have an instinct to stay safe, I have an instinct to defend "my people".

Ice

I had someone turn up on my doorstep on New Years Day this year and pull a knife on me, he barged into my house, it was pretty scary and had to move out for a little while.

My best mate Gordon had sat on his wife's knee and because this idiot is a possesive little fool, he went for me because i defended my best mate.

I got the police involved but , suprise suprise, they couldn't do anything becuase the law in this country is shite!

Its okay though because my other best mate is a member of a pretty well known family up here in Newcastle and you don't mess with these guys, so its going to be dealt with, only thing is this idiot has a little boy so i'm scared of doing something that might mean the son doesn't have a father.......

a couple of times.

a guy threatened to shoot me not too long ago and as it turns out, he found out who i was and had already done time for owning a firearm so i dunno exactly how serious he was but as irony would have it, someone shot and killed him the week after he threatened me.

the only time i've ever wound up "worse off" was when a girl attacked me on the bus. as much as i wanted to, i couldn't bring myself to hit her back so i just had to restrain her.

I must be maturing but except when there's not much choice, i'm now content to do the sensible thing which more often than not is not argue or fight back unless absolutely necessary whereas a year ago i'd have been more interested in looking macho and beating someone up. the guy that threatened to shoot me probably woulda done more about it if i'd done him some real damage. there's got to be a moral in that somewhere....

why the thread btw adrian? just interested.

btw what ponraul said about keeping eye contact etc...is incredibly true.

your body langauage is fundamental in situations like that.

if you walk around with your head bowed and shoulders hunched you literally look weak and like a target as opposed to someone who walks with a confident aire.

if any sort of argument or whatever breaks out the way you conduct and carry yourself can make the best out of a bad situation. Keeping calm and not looking intimidated can and will put alot of people off trying anything and will usually work better than getting scared or trying to act mental trying to scare the assailant (unless you're really sure they'll back down 1st)

I was recently involved in a situation in which I was threatened. All parties walked away without harm (though myself and a few strangers had their pride injured), which means I did the right thing. However, I discovered that I have this incredibly strong instinct (best word as any I guess) to avoid trouble, and my thought since then has been that if the situation had gone sideways, either I wouldn't have been able to defend myself or myself and others. That last part is what really gets me. I'm hoping to figure out how to turn that instinct off if/when a situation ever arises again.

Adrian

why dont u go for some martial arts training, a lot of them are not about violence but rather about defending yourself and controlling a situation.

I really think each situation is different and has to be handled in a different manner.

I have been a few situations and have dealt with them all differently from actual physical response to defend to verbally calming the situation.

Dawn

that's just self preservation mate. I've been lucky that i've never come across anyone that could do me some real damage but if i did I'd be much more wary of what i did and how i reacted than with someone who i didn't feel as threatened by.

walking away without your "pride" isn't such a bad thing. trust me and this is coming form someone who's been in more fights and incidents than i really should have. if you can, walking away is the thing to do. no one really gives a shit how much you are apart from yourself.

as far as "switching off" the want to avoid trouble, it's not really a case of switching it off as just powering through it. when i box i sure as hell don't like getting hit but i still get in the ring and do it, once i'm in there i don't have much choice but to hit back...
this is a figurative analogy of course.

seriously though you walked away fine as did everyone else, think about that outcome and then the possible outcomes if you'd powered through and did something just to be macho and keep your pride.

being able to handle yourself is great but not everyone can, some think they can when they can't and at the end of the day, the only important thing is that you're ok and more often than not, that's a result of you not escalating incidents trying to put up a front.