Practical Advice on What to Do when You Find Yourself Confronting a Horrific Situation

A Sequel to My Last Post, On Account of Getting Some DM’s

While I am generally pretty cheerful and usually have a smile plastered on the front of my big fat Irish head, I get pretty hot under the collar about bad stuff happening to kids. As personal flaws go, I suppose there are worse ones but I still do take it fairly seriously.¹

That last post was written from the mindset of:

1. you have personal and direct knowledge of a terrible situation

2. it’s been going on for years

3. you spend most of your idle moments feeling sick to your guts because you can’t figure out a way to do something about it

I spent a decent chunk of my life in that mindset due to all kinds of things and I wrote the piece from that perspective. There are people who never get to move away from that kind of life. There are people who are born, live, and die feeling that way their whole lives. People for whom simple statements like, “It’s wrong that people hit you” sound akin to absurd luxury expectations like when kids think they should be driving a million dollar car straight out of high school by becoming a YouTube influencer and posting one video. I’m not unhappy with that last piece but I probably wrote it a bit too much for that person when that person is not my typical reader.

I also got a decent number of DM’s and comments that made me think it would be a good idea to write a more practical post for more common situations. So, we’re doing a listicle and that way I can pull it out of the archives whenever I need.

4 Steps for What to Do If You Encountered a Really Awful Situation and You Don’t Have Any Doubts about What You Saw

1. Forgive yourself for not having done the right thing right away. If you’re reading a listicle on the internet, odds are that you are the same as 99.9999% of people and were so freaked out by what you saw that you either didn’t do anything or behaved inappropriately. That’s normal, especially if it’s the first time you’ve seen something like that happen. It’s like you have fuse boxes in your head and all the fuses got blown. The reason you need forgive yourself is a lot of people get stuck in this step, where they feel like the moment passed and it’s no longer okay to take action. Then as time goes on they feel more and more guilty for not having done something in that first moment and it becomes harder and harder for them to speak up. They start to feel complicit. You have to break yourself out of this. What’s happening to you is normal and the person doing the wrong thing is counting on you feeling too bad to go do something about it.

2. Figure out the right person in your life to talk to about this and make a plan. If the situation isn’t imminent and you think the person is in danger right now, do this before you call the authorities. The person who is being hurt needs support, but you also need support. You’re not just going to automatically know the right thing to do or say. Find the right person in your life to talk to about this. This is probably not your laughing, giggling friend but your very responsible aunt or uncle who has their life together. Or your friend who is busy doing practical things all the time. Find the person in your life who has their head screwed on the straightest and the tightest. Tell them what you saw. Have them question you about it until you can explain it in a way that makes sense. They might turn chicken here. You have to be clear, not too brash and not too afraid. Ask them, “who would you want to know if this was happening to someone you cared about?” Then ask them to sit next to you as you call the police. If it’s not the police, figure out who the right person is to tell, like a principal, etc. Write down everything you plan to say and write a date down next to it. If you have anything to establish your connection to what you saw happen, save that too.

3. Call the police/school/mayor’s office, whoever you worked out with your friend. Tell them what you saw. Explain why it’s actionable, as you did with your friend. If it’s been a while and they want to know why now, tell them you read something on the internet or that you had a guilty conscience. Tell them you plan to follow-up and if your friend thinks it’s appropriate, tell them that you will escalate if they don’t look into the matter. Escalation means calling the police and filing a report if that wasn’t your first step.

4. Escalate if you need to, as many times as you can, and then let it go. That’s it. That’s all you had to do. Forgive yourself for not being Superman if the situation isn’t resolved by your actions. What you can do, at minimum, is create a paper trail so that the system can take better action if the abuser does it again. You are not required to throw your entire life away only to take reasonable action.

4 Steps for What to Do if You’re not Sure if you Encountered a Really Awful Situation or Not

1. Ask yourself if what you saw was reasonably suspicious. If it wasn’t happening to you but to someone else, would you be raising an eyebrow if they told you the story? Forget what your relationships are with the people involved. Some situations are borderline. My intent isn’t that you recreate the Satanic Panic. My intent is that you behave appropriately based on what you know. Did someone put their hand on a kid in an inappropriate manner? Did a woman look scared? If you explained the events to someone else, what would they say? Remove yourself from the situation and be honest with yourself.

2. Ask other people who might have been a witness if they saw the same thing and if they have seen anything else. A surprisingly high amount of the time people are waiting for one person to take the lead. Create an atmosphere in which “everybody knows what everybody else knows.” This removes the situation from isolation and allows people to communicate. It helps people believe what they know to be true. As a group you can also figure out if there are other people who might have more information.

