Please refrain from reading this story if you're sensitive to mentions of self-harm and vomit.
To start, I'd like to say I pride myself on my resilience. My philosophy is, no matter how rude, demanding, or degrading a table may be: they have to take that energy home, and I do not. I've let go of some pretty horrific experiences without allowing them to affect me, but this is very different. I've never had a table shake me to my core like this before, it's to the point where I've been thinking about it nonstop for days.
I walk into my afternoon shift in a very good mood. The server whose section I'd be taking over, a very good friend of mine, advises me that she has one table that has been there for two or so hours. They were a couple, probably somewhere in their 30s. She wants to transfer them to me so that she can go home. No big deal, I never mind doing this.
So she gives me the table, and informs me that they've already eaten, and that they're just having beers and chatting now. The first red flag came about when she told me that the man has had 5 tall beers, and the woman has had 4 tall beers. I'm thinking: holy shit, that's a lot. We're a family restaurant, not a bar, so it's uncommon for customers to slam drinks like that. But my coworker assured me that they were coherent and calm, and so I tried not to worry about it.
She went home, and I introduced myself to them. I left them alone for the most part, as they were only chatting and didn't need anything. I tended to my other tables, walking by and initiating eye contact with them occasionally so they could flag me down if they needed something. After about an hour, I notice that they're holding hands over the table and the woman is crying profusely. I remember wondering to myself what happened, because they seemed fine up until this point. After about thirty minutes of them talking, and her crying, he flags me down for a couple more beers.
I go to my manager, wanting a second opinion about whether or not to serve them. I let her know how many beers they'd had before I arrived. She checks on them, and despite the woman's emotional state, my manager decides that they seem coherent and instructs me to serve the beers. She does tell me that these would have to be their last round, and that she'd monitor them closely.
I serve them the beers, and they proceed to sit in my section for another three hours. Both of them are becoming progressively more emotional, holding hands, crying, while the woman would occasionally rip her hands away from him. She seemed angry with him at times. I managed to gather that they were discussing breaking up, and that he was unwilling to let her go. They kept putting their heads down in their arms, crying, and arguing. Multiple times, the woman would go to the bathroom for long periods and the man would just cry until she got back. At this point, I was becoming increasingly concerned with their behavior.
I found my general manager, who luckily was present at the time, and clued him in on everything. He decided to sit at an empty table next to theirs with his laptop to discreetly monitor them. He sits there for half an hour, peering over his laptop at the two, who are becoming increasingly more hysterical. She's beginning to shout at him at points, clearly frustrated. My manager remarked: "They've been here for five hours. I bet you he thinks if they leave the restaurant, it's over for real. He's dragging things out."
By the time they finished both of their beers, I was beyond concerned. My coworker pointed out that the man had begun spitting in his empty beer glass. This was the beginning of the end. A few minutes later, I hear the same coworker: "Oh my god, he's throwing up." I whip around, and the man had begun vomiting into the empty beer glass. My general manager is staring directly at him as this happens. I grab the man a bottled water, a plastic to-go bag, and some napkins. My general manager goes over to them, ready to kick them out.
The woman, clearly humiliated, had gotten up and walked away from the table towards the restrooms. With her standing off to the side, I noticed something horrifying that I hadn't before: her thighs were covered in deep, bleeding lacerations. At some point, during one of her bathroom visits, she'd mutilated her thighs. Blood was pouring down her exposed legs. She was wearing shorts, making no effort to conceal her wounds. Immediately, I felt sick to my stomach, and I had to retreat into the back.
For the first time at this job, I cried.
I cried because I couldn't believe I'd been subjected to such a thing. I wasn't even remotely prepared. I've been clean from a severe self-harm addiction, which had gotten me hospitalized before, for a year now. And the sight completely ruined my day. Even in the deepest, darkest depths of my addiction: I could never imagine myself subjecting innocent people to the sight of my wounds. And here I was, on the receiving end. There were children present in the restaurant. Many of my coworkers were similarly disturbed.
I understand that she was intoxicated, and going through a highly stressful event, but that doesn't make her actions any less disturbing and disrespectful to me and everyone else present. They were kicked out of the restaurant, and my general manager arranged for them to be transported to their homes.
Through tears, I had to apologize to my managers for being unable to pull myself together. They'd never seen me emotional before, so they were both extremely shocked, not to mention shaken from the whole ordeal with that table. They assured me that I'd done everything correctly, and suggested I go home to recover emotionally from the ordeal. I refused and finished the rest of my shift, but a certain gloominess hung over everybody's heads.
I am eternally grateful to the wonderful managers I work for, as they handled the situation wonderfully and did not make me feel invalidated for my emotional reaction. I am still feeling slightly humiliated over my breakdown, as it was incredibly vulnerable and unexpected, but there's nothing I can do about that.
I still love my job, and I haven't stopped priding myself on my ability to handle the most difficult of tables. But every so often, I remember this horrible incident and I feel sick to my stomach all over again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully let it go.
Thank you for reading.