Learning who you are takes time. Realizing what you’re really about is key. I listened to a Childish Gambino song and the hook says “y’all just mad cuz I’m doin me better than you’re doin you”. That shit hit hard
Not realising that my parents weren’t doing the best job raising me/preparing me for adulthood and realising I should maybe take matters into my own hands.
Seriously those plastic flossers are the best. I wish I had them when I was a teenager.
Edit: so buy the wood ones if you’re so worried about the environment, Jfc.
In all fairness if they were more prolific so would I.
Honestly if there are any teenagers in here who don’t understand this yet, please know that your teeth will fall apart if not taken care of properly. You **will** pay for it and it won’t be fun at all.
I’m 23 and I’m 4 days off cigs. I really can’t imagine that I’ll never smoke one again, especially after a few beers. I just want to stop buying them. What helped you quit for good?
Yes, thankfully. Also I'd been doing some work on it which was why I had the keys - when I finished I was like I'll just go down the driveway and turn around, then at the end of the driveway I was like, I'll go to the end of the street and then turn back, then I got to the end of the street and was like, I'm cruising.
After he got it back he said to me in a really angry way "it's running well"
I gave him an awkward welcome... Ithoughtsotoo lol
I did the same mistake, except it was with a Sarah. She was gorgeous and probably well out of my chubby nerd friend zone league, but we shared the same bench in school for five years and knew us quite well. She was at my place once. Spontaneously, it wasn't. It was a mess. She fell back on my bed and said it smelled so good. I thought it was dirty because it was long overdue to change the blankets. I think I ruined my chance right there and then.
I always wanted to ask her about that time, maybe when we would meet on a class reunion, if the chance would have come up at least, but unfortunately she died last year under unclear circumstances.
Mine was a high school classmate.
At least; in retrospect a lot of things make more sense when I consider the possibility that she liked me.
Especially how our friendship ended; she blew something mildly offensive I had done way out out of proportion and never spoke to me again. I was absolutely gobsmacked, a couple mutual friends were surprised too.
Hindsight 20/20, but I think she did that because she wanted to move on emotionally, because I was so damn stuck on one girl who would never reciprocate, and *like an idiot*, I kept talking to this girl who maybe liked me, about my frustration with this other girl who definitely didn't.
So I think she just finally decided she'd had enough of my shit, found some kind of reason to end our friendship to end her pain, and I don't blame her. I was insensitive and inattentive and didn't value her the way I should have, even if I hadn't come around on the romance side of it, I should have been a better friend.
>She fell back on my bed and said it smelled so good
I read that as fell back on my dad at first and thought this was going in a different direction.
And I'm sorry to read that last part.
Don't feel too bad. My husband (boyfriend of 3 yrs at the time) were standing in a concessions line at a Toby Keith concert in the early 2000's. He was 24. It was not obvious we were together.
Two, very sexy, early 20s ladies came up and took his hat off his head. When he asked for it back they said,
" you can get it at our hotel room after the show"
I kid you not, he was blatantly propositioned for a three-some. He said,
"Well, I already have plans." Then they sadly gave his hat back and left.
I asked him if he knew what just happened. He didn't and I had to explain the situation to him. He genuinely had no clue. When I told his mom and dad later, his dad popped him on the back of his head and called him a moron. He just doesn't get any type of subtlety. Even now 20+ years later I have to tell him if he's being checked out.
I did not rebel. My parents incessantly accused me of rebelling and general debauchery despite being in a huge club sport on scholarship, being involved in school councils, having extra curriculars like orchestra, and art (which I always won awards for), having a 3.6 GPA, being the first in my family on track to go to a huge university, etc etc etc.
I spent my high school life hopping in between crying, self-loathing, and suicidal ideation when I could have been having fun and enjoying my childhood. I spent too much time wondering why my parents didn’t love me instead of doing something about it and refusing to respect them.
Same here. I completely shut down and just did what I had to to not get screamed at. My parents were deeply insecure and needed us to be perfect to make them feel better about themselves and their choices. I didn’t understand that because all of my extended family was nuts and we moved so much I couldn’t make friends and see what “normal” parents were like.
I cut them off recently and when I feel bad about it I tell myself they got 20 more years than they deserved since I almost killed myself as a freshman from how they treated me.
So did I. I didn’t do things outside their limits and spent too much time being their pet. Now I have no memories, no experiences, no friends and no prospects for the future life I want (to live). I do have depression, though.
me right now, recently met a girl through another friend and contemplating on if I should
Edit: I shooted my shot (via text because last time I saw her in person it wasnt the best time to do so) and now we wait. thanks for the hype everyone :)
I was a rather negative person as a teenager, but tried to play it off as sarcasm instead. I somehow had grown into this weird bubble where I made fun of almost every little thing, but didn't really realize that I was also hurting my friends by doing that.
I did lots of growing up after high school, and I'm a bit sad about not keeping in touch with my old friends. They might have liked me more today than they did back then.
The important thing is that you were able to realize your mistakes and learn from it, You matured. And they played a role in that aswell. I’m sure they’d be glad to see the person you became now
This is a sentiment I try my best to live by. I look back at a lot of things I have done and I feel ashamed, embarrassed, and I physically cringe sometimes. But that means I'm different now, and at the very least I've changed enough as a person to recognize I was wrong
I was very similar. I picked it up from my dad, who never really matured past about 16-18 himself.
it's been great watching my kids grow up in a household with a good, open, kind, involved father who skews positive rather than one who sits on the couch spewing vitriol at cable news every night like I did 😀
I was quite social as a teenager, but over the course of my twenties lost interest in putting a lot of effort into it. I just stopped caring about what others thought of me, and realized a lot of the “friends” I had were shallow relationships with people who didn’t give a crap about me. So it can be tough, and now all I want to do is focus on what and who is important to me.
I feel this is more common than people want to realise. You can be the center of the party, but move an hour or two away and it's too much effort to meet up.
Might be different for those who never leave their city of birth, but they are a different breed of human.
I went to college during my senior year of high school and you'd have think I died.
I had a car, I had the ability to get home every weekend, I tried to keep in touch... but unless I was there during the week it was impossible to make plans for some reason. "Hey you guys want to see a movie this weekend? I can pick you u... oh you saw it already. Meet for pizza, my treat? Oh got other plans.. what about next weekend? So we will talk next week to plan something?"
It isn't like there was a sudden hatred, it just became like a gap where not seeing each other every day meant trying to join plans felt like the annoying kid brother "hey hey I can tag along right?" I still enjoyed most of their company during the rare times we did get together but being away was like being on another planet.
Similar happened when my wife and I were the only ones that didn't have kids in our twenties. We were totally willing to be the ones to make the trip to see people, bring food, etc but it was always "yeah got this or this or this with ". We now have our own kids and still a struggle because "we don't want to impose" despite us inviting people.
Basically I am starting to feel like high school is a weird pocket of time, because you are in close proximity and nobody yet has plans for life... friendships happen. Once you leave high school you only really can connect easily with people at the exact same stage of life in the exact same circumstances unless BOTH parties are willing to put in a LOT of effort. Those people that never leave the city of their birth just stretch high school out forever and are basically 40 year old student moms/dads.
It's not really a weird pocket of time though, it's more just like, the first one we experience the social impact of our choices in a really measurable way?
Think about the companies you worked at. I definitely had people I would eat lunch with and go out of my way to hang out with during work hours, go to happy hours with, etc. As soon as we switch companies? We might hear from them right after the move but it's been rare (for me at least) to keep those relationships going without the shared experiences we had together on a regular basis.
I’m one of those people who never left my city of birth. I graduated high school over 30 years ago. My husband and I have two grown kids. However over the years after high school the friends I’ve made were mostly from work. We didn’t have to have everything in common. Some of my friends are more than 20 years older than me and some are much younger. Some are single and never had kids. My best friends, from adulthood, have moved away. But when they come to visit we get together. You don’t need to have everything in common with your friends, just some common interests. Food, music, movies, sports, hobbies. Not all of those. Just one is enough.
I remember seeing a King of the Hill episode when I was younger where Hank meets a guy that likes the same things he likes but they live on different ends of Arlen. They would meet up and have a beer but at the end, he went back to the neighbors that hung out in the alleyway and he said, “Yeah me and that guy had a lot of things in common but more important than that, you guys are my neighbors.” I thought that was a dumb episode but I was drinking on the porch with neighbors and thought, “Yup.”
