Public breakdowns are awkward enough without an audience.

When a stranger approached a grieving woman mid-cry, she didn’t know whether to feel grateful or threatened. But her gut reaction may have spoken louder than she intended.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITA for aggressively shooing away a stranger for walking toward my car while I cried in a supermarket parking lot?

My dad passed away 2 months ago after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

So crying randomly is kind of a thing lately.

I had just finished shopping when a wave of sadness hit, so I ran to the car for a quick cry before heading home.

But it turns out, she had an audience.

Across the parking lot, I could see a man in the driver’s seat of a minivan staring at me.

All of a sudden, the back door of the van slides open and a woman steps out and makes her way toward me — full eye contact and heading right for my door.

Feeling freaked out, she did her best to stop her from coming over.

It wasn’t clear by her body language what her intentions were, but I wasn’t really interested in finding out, so I did my best to put on a scary face and shooed her aggressively.

But the stranger’s reaction made her second-guess herself.

She did turn and walk away, but her expression read something like, “ok AH”, and now that I’m calm, I’m second guessing my immediate reaction.

She was just following her instinct, but was it the right one?

I know it’s probably best to err on the side of caution, but she might think twice about helping next time she sees someone in distress, and that time they might really need the help.

So, AITA?

She pushed back against a stranger, but did she push back too hard?

What did Reddit make of all this?

Everyone involved was just trying to handle things the best they could.

Some people just want to process their emotions privately.

You should never try to force your help on someone who doesn’t want it.

We still don’t know the intentions of this woman.

Hindsight may be 20/20, but in the end, she was right to follow her instinct.

In that moment, self-protection felt safer than kindness.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.