Woman on a packed train home. Three-year-old daughter. Screaming. I mean, really really screaming. In the rush hour. My first reaction was one of pure relaxation. How selfish of me to find someone else's misery something calming. I've been here, on public transport, when Stan's either wanted to have someone's seat, cuddle them to death or scream the carriage down.
And now...it was someone else's turn. Perhaps she should have got off because everything she tried didn't work. On the other hand, she probably just wanted to plough on through to her stop. Her daughter said that she didn't want to sit on her knee. Overhearing this, a kind passenger (not me; I was standing) offered her seat, but the Mum knew that the girl was flailing around looking for anything to say. She turned down the request and the crying continued.
Then the high-pitched screaming really started. I hurt my left ear in 2005 at a Chemical Brothers gig. I carry special music ear-plugs for just this situation because loud or high-pitched sounds hurt my ear. But I couldn't put them in; I had to let my ear get hurt a bit. How could I, possibly the only person on the train who understood what was going on in this poor woman's head, suddenly fish out two specialised protection ear plugs to drown out her daughter's cries?
You could just feel that the carriage was desperate for it all to be over. When Mum and daughter got out, lots of people were staring and I got mighty close to asking them to "go about their business" without adding to this woman's woes.
I wanted to tell the woman that I know her pain, and that I understand that her daughter's not really like that. But her body language was telling the rest of the carriage to back off. No surprise there.
Life can be stressful for a parent with or without a learning disabilities to deal with. I wanted to point out that the girl will calm down, and they'll laugh about it one day. But I don't think she was in the mood to listen to that...........But I had as sense of 100% empathy.
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