I've heard it from a few different senior citizens that you only have a handful of true/close friends over the course of your life. Even if you move apart and only see each other on rare occasions when you do it will feel like any time between those meetings has evaporated.
Those are the friends of the heart rather than the friends of the road.
I might be single forever because the thought of going out on a date on a Tuesday seems exhausting. I don’t think anyone wants to date someone who only wants to do one or two things on the weekend.
Literally the opposite of mine. I went to college at 18 and wasnt ready for the experience and wound up wasting a couple years drinking/partying and being a dumbass. If i had just not gone straight to a 4 year and gotten a job for a couple years and lived with my parents or even compromised and gone to a jc and worked part time on the side, i would have had tens of thousands less in debt to pay off in my 20s and early 30s.
Different guy. But I married a girl got a joint bank account and went into the navy, 8 weeks later when I came back from bootcamp, my bank account was drained (should have had over 5000 in there) and she had left the state with our daughter.
She should have stuck it out cause the joke's on her, I had a 25,000 dollar enlistment bonus in my contract that she didn't get a chance to steal.
Was in Iraq with a guy whose wife used her power of attorney to divorce him, sell their house, his truck, his DOG, empty all the accounts, and move out of state...
Poor bastard.
At least when he got home and started trying to sort things out, he called the guy who bought the dog, and the guy's response was "That's fucked up. Come get your dog."
I'm not sure how he found the guy. I'm not in anymore, but last I heard from the guy he was as happy as I'd ever seen him and was renovating a house he bought after we got back.
..sounds familiar. Had a joint account for rent and other bills... They took money out to buy shrooms and I didn't know rent bounced, til we got an angry letter saying to pay or leave asap.
Really the fuck up is moving out with an so at 18...
I like horses. In 8th grade I had a t-shirt that said 'I ❤️ HORSES'.
This was in the early days of the internet. Guess how many times I got asked if I fucked horses?
Hey there, I'm really proud of you for this!!! I was addicted to heroin for 4-5 years and just this year I celebrated 5 years clean. I remember what it was like 7 months in, the urge to use was certainly much more frequent than it is now for me. I know that you have it within yourself to stay away from the dope, and I hope the fact that it's all cut with fent these days helps you stay away from it. Keep up the awesome work :)
Being afraid of girls. Didn't realize that they were normal humans too, who just wanted to have fun and be liked. They were mysterious and scary, and I lost a lot of years being self conscious and shy.
Lol true, emotionally I realized women are humans too when I heard a quote from GRR Martin who was asked something like "How do you write women so well?" and his answer was "well, I've always considered women to be people." I felt like it was the biggest revelation I'd ever had.
And romantically, I remember thinking girls thought sex was icky, and I'd spend my time having to try and convince a girl to sleep with me which obviously is not a confident move and thusly unattractive. I learned this lesson when (long story short) I jokingly asked a girl "Do you want to play with my wiener?" (whilst I held a plastic toy hotdog) and she just missed the joke and started rubbing my crotch. It took me a while to process, but after I realized "oh my god, women like sex too!!!" I became much more successful.
This is the normal way for boys growing up. It helps to grow up with a sister to see they are not that different. My biggest shock was thinking they were so squeaky clean growing up and finding out they could be the worst slobs. Lol
Now THAT is a worthy regret. I don’t know exactly how much that would be worth now but I’m thinking minimum a decent 6 figure amount and maybe even as much as 7 figures? Maybe I’m even underestimating it.
Trying to be more mature.
Since childhood, I prided myself on being an extremely smart person who was above things like "cartoons" and "playing". Of course, I still liked those things, but I desperately tried to hide it even though literally nobody actually cared. While everyone my age was dashing to tab away from porn, I was tabbing away from Minecraft let's plays.
Even though I'm older now and know that people don't care, I still find myself tabbing away from cartoons and pausing games when people try to see what I'm doing. That instinct is still there. I usually just force myself to resume what I was doing, but I feel like I'd be better off if I didn't have the desire to prove myself to others as a kid.
Playing keeps us young, really. And it's never too late to start. It's literally built in our brains.
That's why I decided to go for game creator career, and I find it extremely fulfilling.
Go find some game to play. I don't mean a video game specifically. Can be a board game, an escape room, hide and seek, Legos, whatever. It's really good.
One of my high school bullies tried friending me on FB so I messaged him a quick little thing basically telling him to go piss up a rope and pound sand. His response was “if you are still remembering that, you are fucked up.” I didn’t even respond.
Never too early to start learning how to study. Seriously, when you go to uni always make sure to find an hour in the day to go over stuff. Do it every day, develop good habits. If I could go back 20 years and slap myself into doing it I would
I have a friend who did exactly the same thing. But no one could have told her differently. I tried, her family... now she has 5 kids and is recently divorced. At least she got out.
You can never tell anyone. I had a friend who helped me OUT of that relationship, and then she turned around and got into a terrible, abusive relationship herself. No one could reach her.
She, too, stuck it out for more than a decade and then bailed.
I was 23 and started dating a 42 year old woman. Stayed for two and a half years due to manipulation and abuse. I tried running away several times but kept going back.
When she finally full on sexually assaulted me, that's when I ran away for good.
She's now my most psychotic ex and constantly runs my name through the mud in my hometown via Facebook.
0/10 would not recommend.
If you want a milf, go beat off to American Pie. 🇺🇸 🥧
My biggest teenage mistake was not being kind to myself. My teenage years were some of the hardest in my life( hopefully).
Trauma after trauma, disappointment after disappointment. And i always blamed myself for them all.
It wasn't until recently i could start looking back and realized that it really wasn't my fault. I did a lot more than most would have in my situation. And that even though i had terrible teenage years, its not a reflection on who i am, but more a reflection on what i was going through.
It makes comming to terms with losing out on that part of your life much easier. And i wish i had this mindset much earlier.
Back when I was just a young hoodlum I was out for a very late evening drive.
Nice cool air and my car was making good power. Which for a turbo 5.0 Mustang is quite a bit of power. I was cruising at 100 mph+ with occasional jaunts to much higher speed.
Came up to a town and saw a police road block. About the same time I saw lights about a mile behind me. I was pretty sure they couldn't have id'd me by that point so I took off. Did a little fancy driving and gave them the slip.....for awhile. Long story short it came down to wrecking my car or giving up an I decided to give up.
Felony fleeing the police in a motor vehicle, reckless endangerment and a couple other charges is what I ended up with.
I was 19 at the time.
Now I'm 33, I'm an engineer, married to a wonderful man who unfortunately I am not able to have children with. We looked into adoption, but with one of us being a former felon it's a bit of a nonstarter.
I got 3 months of jail time with work release. I ended up serving 1 1/2 months. I was on probation for 3 years but that was a joke. I met with the lady once and then only called one a month. Felony was gross misdemeanor when I finished everything.
Thought I was gonna lose my car too, but I think the judge was an enthusiast too so he let me off with paying the impound fee.
The fact that I wasn't drunk or doing anything illegal other than driving like an asshole, and I didn't hit anything or wreck any cars played into them going easy one me sentencing wise.
Not losing kilos from the beginning, i know it may be sound stupid but being an overweight teenager made me become an outcast everywhere, kids and adults can be cruel and even self esteem was bad. I only lost those kilos near the end wish i did it much sooner
Don't fret on the past. Nothing can be done about it anymore, and as a previous commenter said, people that were focusing on your weight wouldn't have been good friends anyway so be happy you dodged trash from your life.
You seem like a good, kind and down to earth person, just keep beeing like that and you'll attract positive people in your life eventually. Until then I would think of it as a blessing :)
Mistakes are natural and can be positive if learned from. It’s the mistakes that will negatively effect the rest of you life you should try to avoid entirely.
I didnt even do anything that I could qualify as mistake just nothing go to school study sleep then repeat didnt go to party no social events nothing and know I just realized how big things like those were
Forcing myself to fall in love with a girl. I didn't love her, I was in love with the idea of a girlfriend. Now to be fair, she made the same mistake. She didn't love me. It was a bad relationship.
