I emptied my basket slowly, items placed one by one on the conveyor belt, tucked neatly against the checkout divider. I studiously moved them into the order in which I would place them in my Bags for Life. Their solidness tethered me to the moment: if I focused on the job in hand, everything would be OK.

I vaguely became aware of you leaning over me, reaching across to add a handful of things to your shopping already being scanned by the cashier and packed by your husband and son. I concentrated on my things: very soon it would be my turn to pay and then I could go home.

Then you jostled me as you tried to push past and a reflexive “excuse me” rose, whispered, from somewhere deep within me. I was slow to move and you pushed harder, giving a shove to the small of my back. I turned to look at you, startled.

You were immaculately dressed, perhaps on your way out to Sunday lunch but your makeup didn’t disguise the revulsion on your face.

“You rude woman!” You towered over me as you spoke and I shrank, wanting to curl into a ball. “What’s the matter with you?”

“You pushed me, you didn’t say …” I could feel people staring. You raised your voice to drown me out.

“How old are you? Old enough to know better. You could see I’m in a hurry.” I hadn’t seen anything. I’d been concentrating and I looked at my groceries, now melded into a jumbled blur. “Just look at yourself. What a state!”

I’m not sure what happened next. My heart hammered and I could hear the blood rushing through my head. I picked up the cereal box, wanting to feel its sharp corners dig into my thumb. I put it back, muttered my apologies to the cashier and I left. I sobbed in the car for nearly 20 minutes before I could face the short drive home.

I suppose you were right. I did look a mess. I had rushed straight from the shower to the supermarket with no time for drying my hair or putting on makeup. My eyes were sunken from days of snatched sleep, my face and hands blotched by patches of psoriasis: a combination of stress and neglect.

I don’t usually look like that. And I’m not a difficult, obstructive person.

I wonder if you would have acted in the same way had you known that my daughter had been taken seriously ill six months previously. If you had known that the doctors still didn’t know what was wrong with her.

My life was driven by frequent calls to the emergency services, resulting in hospital admissions, endless days spent on the medical high-dependency unit, trying to make sense of it all and trying to convince my daughter that everything would be OK.

I don’t expect you to care and I certainly don’t want your pity. But I would like you to know that on that Sunday morning you picked on a usually strong, articulate woman who was trying to hold on and not let fear and worry overwhelm her. You picked on someone at her lowest ebb, someone fragile and vulnerable.

I hope you never have to endure what I have – I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But I hope that you learn to be kind, and if that’s too much of a stretch, that you at least stop your bullying ways.

Jane Lomas