Yesterday I got hit by a homeless person

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Yesterday I was waiting for the tram with my daughter

We were on our way to the embassy to pick up her passport, and to get there we need to take the tram. So we walked to our nearest station, and around this area, there are always a lot of homeless people. The area we live in is one of the less nice districts (the look and feel of it compared to other parts of Budapest). But to be honest, I've never had any negative experiences with any of the homeless people, I only helped them and as some may know I even started a project to help them in the future. This project is now on hold because of health issues because I'm in a lot of pain caused by my back injury since the cold weather kicked in. I can barely walk some days, and carrying boxes of stuff is quite impossible, so I decided to first see if my pain will get less before continuing this project. Which was a pretty bummer to make this decision, but I didn't see it coming that I'd be in this much pain soon when I started the project. Health comes first, and I hope to soon be able to continue the project.

Back to yesterday

I was walking with my toddler holding my hand, and a homeless guy approached us, nothing out of the ordinary and it's not something that normally scares me or makes me feel uncomfortable. Most of the times I just feel for them and I smile at them when they look at me. This time we had a situation that we both walked to the same side to pass each other, so I went left, he went right, and then you're facing each other. Normally you just correct and go the other way, and it's fine. This time the man instantly started shouting with an aggressive tone, of course, I have no clue what he said because I don't speak more than a few words Hungarian. So I calmly told him (in Dutch because he probably doesn't understand me anyway even if I speak English) to calm down as there's nothing wrong. Just pass and continue. To my surprise, he started yelling even louder and I instantly saw that he got aggressive. Not to forgot I still have my toddler walking next to me who also noticed the guy started to shout at me. I told him again to just calm down, we already passed each other, please just continue.

And I turned around

Just being a bit confused about why someone would get this aggressive to a stranger for something like this. And then the shouting came close to me really fast and before I could even turn around to check, he hit me! With his heavy bag I got a full smack against my head. Now, I could have done several things, but I knew if I'd continue talking to him he'd get more aggressive and the spot we were waiting is kind of dangerous for a 2,5 year old to stand without holding hands. Because if she falls she can either fall on the road where there are cars passing by, or fall on the rails of the tram. So I never let go of her hand for safety reasons. I couldn't take the risk that this guy would go nuts on her, or me so I'd have to let go of her hand and something would happen because she may run away from that guy. So the only thing I could do was to stand there flabbergasted and let the crazy guy walk away.

Sitting in the tram I got angry

Why I even let this happen to me without taking action, but then again I know the situation would have probably got nasty and dangerous for my daughter, so then there's only one right choice to make.. do nothing. For her safety. But I did get angry, and suddenly I was reminded of the few Hungarian people telling me that many of the homeless have mental issues. This was clearly one of them. I've been living here a little over a year now, and never witnessed anything like it before, let alone happen to me. It feels scary to know this guy could have gone nuts on me or worse, maybe my daughter for just witnessing it. Because I think I can judge a person pretty well most of the times (that's why I decided not to respond and continue walking, not knowing he'd come back and hit me from behind) and this was an eyeopener to me that it can lead to a dangerous situation even if it would only be for my daughter trying to run away and fall on the road/rails when a person like this comes after me.

I hate feeling like this

This will make me more cautious to respond to any other homeless person, and I actually hate it that this guy caused it. Because I know there are many of them without mental issues or not being a danger to others at all. But I do have to protect my daughter as she can't protect herself in these matters. Now I'm stuck with this feeling that I'm probably going to ignore even looking at many of the homeless as there may be one that even gets nuts by a look from someone. I've not witnessed this here myself, but I know for a fact in Holland that has been the case with some people with certain mental issues. And I will be very cautious now because the guy hit me hard with a heavy bag against my head. I'm already limping because of my back injury at the moment, and I can't use another injury along with it. I don't want to judge people like this, but the reality is that I will do that from now on because I didn't see this coming either.

To be honest, I had no clue what kind of picture I should put above this post, so don't judge me for picking this one please.. I just needed to write it off .. thanks for reading!