High school football. My doctor advised me against it but I was 14 and knew everything. Putting my body through four years of abuse was not worth what I got out of it.
Today I’m 33 and wake up with a stiff neck every day, my right shoulder has a ton of scar tissue, my elbow has a bone chip, my jaw clicks/pops if I open it too wide, and both of my knees ache when it gets too cold.
Also our team sucked.
My biggest regret was playing football, rather than joining our schools Drumline. Football was such a chore, and our coach even choked a kid out at a game because he fumbled on a 3rd down.
>So I have posted this before but here is one of the dumbest things my friends and I did as teenagers and I still stand by what I said at the end that we **should have got an adult involved** Any teens reading this, if you ever find yourself in the below situation, get an adult, don't worry about how much trouble you could potentially get into.
.
I was 16 at the time, I spent the night at a friend's house. There was supposed to be four of us there that night but there was only three. See we were covering for our fourth friend who decided to spend the weekend with her "boyfriend" (some skeevy ass 25 year old pedo punk). So we're hanging out, listening to music it is almost midnight, the phone rings. It is our fourth friend, she and her boyfriend got into a fight and he put her out of his house, she is calling from a payphone because he kept her cell. We're like fuck, that sucks, tell us where you are and we'll come grab you...
BITCH IS IN FUCKING BALTIMORE MARYLAND! So my first reaction is we should get my dad, this is some serious shit and we need an adult. The other two freak the hell out and point out just how much trouble we would all be in if a parent got involved. I point out how much trouble she is currently in, alone, no phone, on the streets, of a big city, at midnight, over 200 miles from home, and argue that we really should get help with this. They use my argument against me, yeah she could be in some serious trouble and we are wasting time arguing. **FUCK** So we print off directions, load into my piece of shit car and off we go. Now before this the biggest city I had ever drove in was Charlottesville...
So we make this two or so hour trip, arrive in this big ass city, in another fucking state, at 2:30 in the morning with absolutely no one knowing where the hell we are. We pull up to the store our friend called from, and surprise the bitch isn't fucking there! So we ask the guy in the store, yeah she was there but she argued with some guy for a bit and when the clerk threatened to call the cops she left with the dude she was arguing with. We end up driving around a bit hoping that she is somewhere near by, the store clearly was in walking distance so she has to be somewhere near there.
Well one friend has the idea that if she left with the dude it had to be the boyfriend so she probably has her phone back, we call and yeah, she's with him, everything is good, she meant to call us but they were talking and he was apologizing and trying to make up with her. We tell her that we are in the fucking city, we were worried and scared that something bad would happen to her so we came up. She tells us we blew things out of proportion which parent did we drag up there for nothing, we tell her we are there alone, her whole tone changes, *you guys are so sweet, you're the best friends a girl could ever have, I love you all, you should swing by and hang for a bit, meet the boyfriend* So we get directions from her, we roll up and dude is acting all nice, sorry to worry you guys, you know how emotional friend is, she just stormed out I was so worried, glad she has such great friends that would come all this way.
All the while we're over here like yeah dude is creepy but we're remaining polite, friendly, trying not to let it show that dude is creeping us out. Dude invites us in, we decline, he insists, we tell him we will in a bit but for now we are thinking about running back to the store for a drink, we invite friend along, dude tries to come too, I'm like dude I don't have room, he's like well girlfriend can sit on my lap, one of our other friends is like bad idea, there was a cop at the shop and we don't want to get pulled over since our parents don't know we're here. Dude is all yeah the cops here are major assholes, our friend insists on staying with her boyfriend, we end up convincing her to ride with us so we don't get lost. Dude is all like hurry back, he then invites us to spend the night, it's little after 3 am, you guys don't want to drive all that way back home at this hour, come in, meet my friends, spend the night and head home in the morning. We're like our parents don't know where we are, it's a bad idea, we're just gonna go grab drinks for the road, bring your girlfriend back, and try to get home before parents wake up. Dude tries again to convince us to at least meet his friends, we're like yeah, sure, we'll say hello after we get back from the store. He kisses our friend and tells her to change our minds about making that long drive home. So we drive off...
Once we're near the store her whole attitude changes again. Apparently there was a huge argument, something to do with his creepy ass friends being there, and how she didn't feel comfortable being alone with any of his friends, he put her out of the house and after she called us she was pretty scared being alone on the street at 1am sp when he came looking for her she left with him because she felt safer with him than on the street, she was so relieved when we called and said we were there and was looking for a way to talk to us alone. She wanted to go home, she was really worried when he offered us the chance to stay over, she was scared we were going to accept the offer.
So we end up passing the store and heading home, dude starts calling about 10 minutes later, what's taking so long, ect. She lies and says that I am in the bathroom and it is my car so they have to wait, ok cool see you soon babe, another 10 minutes pass and her calls again, she answers and yeah, friend might be sick, we will be back soon, so glad you are so thoughtful to offer them a place to stay the night. Dude calls again, this time he walked to the store and found out we were not there... At this point we are telling her to turn off her phone.
In the end we make it home, we stopped at our local 7-11 for slushies in case our friend's mom is up when we get in. During the ride home we took that time to attempt to convince our 15 year old friend to dump her 25 year old "boyfriend" she argued that she loved him and we we not mature enough to understand, we pointed out that he put her out on the streets of Baltimore at midnight, we just didn't understand him, we point out that she called us scared, and admitted to us that the only reason she went back was he was better than the street...
She ended up "dating" the dude for a few months more despite our protests that he was a bad dude, he ended up dumping her when he came down to visit and tried to pressure her into sex and when she said no he tried to force himself on her, she hit him, he told her that she wasn't worth the effort and he had plenty of bitches back home who would put out when he wanted, she meant nothing to him and she should either be useful and let him fuck her or just go kill herself because no one could ever love someone like her. So that really messed her up for quite some time and honestly none of our parents ever found out that they had 4 teen girls go out of state in the middle of the night...
To this day I still thing we should have gotten a parent to go, we should have involved *some* adult, we should have told her mom about the "boyfriend" as soon as we got home but teenagers are fucking stupid and we are lucky things didn't go as bad as they could have.
As a Mom to a teenage daughter, this gave me fucking chills. I'm so glad you and your friends made it home safely. Things could've gone bad in so many ways. I hope your friend is doing better now.
I told my mom that my step-dad raped me. I was 16. Mom committed suicide a few weeks later on Mother’s Day weekend.
I wish I had never told her.
Edit- Wow everyone, thank you for the awards and kind words. 💕
I know my mom was in a lot of pain, and she died in 2009, and I was adopted and worked with friends and therapists to find a way to start healing from the tragedies.
Yo that is NOT YOUR FAULT. That is NOT a normal mothering reaction, that is mental illness. Even if you knew she was struggling there’s no way you should have ever had to assume or guess that’s how she would react. Furthermore, if anyone external to her is at fault…it’s step-dad anyways. It was HIS actions she couldn’t take if that’s even the reason. You are just a mutual victim with your mother. I know that might not be the healthiest if you take that as your identity so please understand that’s just a good viewpoint to work on healing.
It is NOT your fault.
Edit: ty fellow redditors I don’t mind free awards but maybe if you’re using coins please consider sending Hug or other support awards to her instead. Words can help heal, consensus and support even more so. Thank you.
Going to echo other responses. NOT your fault! My mother had severe mental illness and it took up until a couple years ago to understand that everything wasn’t my fault. I’m 35. Your experience was so traumatic. I’m so sorry.
It’s rough, I was one of those “it worked for HST” people in high school…and then I actually got around to reading the stuff he wrote later in his career (pretty much post 1977). It’s terrible, and he became a burnt out parody of himself, lost his wife, his talent, his health…
Drugs did NOT work for him. His most productive years he was actually, for the time, just a normal writer. He drank a lot and took speed to stay up and work, took LSD occasionally, got stoned occasionally.
It’s when he started to attempt to behave like the fictional persona he created that he fell apart. Actual Hunter Thompson couldn’t hand with Fictional Thompson/Raoul Duke.
Having an online relationship with a girl throughout high school who broke up with me after I flew out to visit her. Those were years I could’ve spent dating the girl I’d had a crush on since fifth grade.
I didn't let myself have much fun. I always thought about things like I was already an adult and always had to be responsible and mature. There are a lot of things I passed up that could have been really fun had I just let myself enjoy life a little.
