General Would my vet be able to protect me from an angry crowd?

[joeylittle]

. My husband things that this is the best option for a woman wanting to protect herself

I agree with your husband. An intensely loud noise and a blinding flashlight are actually very strong repellants, are always legal and safe, and work in all sorts of situations.

I doubt it will be an issue in a real emergency.
These are behaviors learned to keep from overreacting to a threat that he knows doesn't actually exist.

This. Exactly this.

I wonder - is it possible that your fear does not have so much to do with whether he would defend you in a specific situation, but more that you are insecure about your connection to each other? What I read in your posts is you worrying that he won't be there for you when you need - and it's worth examining whether that really is very specific to crowd/aggressor situations, or whether it's also about your partnership, your marriage.

 

[Sweetpea76]

Bear spray, if you can get it over there, shoots at least 15-20 feet. That'll put a hurtin on somebody. So won't a face full of wasp killer in a pinch.

 

[Neverthesame]

The only kind of pepper spray allowed is anti animal protection spray but I know a lot of people carry that for self protection. It has however a small radius, an attacker has to be near you so you can use it. My husband thinks that carrying pepper spray is not a good idea, because an attacker, who is already near you could snatch it from you.

I totally agree with this, plus another reason.
From my experience as an EMT, this is really nasty stuff. It's far stronger than pepper spray for people.

Exposure to this spray (we call it Bear Mace here in Canada) will cause severe irritation to any skin it comes into contact with. As in blisters and burns.
Blindness, even permanent damage to the eyes if left untreated.
Severe irritation to the airway, which can result in swelling bad enough to close the airway. Resulting in asphyxiation.

Even minor exposure from splashback or wind, can be debilitating. Rendering the user unable to defend themselves or escape. You can easily end up catching that spray in your own face without the bad guy getting within arms length of you.
If there's only the one guy and you get him worse, you might be alright. If he's got friends that don't get sprayed with the initial blast. You will be in serious trouble.

We transported a guy once who was sprayed with that stuff, just being confined in the back of the rig with him was enough to have us all coughing. That was just from the fumes radiating off him. Felt bad for that guy.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't care about the person who gets sprayed because they are attacking an innocent person walking down the road. They earned whatever bad thing happens to them.

I do feel very bad for the innocent person who gets seriously injured when their defence weapon backfires on them. Which mace has an unfortunate tendency to do.

 

[Deleted member 40995]

To all of those, who ask why I ask questions like that. I am not sure, maybe it is because I have...

Hi there :)
You expressed worry that he might "freeze up" or panic in an emergency, and although I can never give you a guarantee that he would not do that, he sounds very protective and I think in a real emergency, he would do his best to protect you. I'm sorry to hear you went through that scary experience, but it makes sense why you might feel the desire to be protected by someone after going through that traumatic situation.
I have PTSD and sometimes wonder how I would react in an emergency like the ones you described, angry mob, etc. I sometimes freeze up a bit in minor situations; recently I cut my hand pretty badly, and totally froze up, panicked, couldn't handle seeing so much blood, it really triggered me. However, its different if I'm in a situation with someone else. If I'm with a friend and they somehow injur themselves, I try to take care of them as best I can, even if they are bleeding, for some reason, my protectiveness "over-rides" my fear of blood. For example, I was walking with my cousin through a parking lot at night in a bad part of the city, I was feeling super unsafe, and thought someone was following us. Now, I'm not as strong as her and probably wouldn't be able to really protect her too much, but I would sure try my best. I froze up for a second or two, and then my protectiveness kicked in, I put my arm around her, started thinking about what I had with me/around me to defend ourselves with if we were attacked, and I hustled/half-dragged her quickly to the car, got her in and took off. She was pretty confused/amused by the whole thing, because she had not been as aware of the danger and was surprised by what I did. I'm usually very quiet, sort of docile, but when I feel like there is danger, I go into this protective/survival mode and just try to get whoever is with me to safety. I am not very confrontational though, maybe your vet is also this way; he perceives that it is better to not become confrontational unless necessary. So, what I mean with all this is, it may seem like he isn't protecting you, but maybe in his own quieter way, he is. I'm always thinking what I would do to keep the people I'm with safe if (dangerous thing) happens, but they usually don't know it. And although I might freeze in more minor situations, if it's serious enough and if there are people with me, I try to protect them. But like I said, there is no way to know what would happen. I have also panicked in situations before. However, your guy sounds like he always does his best to protect you even if he does get panicky (thats not unusual) he still tries his best. I think you don't have to worry about it :) Take care

 

[Deleted member 40995]

Thank you all for your answers guys. They mean a lot to me. I just needed to talk. Should I talk w...

