Trauma

This is my first post here. I wanted to share an incident that happened to me about a month ago.

My colleague and I were in a shop when my colleague accidentally spilled some drink on the floor while opening a bottle. I glanced at the man behind the counter, and he immediately looked visibly angry.

My colleague politely asked for some tissues to clean up the spill, but the man aggressively told us to leave the store. I told him that he shouldn't speak to customers that way, but this only made him more hostile. He started swearing at us. I was holding an open bottle of drink at the time, and in the heat of the moment, I raised it—causing some liquid to spill onto the items on the counter. This seemed to escalate things further, and the man threatened to call his "boys" to teach us a lesson. Fearing for our safety, we quickly left the store.

TW: Assault

The medical staff informed me that I had suffered a tear on the right side of my upper lip, an internal cut inside my lip from the impact, and a gash on the back of my head from hitting the concrete pavement. I received two stitches on my lip and three on the back of my head.

Since then, I have been struggling emotionally. I feel violated and keep getting flashbacks of the attack. I’ve lost confidence in myself and don’t feel comfortable going out in public. I've had three sessions with my psychologist, but things still don’t feel like they’re improving.

I just wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else has gone through something similar. How did you cope?