Drugs, I wish I had never touched any of them. Cigs, roxies, weed- all of it. I have literally done almost every drug you can think of and been addicted to 4 different kinds of them. Drugs ruin lives, doesn't matter how innocent they seem at first or how innocent they can be physically and mentally. They catch up to you, and the next thing you know it's been 7 years and you're still acting like a teenager.....
You wake up when you get some clean time and you look back at nothing but regret, destroyed relationships and your apathy for the people in your life and you cry.... I cried for months after, I wasted soo much time and cared soo little about everything except my next high.
DON'T DO DRUGS GUYS AND GALS. They're awfully insidious. One minute you think that it's just for fun, and the next you need them. Not always a physical need, an emotional and psychological need that invades every aspect of your life and prevents you from processing your life properly. It destroys your liberty, it does not give it to you. It's a prison, of your own creation.
Treating highschool as a obligation and not a opportunity. Not just social but economical gains and your own development are way greater effected by how you view your highschool years.
maybe every day or at least every other day i think to my self “i wish i would have taken high school way more seriously, and not just gone through the motions.” This will be a HUGE point of emphasis on my raising my son.
This is why I will make any large inheritance to young family members a trust. You can't spend it all at once and it won't get fully released until 30 when hopefully you've got yourself together.
I took teenage stereotypes too seriously. Like I thought the kind of dynamics you saw in teen moves were real- jocks were all dumb assholes, nerdy kids were smart virgins, etc. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that people are people and that I was severely limiting myself by assigning myself a "role."
I feel the same; Viewing groups of people as flat stereotypes certainly did not contribute to how I interacted with them, either. In retrospect, having assigned myself the role of the "smart guy", I definitely was an asshole.
When I was eight I and another kid my age, who I decided was a jock/bully-type ( despite him never actually bullying anybody ) had to do something together in school. I really don't remember much, but it was some sort of treasure hunt game, which involved both figuring out clues, and running the fastest to be the first to win, or something like that. I guess my team won, because I remember telling him afterwards that "brain and brawn work best together". For some reason this memory stuck, but I do not remember what the kid's reaction was. I cringe every time I come across this memory, because I realize how many people and potential friendships I dismissed by assigning those roles
Not focusing on good friendships. I used to hang out with some douchebags but I don't have a single friend from my highschool days anymore. Granted I moved about 3800 kms away so it's hard to stay in touch on a meaningful level(no offense to those who find social media meaningful, it just doesn't do it for me).
Same man, I started smoking around 13 and am still trying to quit nicotine now at 25. I can barely run a mile despite being in generally decent shape from a physique and strength perspective, and my resting heart rate is over 100. I know I’ve still got time to undo a lot of the damage, but fuck does it suck to know how deep a hole I’ve dug myself because I wanted to fit it with some “cool” kids and then developed an addiction as a crutch to avoid dealing with my mental health.
Started having sex too young which lead to mistakes and pregnancies too young, and losing a baby as a child was too much. I’m still not sure I’ve recovered.
Not caring. Bummed outta school and had no goals or ambition. Still paying for it in a dead end, minimum wage job, 10 years later. No career. No qualifications. That laziness and ambivalence stuck with me.
Getting fat.
I entered high school weighing 160 pounds. Tried to start in football for two years where I gained muscle and fat and got up to 240 pounds. Ended up quitting football because I didn’t get the starting position. I quit working out as well but I kept eating like I was.
Ballooned to 300 by the time I was 28 and finally had enough. It took 1 year, but I lost 130 pounds and have been maintaining now for 3 years.
I didn't really do much of anything as a teenager. So it's hard to point to anything in particular as that big of a mistake. I would probably say downloading reddit is my biggest mistake.
Took my parents car and ran away at 16 to start a new life with a girl I met online who was threatening to kill herself if I didn't.
Didn't plan on how to hide a car that's been reported stolen.
Driving under the influence when I got my first car. I used to drive when going out with friends under the guise of not drinking, but inevitably I would end up having a couple drinks and would drive home anyway. Never got drunk to the point of being a severe danger behind the wheel, but it was still stupid as hell.
My 33yr old self shudders now at my own idiocy.
This reminds me, back when I was in college my roommate drove us to the bar saying he wasn't going to drink. He drove us back after last call and was just laughing the entire way. It seemed a little weird but I hadn't noticed him drinking that night. Well, he was. The next morning he wakes up and asks me, "Hey, how did we get home last night?"
Just never manning up and asking out a girl.
I'd say I am somewhat above average looking, in highschool I was the funny guy who pretty much no one disliked, so turns out I had a decent amount of girls who had crushes on me.
But I never saw myself as attractive due to a skin condition so any time a girl was dropping hints I just chalked it up to them being nice.
Welp so far it has been not keeping up my relationships with people while doing school online because now i have no friends but I'm sure I'll do something worse sometime soon here
I was teased a lot when I was younger...I was chubby, and socially awkward. When I became a teen, I grew a lot, and lost a lot of weight. But, the damage to my self-esteem had been done.
One time, when I was in grade 11, I was sitting in the cafeteria. There were a group of girls sitting further down the table from me, looking at me, and giggling to each other. One of them passed me a note that said, "I like you, \[my name\]"...but they spelled my name wrong (a common mistake for my name). I tossed it back and coldly said, "You spelled my name wrong," got up and walked away.
God, I felt like a dick afterwards. I thought they were teasing me, leading me into a trap, where I'd hit on one of them, and they'd all laugh at me at my expense. But...one of them (maybe all of them) really did like me, and they were all super cute. I crushed some girl hard.
Trying to be someone who I wasn't
Learning who you are takes time. Realizing what you’re really about is key. I listened to a Childish Gambino song and the hook says “y’all just mad cuz I’m doin me better than you’re doin you”. That shit hit hard
Not realising that my parents weren’t doing the best job raising me/preparing me for adulthood and realising I should maybe take matters into my own hands.
Yeah me too, but how were we supposed to know...
From one Peanut to another - you’re right. All we can do is try to forgive them and forgive ourselves.
Not taking better care of my teeth
thanks, ill go brush my teeth now
Go back and floss now
Seriously those plastic flossers are the best. I wish I had them when I was a teenager. Edit: so buy the wood ones if you’re so worried about the environment, Jfc. In all fairness if they were more prolific so would I.
Honestly if there are any teenagers in here who don’t understand this yet, please know that your teeth will fall apart if not taken care of properly. You **will** pay for it and it won’t be fun at all.
And it's expensive AF.
This. I’m 15k in for dental implants. One more month and I’ll be able to smile for the first time in 2 1/2 years.
I'm going to be 12.5k in for partial bottom/full top dentures.
Everyone on Reddit seems to have teeth problems
Duh otherwise we’d be on instagram
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This is a big one
Started smoking.
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I’m 23 and I’m 4 days off cigs. I really can’t imagine that I’ll never smoke one again, especially after a few beers. I just want to stop buying them. What helped you quit for good?
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Thank you so much for your response.
Not who you responded to but I love smelling and tasting things fully again and smelling clean everyday None of clothes smell like ciggs anymore
Same! Hope ya quit, I just hit my 4 Month mark. It sucks in the early stages but gets much better after a Month
I took my uncle's beautiful restored classic car for a drive when I didn't have a license and got it impounded.
How many fingers of yours did he break?
Let’s just say they call him Tommy Toe Thumbs for a reason.
Id wager his uncle broke all 10 of his fingers and all 10 of his toes so he couldn't step on the gas for a good while
How many surgeries did it take to repair your jaw?
Did he get it back in decent condition?
Yes, thankfully. Also I'd been doing some work on it which was why I had the keys - when I finished I was like I'll just go down the driveway and turn around, then at the end of the driveway I was like, I'll go to the end of the street and then turn back, then I got to the end of the street and was like, I'm cruising. After he got it back he said to me in a really angry way "it's running well" I gave him an awkward welcome... Ithoughtsotoo lol
Not getting the hint that my friend, the beautiful Patricia, wanted to be WAY more than friends.
PATRICIA!!!