3. Determine if the situation warrants contacting an authority and take the appropriate action. It might not. Just try to see with clear eyes. You can’t know everything. You’re forgiven for not being able to know everything. You should err to the side of presumption of innocence but be honest with what you suspect. If you told a stranger what you and the other people saw, what would they tell you to do? If you were the person being accused, what is the most honest interpretation of your actions other people might see? Don’t make stuff up but don’t let things go It’s hard to know the difference so don’t be afraid to talk to someone else and get guidance. The decision to act or not is ultimately yours.

4. Escalate if you need to, as many times as you need to, and then let it go. Same as above. You’re not Superman but you’re also not helpless. Remember, you’re not the justice system. It’s enough for you to have a reasonable suspicion. You don’t have to build a whole case for the District Attorney.

4 Steps for How to Confront an Active Situation where Something Awful is Happening of Appears to be Happening

1. Break the ice and just say something. Ideally you keep your calm and walk up to the person and say, “Hey, I saw you do this. Stop doing that. Why did you do that?” Or you go up to the person you think you saw something happen to and say, “Hey, I know this feels unsafe, but here’s what I saw and I want to help you. Can you tell me more?” Likely, you’re going to be too freaked out to say that so drop a “Wow” or “Holy Shit” or a “What the fuck?” Just get more information. I know most people aren’t comfortable being this confrontational and direct and that’s okay. The overwhelming majority of people will freeze up before they even think to do this. You’re totally forgiven if you can’t muster the courage to do this. Just don’t compound on that by not doing anything later.

2. If you’re talking to someone you suspect is an abuser, don’t escalate right away but don’t be afraid to escalate fast. Start out neutrally toned. Ask questions. If they accuse you of being rude, here’s the response I always say, although thankfully I haven’t had to do it a lot: “I don’t need you to like me.” It shuts down most avenues of evasion and keeps things on point. If they say something like how could you accuse me of yada yada yada you can pull out your “I don’t need you to like me” card. You aren’t insane for having questions. If you are asking based on a reasonable suspicion, you have a right to expect reasonable responses. You’re totally forgiven if you aren’t comfortable doing this, but I personally am okay with yelling at a stranger in public if they’re out of line. There are guys who not only hit their girlfriends but are indignant that you think that they shouldn’t be able to hit their girlfriends. My thinking is that even if I don’t have enough information to make a better intervention at least the person I suspect is being abused will know that someone said something. Also, the person you’re trying to help might be so inculcated in that toxic environment that they will be mad at you for trying to intervene. Don’t let them draw you into their crazy worldview. It’s wrong for abuse to happen even if the person being abused is too crazy at that moment to realize that.

3. Walk away if things seem like they’re about to get physical. It just makes things messy. If it seems like it’s heading that way walk away and call the police. If you have to use force, use the very smallest amount of force possible. Don’t make threats or use tough guy talk. Do not on purpose escalate things in this direction. This will only make things more complicated for yourself and law enforcement. But if they’re getting physical with you or the person they’re abusing, then by all means do what is reasonable for you to do. You have a right to defend yourself. If you’re a small woman, that’s probably not a lot and that’s okay. You’re not Superman. If you have never been in a fight situation or had any training, it’s not actually reasonable for you to do anything other just remove yourself from the situation. Again, you’re only going to complicate things. But if I saw a creep luring a little kid into his car, I don’t have a problem considering that as initiation of force.

4. Contact the Police. Tell them what you saw. If you’ve been in this situation longer than a minute and a half and you haven’t called the police, call the police or have someone else call the police. The above steps aren’t meant to last very long or to replace you calling the police. Our society has given one group of people the tools necessary to deal with these situations and it isn’t you. You are not Superman, call the police.

I hope this is helpful to someone out there. And I don’t mind getting DM’s about this. I don’t have a panic response about any of this anymore. It might take a minute for me to respond and my “Help” is probably going to be to ask you identify the person in your life you should be talking to instead, but I don’t mind if you need that first step.

I just know that for years I needed an excuse to do anything and I don’t want anyone else to feel that way. You have the right to act.

1. I once flipped out on some kids at Panera Bread because I didn’t like how they were encircling a girl when they were screwing around. What the kids were doing was wrong and the girl was clearly uncomfortable, but I probably shouldn’t have given a death stare to a fourteen year old boy and freaked him out like he was a human sex trafficker. Also, the dumbest thing I have ever done was in response to coming across a mom beating her kid in the middle of a Safeway when I was twenty-one. Both situations required intervention but I overreacted in both and most importantly, prevented the actual situation from being addressed.