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Bystander Guilt

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  • #188491
    Penguin
    Participant

    I feel I’m in need of some perspective. A few months ago I saw a man being abusive to a woman in public. They seemed like a couple but he was yelling at and physically intimidating her (like crowding her up against a wall). This was downtown with lots of people walking around nearby, but only a few seemed concerned about it. I kept an eye on the situation and looked for a police officer (I should add that I had just moved to a new country and didn’t even know how to call the police yet), but fortunately the police showed up shortly after and defused the situation. I’m was super relieved that it turned out OK in the end, so although I felt terrible for not acting more decisively, I made my peace with it. But recently I started wondering, what if the woman was afraid to tell the truth about what happened and I should’ve contacted the police as a witness? Should I call now and report what I saw months ago? I guess whoever called the police was a witness, and ultimately it is up to the woman to extricate herself from the situation, but I tend to feel obsessively guilty at times, so I’d really appreciate another perspective. Am I just overthinking it?

    Thanks so much for reading.

    #188597
    Mark
    Participant

    Tell the police about a non-crime that happened months ago?

    I’d let it go.

    Use this experience and your guilt about not intervening as an incentive to do the right thing next time.

    #188833
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Penguin:

    The police did show up at that  situation. They attended to the situation because of the  violence or appearance of violence there. It wouldn’t have made a difference whether you called the  police, because they were there.

    You wrote that you “tend to feel obsessively guilty at times”- what is this obsessive guilt about?

    anita

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