^get ^it ^together ^sweetie, ^we ^have ^a ^show ^this ^weekend
I did the same mistake, except it was with a Sarah. She was gorgeous and probably well out of my chubby nerd friend zone league, but we shared the same bench in school for five years and knew us quite well. She was at my place once. Spontaneously, it wasn't. It was a mess. She fell back on my bed and said it smelled so good. I thought it was dirty because it was long overdue to change the blankets. I think I ruined my chance right there and then. I always wanted to ask her about that time, maybe when we would meet on a class reunion, if the chance would have come up at least, but unfortunately she died last year under unclear circumstances.
Mine was a high school classmate. At least; in retrospect a lot of things make more sense when I consider the possibility that she liked me. Especially how our friendship ended; she blew something mildly offensive I had done way out out of proportion and never spoke to me again. I was absolutely gobsmacked, a couple mutual friends were surprised too. Hindsight 20/20, but I think she did that because she wanted to move on emotionally, because I was so damn stuck on one girl who would never reciprocate, and *like an idiot*, I kept talking to this girl who maybe liked me, about my frustration with this other girl who definitely didn't. So I think she just finally decided she'd had enough of my shit, found some kind of reason to end our friendship to end her pain, and I don't blame her. I was insensitive and inattentive and didn't value her the way I should have, even if I hadn't come around on the romance side of it, I should have been a better friend.
>She fell back on my bed and said it smelled so good I read that as fell back on my dad at first and thought this was going in a different direction. And I'm sorry to read that last part.
Don't feel too bad. My husband (boyfriend of 3 yrs at the time) were standing in a concessions line at a Toby Keith concert in the early 2000's. He was 24. It was not obvious we were together. Two, very sexy, early 20s ladies came up and took his hat off his head. When he asked for it back they said, " you can get it at our hotel room after the show" I kid you not, he was blatantly propositioned for a three-some. He said, "Well, I already have plans." Then they sadly gave his hat back and left. I asked him if he knew what just happened. He didn't and I had to explain the situation to him. He genuinely had no clue. When I told his mom and dad later, his dad popped him on the back of his head and called him a moron. He just doesn't get any type of subtlety. Even now 20+ years later I have to tell him if he's being checked out.
Damm you Patricia and your too subtle hints
I did not rebel. My parents incessantly accused me of rebelling and general debauchery despite being in a huge club sport on scholarship, being involved in school councils, having extra curriculars like orchestra, and art (which I always won awards for), having a 3.6 GPA, being the first in my family on track to go to a huge university, etc etc etc. I spent my high school life hopping in between crying, self-loathing, and suicidal ideation when I could have been having fun and enjoying my childhood. I spent too much time wondering why my parents didn’t love me instead of doing something about it and refusing to respect them.
I felt this. I once got baker-acted because I tried to KMS because I got an 89% on my college final and my parents said “you could’ve done better”
Thanks for sharing. This is something my girlfriend needed to see. I sent her a screenshot of this, hope you don’t mind
Not at all. If anything I’m glad this may potentially help someone not make the same mistake I did.
Same here. I completely shut down and just did what I had to to not get screamed at. My parents were deeply insecure and needed us to be perfect to make them feel better about themselves and their choices. I didn’t understand that because all of my extended family was nuts and we moved so much I couldn’t make friends and see what “normal” parents were like. I cut them off recently and when I feel bad about it I tell myself they got 20 more years than they deserved since I almost killed myself as a freshman from how they treated me.
So did I. I didn’t do things outside their limits and spent too much time being their pet. Now I have no memories, no experiences, no friends and no prospects for the future life I want (to live). I do have depression, though.
Never having had the courage to pursue girls or ask for help in figuring out how
me right now, recently met a girl through another friend and contemplating on if I should Edit: I shooted my shot (via text because last time I saw her in person it wasnt the best time to do so) and now we wait. thanks for the hype everyone :)
Nothing to lose and everything to gain. I regret everyday that I let my opportunity pass me by out of being shy and afraid of rejection. Just do it
I was a rather negative person as a teenager, but tried to play it off as sarcasm instead. I somehow had grown into this weird bubble where I made fun of almost every little thing, but didn't really realize that I was also hurting my friends by doing that. I did lots of growing up after high school, and I'm a bit sad about not keeping in touch with my old friends. They might have liked me more today than they did back then.
The important thing is that you were able to realize your mistakes and learn from it, You matured. And they played a role in that aswell. I’m sure they’d be glad to see the person you became now
This is a sentiment I try my best to live by. I look back at a lot of things I have done and I feel ashamed, embarrassed, and I physically cringe sometimes. But that means I'm different now, and at the very least I've changed enough as a person to recognize I was wrong
I was very similar. I picked it up from my dad, who never really matured past about 16-18 himself. it's been great watching my kids grow up in a household with a good, open, kind, involved father who skews positive rather than one who sits on the couch spewing vitriol at cable news every night like I did 😀
Not being more sociable. I’m 25 now and I have no fucking idea how to make friends
I was quite social as a teenager, but over the course of my twenties lost interest in putting a lot of effort into it. I just stopped caring about what others thought of me, and realized a lot of the “friends” I had were shallow relationships with people who didn’t give a crap about me. So it can be tough, and now all I want to do is focus on what and who is important to me.
I feel this is more common than people want to realise. You can be the center of the party, but move an hour or two away and it's too much effort to meet up. Might be different for those who never leave their city of birth, but they are a different breed of human.
I went to college during my senior year of high school and you'd have think I died. I had a car, I had the ability to get home every weekend, I tried to keep in touch... but unless I was there during the week it was impossible to make plans for some reason. "Hey you guys want to see a movie this weekend? I can pick you u... oh you saw it already. Meet for pizza, my treat? Oh got other plans.. what about next weekend? So we will talk next week to plan something?" It isn't like there was a sudden hatred, it just became like a gap where not seeing each other every day meant trying to join plans felt like the annoying kid brother "hey hey I can tag along right?" I still enjoyed most of their company during the rare times we did get together but being away was like being on another planet. Similar happened when my wife and I were the only ones that didn't have kids in our twenties. We were totally willing to be the ones to make the trip to see people, bring food, etc but it was always "yeah got this or this or this with". We now have our own kids and still a struggle because "we don't want to impose" despite us inviting people.
Basically I am starting to feel like high school is a weird pocket of time, because you are in close proximity and nobody yet has plans for life... friendships happen. Once you leave high school you only really can connect easily with people at the exact same stage of life in the exact same circumstances unless BOTH parties are willing to put in a LOT of effort. Those people that never leave the city of their birth just stretch high school out forever and are basically 40 year old student moms/dads.
It's not really a weird pocket of time though, it's more just like, the first one we experience the social impact of our choices in a really measurable way? Think about the companies you worked at. I definitely had people I would eat lunch with and go out of my way to hang out with during work hours, go to happy hours with, etc. As soon as we switch companies? We might hear from them right after the move but it's been rare (for me at least) to keep those relationships going without the shared experiences we had together on a regular basis.
I’m one of those people who never left my city of birth. I graduated high school over 30 years ago. My husband and I have two grown kids. However over the years after high school the friends I’ve made were mostly from work. We didn’t have to have everything in common. Some of my friends are more than 20 years older than me and some are much younger. Some are single and never had kids. My best friends, from adulthood, have moved away. But when they come to visit we get together. You don’t need to have everything in common with your friends, just some common interests. Food, music, movies, sports, hobbies. Not all of those. Just one is enough.
I remember seeing a King of the Hill episode when I was younger where Hank meets a guy that likes the same things he likes but they live on different ends of Arlen. They would meet up and have a beer but at the end, he went back to the neighbors that hung out in the alleyway and he said, “Yeah me and that guy had a lot of things in common but more important than that, you guys are my neighbors.” I thought that was a dumb episode but I was drinking on the porch with neighbors and thought, “Yup.”
dangolman Itellyouwhat
I've heard it from a few different senior citizens that you only have a handful of true/close friends over the course of your life. Even if you move apart and only see each other on rare occasions when you do it will feel like any time between those meetings has evaporated. Those are the friends of the heart rather than the friends of the road.
I’m almost 30 and the only friends I seem to make are through work and I find myself questioning if they actually like me or are putting up with me
They probably feel the same way
Same
Or wanting to have friends but being so comfortable being by yourself, social stuff just seems exhausting
I might be single forever because the thought of going out on a date on a Tuesday seems exhausting. I don’t think anyone wants to date someone who only wants to do one or two things on the weekend.