I'm not sure, like Ragdoll Circus said, you know best about how he would react to that, but I'd be careful about it. It sounds like he has already tried to make sure you know he wants to protect you and is doing his best, it might be hard for him to feel as if you doubt his ability.

 

[ParalyzedMind]

I have known vets with PTSD that have been intimidated in town and typically it has NOT ended well for the intimidator once the vet fuse blows. A combat vet with PTSD is a very dangerous machinery if you push the right buttons. At the same time, realize that many veterans are terrified of the system and distrustful that they will not get trouble with the law.

I am the same way (NOT a combat vet) and if someone ticked my buttons, I would be afraid that I would lose every control mechanism I have. I think an intruder into the house, for example, could really awaken an unstoppable beast as this often let's all rules go.

Finally, remember that the main mode of protection in today's society is deterrence, which PTSD victims may be poor at due to the lack of projective awareness and social antennas. Thugs tend to pick upibnpeople who project LESS intimidator aura as this is the way THEY think. Standing up to jerks can therefore be VERY challenging since many of us don't know the middle ground any more. My best advice is to build up yourself and don't worry about your man. My wife would DESTROY anyone who touched our family, but she also knows I would turn into a wild tiger as well, if needed. Your concerns are very genuine, but it seems like you are looking more for deterrence rather than protection. I would get a good dog for this, which would help with emotional support for him as well.

 

[ParalyzedMind]

Just forgot to add here.

Fear of crowds is typically NOT a concrete fear of confrontation, but rather fear of unknown things that could startle. Also, the fear of the law for PTSD sufferers is very real. Many of us has directly been affected by assholes taking advantage of this and knowing much better how to manipulate police. I would rather take a little beating than letting my inner tiger out, but if I ever felt REALLY threatened, I would not stop until it was all quiet around he. I feel, based on my experience with many PTSD vets, they often are similar.

 

[Sighs]

I think the word "fear" is inaccurate. My vet is not afraid of crowds. He avoids them because it causes his hypervigilance to go through the roof - especially if I am with him because he feels responsible for my safety as well as his own. So, he has to spend every moment scanning the crowd and doing a mental risk assessment on each and every person in it, while keeping an eye on exits, potentially dangerous dead ends, doorways (as a new threat might emerge at any time) and constantly thinking about how he would be able to get us out of the area / out of harm's way when he is potentially very outnumbered. Does any of that sound like fun? No - its massively stressful and exhausting. So, flip the question for a moment - instead of asking 'Why won't my man socialise with me when he knows I enjoy it?" ask "Why would my woman want to put me in that situation when she knows how distressing it is for me?"

 

[Never_falter2]

Why would a person wish to put another person in a distressing situation? Well... I can only answer for myself. I am a person who does trust people and sees the good in them, but who often is hypervigilant. I was born like this and I think I have to decide which side of my character I want to nurture. I really think I was born hypervigilant and I made some bad experiences in my lifetime which made it worse.

In my life there has sometimes been something like... let's call it a crossroad. When I realized that I had to do something that made me feel hypervigilant or avoid the thing for the rest of my life. The longer you avoid a thing the bigger the barrier, but if you have been doing it for a while the hypervigilant feeling went away... in my case... well in most cases... because I just described how the situation in my country (news about daily gang rapes, violent crowds of young men and so on) me feel pretty scared... but I am going out anyway because what would be the alternative? Hiding in our home? That would be no life for me and it would be not fair for our children.

So what I try to do is to focus on how most people are actually nice... and if I entered an area with a strange feeling which happened a lot lately with all that scary things all over the news I just smile at everybody and decide to trust... it is odd but having a smile in my face makes me feel less hypervigilant and I start having fun after a while.

My guy did CBT and I have been reading about this and I if I am not wrong the very idea of CBT is getting used to stuff... but slowly and gradually of course...

I do not have PTSD and I get that is is something different. I am just saying this because I felt a bit judged by what you said.

There is another thing to that. Talking about terror now. Terrorist want to instill fear in people. They want to make them feel afraid. They want to divide people.

Some think that the gang rapes in our country are a form of "sex terrorism" as they call it, because they want the women to be afraid of the public sphere. They want them to hide in their homes.

They want people to stay away from rock concerts and bars, because stuff like this is sinful according to their belief system.

Should we really let them dictate how we want to life our lives?

I think we have to continue going to rock concerts and christmas markets or we loose our freedoms one by one.

My freedom to go everywhere as a woman is precious for me. There are many, many women worldwide who do not have that freedom... and we have to live that freedom in order to be able to pass it to the next generation.

Sorry for the long rant.