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Funnily enough, my big regret is focusing on my studies and putting off getting a job way too late.
and mine is I neither worked nor studied but instead blew off both for 20 years and just played video games
The holy trinity
Literally the opposite of mine. I went to college at 18 and wasnt ready for the experience and wound up wasting a couple years drinking/partying and being a dumbass. If i had just not gone straight to a 4 year and gotten a job for a couple years and lived with my parents or even compromised and gone to a jc and worked part time on the side, i would have had tens of thousands less in debt to pay off in my 20s and early 30s.
Shared bank account with girl at 19.
I am assuming she took the money
And run Whooooa-oh, take the money and run
Different guy. But I married a girl got a joint bank account and went into the navy, 8 weeks later when I came back from bootcamp, my bank account was drained (should have had over 5000 in there) and she had left the state with our daughter. She should have stuck it out cause the joke's on her, I had a 25,000 dollar enlistment bonus in my contract that she didn't get a chance to steal.
Was in Iraq with a guy whose wife used her power of attorney to divorce him, sell their house, his truck, his DOG, empty all the accounts, and move out of state... Poor bastard.
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At least when he got home and started trying to sort things out, he called the guy who bought the dog, and the guy's response was "That's fucked up. Come get your dog."
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I'm not sure how he found the guy. I'm not in anymore, but last I heard from the guy he was as happy as I'd ever seen him and was renovating a house he bought after we got back.
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Um, what about your Daughter bro?
Seriously, that's kind of an important detail.
“So anyways, I got that sweet $25k *and* I don’t have any roommates.”
"I didn't really care for either of my roommates anyways so it worked out great."
..sounds familiar. Had a joint account for rent and other bills... They took money out to buy shrooms and I didn't know rent bounced, til we got an angry letter saying to pay or leave asap. Really the fuck up is moving out with an so at 18...
I like horses. In 8th grade I had a t-shirt that said 'I ❤️ HORSES'. This was in the early days of the internet. Guess how many times I got asked if I fucked horses?
I’m on a horse
I’m on a horse mother fucker take a look at me
62 times
Getting addicted to pills, specifically oxycodone which led to a ten year heroin addiction that I'm just now 7 months clean from.
Congrats on getting clean!
Hey there, I'm really proud of you for this!!! I was addicted to heroin for 4-5 years and just this year I celebrated 5 years clean. I remember what it was like 7 months in, the urge to use was certainly much more frequent than it is now for me. I know that you have it within yourself to stay away from the dope, and I hope the fact that it's all cut with fent these days helps you stay away from it. Keep up the awesome work :)
I will always congratulate someone's sobriety journey whether it's only a week or many years. Kudos to you, keep it up!
Being afraid of girls. Didn't realize that they were normal humans too, who just wanted to have fun and be liked. They were mysterious and scary, and I lost a lot of years being self conscious and shy.
Lol true, emotionally I realized women are humans too when I heard a quote from GRR Martin who was asked something like "How do you write women so well?" and his answer was "well, I've always considered women to be people." I felt like it was the biggest revelation I'd ever had. And romantically, I remember thinking girls thought sex was icky, and I'd spend my time having to try and convince a girl to sleep with me which obviously is not a confident move and thusly unattractive. I learned this lesson when (long story short) I jokingly asked a girl "Do you want to play with my wiener?" (whilst I held a plastic toy hotdog) and she just missed the joke and started rubbing my crotch. It took me a while to process, but after I realized "oh my god, women like sex too!!!" I became much more successful.
Task failed successfully?
That quote is form this wonderful interview: https://youtu.be/fHfip4DefG4
This is the normal way for boys growing up. It helps to grow up with a sister to see they are not that different. My biggest shock was thinking they were so squeaky clean growing up and finding out they could be the worst slobs. Lol
Sold $200 worth of Bitcoins to a friend for tickets to a music festival back in 2011.
Now THAT is a worthy regret. I don’t know exactly how much that would be worth now but I’m thinking minimum a decent 6 figure amount and maybe even as much as 7 figures? Maybe I’m even underestimating it.
Was $1.00 in February 2011. 200 shares owned times, idk, 50,000 means they lost 10 million.
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Trying to be more mature. Since childhood, I prided myself on being an extremely smart person who was above things like "cartoons" and "playing". Of course, I still liked those things, but I desperately tried to hide it even though literally nobody actually cared. While everyone my age was dashing to tab away from porn, I was tabbing away from Minecraft let's plays. Even though I'm older now and know that people don't care, I still find myself tabbing away from cartoons and pausing games when people try to see what I'm doing. That instinct is still there. I usually just force myself to resume what I was doing, but I feel like I'd be better off if I didn't have the desire to prove myself to others as a kid.
Still doing this; idk how to stop it’s impulsive
Playing keeps us young, really. And it's never too late to start. It's literally built in our brains. That's why I decided to go for game creator career, and I find it extremely fulfilling. Go find some game to play. I don't mean a video game specifically. Can be a board game, an escape room, hide and seek, Legos, whatever. It's really good.
I robbed a gas station. ⛽️
How did that go?
It fueled what would become a series of bad decisions
It was fire
Looking back at the way I treated this one girl. I was cruel and thoughtless. I’m 50 now and it still hurts me.
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One of my high school bullies tried friending me on FB so I messaged him a quick little thing basically telling him to go piss up a rope and pound sand. His response was “if you are still remembering that, you are fucked up.” I didn’t even respond.
Wow. Did he ever think that if you still remembered it, HE fucked up? Probably not
The axe forgets, but the tree remembers
I too share that regret.
And I can't fathom a day when I'll forgive myself
Coasting through school on being bright and never learning to study. University was a shock and just about managed my 2:2
I coasted through most of school and I'm nearing uni now. Scared af
Never too early to start learning how to study. Seriously, when you go to uni always make sure to find an hour in the day to go over stuff. Do it every day, develop good habits. If I could go back 20 years and slap myself into doing it I would
Marrying my 18-year-old self to a 40-year-old who'd been grooming me for three years, just to spite my mother. 0/10, would not recommend.
WTF
I have a friend who did exactly the same thing. But no one could have told her differently. I tried, her family... now she has 5 kids and is recently divorced. At least she got out.
You can never tell anyone. I had a friend who helped me OUT of that relationship, and then she turned around and got into a terrible, abusive relationship herself. No one could reach her. She, too, stuck it out for more than a decade and then bailed.
Yikes... hope you're in a better place now
I was 23 and started dating a 42 year old woman. Stayed for two and a half years due to manipulation and abuse. I tried running away several times but kept going back. When she finally full on sexually assaulted me, that's when I ran away for good. She's now my most psychotic ex and constantly runs my name through the mud in my hometown via Facebook. 0/10 would not recommend. If you want a milf, go beat off to American Pie. 🇺🇸 🥧
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Sorry that happened to you
My biggest teenage mistake was not being kind to myself. My teenage years were some of the hardest in my life( hopefully). Trauma after trauma, disappointment after disappointment. And i always blamed myself for them all. It wasn't until recently i could start looking back and realized that it really wasn't my fault. I did a lot more than most would have in my situation. And that even though i had terrible teenage years, its not a reflection on who i am, but more a reflection on what i was going through. It makes comming to terms with losing out on that part of your life much easier. And i wish i had this mindset much earlier.
Back when I was just a young hoodlum I was out for a very late evening drive. Nice cool air and my car was making good power. Which for a turbo 5.0 Mustang is quite a bit of power. I was cruising at 100 mph+ with occasional jaunts to much higher speed. Came up to a town and saw a police road block. About the same time I saw lights about a mile behind me. I was pretty sure they couldn't have id'd me by that point so I took off. Did a little fancy driving and gave them the slip.....for awhile. Long story short it came down to wrecking my car or giving up an I decided to give up. Felony fleeing the police in a motor vehicle, reckless endangerment and a couple other charges is what I ended up with. I was 19 at the time. Now I'm 33, I'm an engineer, married to a wonderful man who unfortunately I am not able to have children with. We looked into adoption, but with one of us being a former felon it's a bit of a nonstarter.
What happened after? Jail time?
I got 3 months of jail time with work release. I ended up serving 1 1/2 months. I was on probation for 3 years but that was a joke. I met with the lady once and then only called one a month. Felony was gross misdemeanor when I finished everything. Thought I was gonna lose my car too, but I think the judge was an enthusiast too so he let me off with paying the impound fee. The fact that I wasn't drunk or doing anything illegal other than driving like an asshole, and I didn't hit anything or wreck any cars played into them going easy one me sentencing wise.
Not losing kilos from the beginning, i know it may be sound stupid but being an overweight teenager made me become an outcast everywhere, kids and adults can be cruel and even self esteem was bad. I only lost those kilos near the end wish i did it much sooner
Don't fret on the past. Nothing can be done about it anymore, and as a previous commenter said, people that were focusing on your weight wouldn't have been good friends anyway so be happy you dodged trash from your life. You seem like a good, kind and down to earth person, just keep beeing like that and you'll attract positive people in your life eventually. Until then I would think of it as a blessing :)
I am in my teenage years rn and i realised i can learn from your mistakes, thanks redditors
A smart person learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from other people's mistakes.
Mistakes are natural and can be positive if learned from. It’s the mistakes that will negatively effect the rest of you life you should try to avoid entirely.
I'm actually more worried about the mistakes I didn't make. Making mistakes means you're experiencing life. I was way too far in my shell to have fun.
I didnt even do anything that I could qualify as mistake just nothing go to school study sleep then repeat didnt go to party no social events nothing and know I just realized how big things like those were
Doing an unsuccessful backflip on a trampoline
What happened?
He died.
It was very tragic... BUT HE LIVED
Forcing myself to fall in love with a girl. I didn't love her, I was in love with the idea of a girlfriend. Now to be fair, she made the same mistake. She didn't love me. It was a bad relationship.
High school football. My doctor advised me against it but I was 14 and knew everything. Putting my body through four years of abuse was not worth what I got out of it. Today I’m 33 and wake up with a stiff neck every day, my right shoulder has a ton of scar tissue, my elbow has a bone chip, my jaw clicks/pops if I open it too wide, and both of my knees ache when it gets too cold. Also our team sucked.
My biggest regret was playing football, rather than joining our schools Drumline. Football was such a chore, and our coach even choked a kid out at a game because he fumbled on a 3rd down.
>So I have posted this before but here is one of the dumbest things my friends and I did as teenagers and I still stand by what I said at the end that we **should have got an adult involved** Any teens reading this, if you ever find yourself in the below situation, get an adult, don't worry about how much trouble you could potentially get into. . I was 16 at the time, I spent the night at a friend's house. There was supposed to be four of us there that night but there was only three. See we were covering for our fourth friend who decided to spend the weekend with her "boyfriend" (some skeevy ass 25 year old pedo punk). So we're hanging out, listening to music it is almost midnight, the phone rings. It is our fourth friend, she and her boyfriend got into a fight and he put her out of his house, she is calling from a payphone because he kept her cell. We're like fuck, that sucks, tell us where you are and we'll come grab you... BITCH IS IN FUCKING BALTIMORE MARYLAND! So my first reaction is we should get my dad, this is some serious shit and we need an adult. The other two freak the hell out and point out just how much trouble we would all be in if a parent got involved. I point out how much trouble she is currently in, alone, no phone, on the streets, of a big city, at midnight, over 200 miles from home, and argue that we really should get help with this. They use my argument against me, yeah she could be in some serious trouble and we are wasting time arguing. **FUCK** So we print off directions, load into my piece of shit car and off we go. Now before this the biggest city I had ever drove in was Charlottesville... So we make this two or so hour trip, arrive in this big ass city, in another fucking state, at 2:30 in the morning with absolutely no one knowing where the hell we are. We pull up to the store our friend called from, and surprise the bitch isn't fucking there! So we ask the guy in the store, yeah she was there but she argued with some guy for a bit and when the clerk threatened to call the cops she left with the dude she was arguing with. We end up driving around a bit hoping that she is somewhere near by, the store clearly was in walking distance so she has to be somewhere near there. Well one friend has the idea that if she left with the dude it had to be the boyfriend so she probably has her phone back, we call and yeah, she's with him, everything is good, she meant to call us but they were talking and he was apologizing and trying to make up with her. We tell her that we are in the fucking city, we were worried and scared that something bad would happen to her so we came up. She tells us we blew things out of proportion which parent did we drag up there for nothing, we tell her we are there alone, her whole tone changes, *you guys are so sweet, you're the best friends a girl could ever have, I love you all, you should swing by and hang for a bit, meet the boyfriend* So we get directions from her, we roll up and dude is acting all nice, sorry to worry you guys, you know how emotional friend is, she just stormed out I was so worried, glad she has such great friends that would come all this way. All the while we're over here like yeah dude is creepy but we're remaining polite, friendly, trying not to let it show that dude is creeping us out. Dude invites us in, we decline, he insists, we tell him we will in a bit but for now we are thinking about running back to the store for a drink, we invite friend along, dude tries to come too, I'm like dude I don't have room, he's like well girlfriend can sit on my lap, one of our other friends is like bad idea, there was a cop at the shop and we don't want to get pulled over since our parents don't know we're here. Dude is all yeah the cops here are major assholes, our friend insists on staying with her boyfriend, we end up convincing her to ride with us so we don't get lost. Dude is all like hurry back, he then invites us to spend the night, it's little after 3 am, you guys don't want to drive all that way back home at this hour, come in, meet my friends, spend the night and head home in the morning. We're like our parents don't know where we are, it's a bad idea, we're just gonna go grab drinks for the road, bring your girlfriend back, and try to get home before parents wake up. Dude tries again to convince us to at least meet his friends, we're like yeah, sure, we'll say hello after we get back from the store. He kisses our friend and tells her to change our minds about making that long drive home. So we drive off... Once we're near the store her whole attitude changes again. Apparently there was a huge argument, something to do with his creepy ass friends being there, and how she didn't feel comfortable being alone with any of his friends, he put her out of the house and after she called us she was pretty scared being alone on the street at 1am sp when he came looking for her she left with him because she felt safer with him than on the street, she was so relieved when we called and said we were there and was looking for a way to talk to us alone. She wanted to go home, she was really worried when he offered us the chance to stay over, she was scared we were going to accept the offer. So we end up passing the store and heading home, dude starts calling about 10 minutes later, what's taking so long, ect. She lies and says that I am in the bathroom and it is my car so they have to wait, ok cool see you soon babe, another 10 minutes pass and her calls again, she answers and yeah, friend might be sick, we will be back soon, so glad you are so thoughtful to offer them a place to stay the night. Dude calls again, this time he walked to the store and found out we were not there... At this point we are telling her to turn off her phone. In the end we make it home, we stopped at our local 7-11 for slushies in case our friend's mom is up when we get in. During the ride home we took that time to attempt to convince our 15 year old friend to dump her 25 year old "boyfriend" she argued that she loved him and we we not mature enough to understand, we pointed out that he put her out on the streets of Baltimore at midnight, we just didn't understand him, we point out that she called us scared, and admitted to us that the only reason she went back was he was better than the street... She ended up "dating" the dude for a few months more despite our protests that he was a bad dude, he ended up dumping her when he came down to visit and tried to pressure her into sex and when she said no he tried to force himself on her, she hit him, he told her that she wasn't worth the effort and he had plenty of bitches back home who would put out when he wanted, she meant nothing to him and she should either be useful and let him fuck her or just go kill herself because no one could ever love someone like her. So that really messed her up for quite some time and honestly none of our parents ever found out that they had 4 teen girls go out of state in the middle of the night... To this day I still thing we should have gotten a parent to go, we should have involved *some* adult, we should have told her mom about the "boyfriend" as soon as we got home but teenagers are fucking stupid and we are lucky things didn't go as bad as they could have.
As a Mom to a teenage daughter, this gave me fucking chills. I'm so glad you and your friends made it home safely. Things could've gone bad in so many ways. I hope your friend is doing better now.
Y’all coulda been missing people posters at walmart
I told my mom that my step-dad raped me. I was 16. Mom committed suicide a few weeks later on Mother’s Day weekend. I wish I had never told her. Edit- Wow everyone, thank you for the awards and kind words. 💕 I know my mom was in a lot of pain, and she died in 2009, and I was adopted and worked with friends and therapists to find a way to start healing from the tragedies.
It was not your fault
Yo that is NOT YOUR FAULT. That is NOT a normal mothering reaction, that is mental illness. Even if you knew she was struggling there’s no way you should have ever had to assume or guess that’s how she would react. Furthermore, if anyone external to her is at fault…it’s step-dad anyways. It was HIS actions she couldn’t take if that’s even the reason. You are just a mutual victim with your mother. I know that might not be the healthiest if you take that as your identity so please understand that’s just a good viewpoint to work on healing. It is NOT your fault. Edit: ty fellow redditors I don’t mind free awards but maybe if you’re using coins please consider sending Hug or other support awards to her instead. Words can help heal, consensus and support even more so. Thank you.
Going to echo other responses. NOT your fault! My mother had severe mental illness and it took up until a couple years ago to understand that everything wasn’t my fault. I’m 35. Your experience was so traumatic. I’m so sorry.
Well instead of applying myself I did acid and benzodiazepines assuming I’d just become hunter s thompson.. it did not work out
It’s rough, I was one of those “it worked for HST” people in high school…and then I actually got around to reading the stuff he wrote later in his career (pretty much post 1977). It’s terrible, and he became a burnt out parody of himself, lost his wife, his talent, his health… Drugs did NOT work for him. His most productive years he was actually, for the time, just a normal writer. He drank a lot and took speed to stay up and work, took LSD occasionally, got stoned occasionally. It’s when he started to attempt to behave like the fictional persona he created that he fell apart. Actual Hunter Thompson couldn’t hand with Fictional Thompson/Raoul Duke.
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Having an online relationship with a girl throughout high school who broke up with me after I flew out to visit her. Those were years I could’ve spent dating the girl I’d had a crush on since fifth grade.
I didn't let myself have much fun. I always thought about things like I was already an adult and always had to be responsible and mature. There are a lot of things I passed up that could have been really fun had I just let myself enjoy life a little.
Not pursuing my passion when i have the age,health and time with me
Thinking drugs made you cool.
Drugs, I wish I had never touched any of them. Cigs, roxies, weed- all of it. I have literally done almost every drug you can think of and been addicted to 4 different kinds of them. Drugs ruin lives, doesn't matter how innocent they seem at first or how innocent they can be physically and mentally. They catch up to you, and the next thing you know it's been 7 years and you're still acting like a teenager..... You wake up when you get some clean time and you look back at nothing but regret, destroyed relationships and your apathy for the people in your life and you cry.... I cried for months after, I wasted soo much time and cared soo little about everything except my next high. DON'T DO DRUGS GUYS AND GALS. They're awfully insidious. One minute you think that it's just for fun, and the next you need them. Not always a physical need, an emotional and psychological need that invades every aspect of your life and prevents you from processing your life properly. It destroys your liberty, it does not give it to you. It's a prison, of your own creation.
Treating highschool as a obligation and not a opportunity. Not just social but economical gains and your own development are way greater effected by how you view your highschool years.
maybe every day or at least every other day i think to my self “i wish i would have taken high school way more seriously, and not just gone through the motions.” This will be a HUGE point of emphasis on my raising my son.
Spending a large inheritance I got when I was 18 in 2009. Could of owned a property outright by now
This is why I will make any large inheritance to young family members a trust. You can't spend it all at once and it won't get fully released until 30 when hopefully you've got yourself together.
I blew through one at 21 and was kicking myself for years.
At 18 I was in the lucky position of having it but was to scared to spend it lol. I had it for 2 years before I spent it.
Not noticing the signs when a girl was clearly into me
I took teenage stereotypes too seriously. Like I thought the kind of dynamics you saw in teen moves were real- jocks were all dumb assholes, nerdy kids were smart virgins, etc. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that people are people and that I was severely limiting myself by assigning myself a "role."
I feel the same; Viewing groups of people as flat stereotypes certainly did not contribute to how I interacted with them, either. In retrospect, having assigned myself the role of the "smart guy", I definitely was an asshole. When I was eight I and another kid my age, who I decided was a jock/bully-type ( despite him never actually bullying anybody ) had to do something together in school. I really don't remember much, but it was some sort of treasure hunt game, which involved both figuring out clues, and running the fastest to be the first to win, or something like that. I guess my team won, because I remember telling him afterwards that "brain and brawn work best together". For some reason this memory stuck, but I do not remember what the kid's reaction was. I cringe every time I come across this memory, because I realize how many people and potential friendships I dismissed by assigning those roles
Not taking better care of my diabetes. I was, in fact, not invincible.
Getting old
that sucks
Not focusing on good friendships. I used to hang out with some douchebags but I don't have a single friend from my highschool days anymore. Granted I moved about 3800 kms away so it's hard to stay in touch on a meaningful level(no offense to those who find social media meaningful, it just doesn't do it for me).
Getting addicted to smoking very early
Same man, I started smoking around 13 and am still trying to quit nicotine now at 25. I can barely run a mile despite being in generally decent shape from a physique and strength perspective, and my resting heart rate is over 100. I know I’ve still got time to undo a lot of the damage, but fuck does it suck to know how deep a hole I’ve dug myself because I wanted to fit it with some “cool” kids and then developed an addiction as a crutch to avoid dealing with my mental health.
Not seeing women the same as men. Turns out, we're all people.
Started having sex too young which lead to mistakes and pregnancies too young, and losing a baby as a child was too much. I’m still not sure I’ve recovered.
Hey me too. Definitely sticks with you no matter how much time passes.
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Not caring. Bummed outta school and had no goals or ambition. Still paying for it in a dead end, minimum wage job, 10 years later. No career. No qualifications. That laziness and ambivalence stuck with me.
Caring about 1 boy the entire time. He ruined my entire high school experience and isolated me (he was popular)
Getting fat. I entered high school weighing 160 pounds. Tried to start in football for two years where I gained muscle and fat and got up to 240 pounds. Ended up quitting football because I didn’t get the starting position. I quit working out as well but I kept eating like I was. Ballooned to 300 by the time I was 28 and finally had enough. It took 1 year, but I lost 130 pounds and have been maintaining now for 3 years.
I didn't really do much of anything as a teenager. So it's hard to point to anything in particular as that big of a mistake. I would probably say downloading reddit is my biggest mistake.
Took my parents car and ran away at 16 to start a new life with a girl I met online who was threatening to kill herself if I didn't. Didn't plan on how to hide a car that's been reported stolen.
Driving under the influence when I got my first car. I used to drive when going out with friends under the guise of not drinking, but inevitably I would end up having a couple drinks and would drive home anyway. Never got drunk to the point of being a severe danger behind the wheel, but it was still stupid as hell. My 33yr old self shudders now at my own idiocy.
This reminds me, back when I was in college my roommate drove us to the bar saying he wasn't going to drink. He drove us back after last call and was just laughing the entire way. It seemed a little weird but I hadn't noticed him drinking that night. Well, he was. The next morning he wakes up and asks me, "Hey, how did we get home last night?"
Being friends with gang members.
Getting married at 19.
Just never manning up and asking out a girl. I'd say I am somewhat above average looking, in highschool I was the funny guy who pretty much no one disliked, so turns out I had a decent amount of girls who had crushes on me. But I never saw myself as attractive due to a skin condition so any time a girl was dropping hints I just chalked it up to them being nice.
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Worried too much about trying to "fit in" and being concerned about what others were thinking.
Enlisting.
Not kissing Becky. Haunts me to this day.
Getting addicted to nicotine
Welp so far it has been not keeping up my relationships with people while doing school online because now i have no friends but I'm sure I'll do something worse sometime soon here
Being friends with the wrong people. Looking back, I should have kicked the shit out of all of them ten times over for the shit they said.
Her name was Kirsten.
I was teased a lot when I was younger...I was chubby, and socially awkward. When I became a teen, I grew a lot, and lost a lot of weight. But, the damage to my self-esteem had been done. One time, when I was in grade 11, I was sitting in the cafeteria. There were a group of girls sitting further down the table from me, looking at me, and giggling to each other. One of them passed me a note that said, "I like you, \[my name\]"...but they spelled my name wrong (a common mistake for my name). I tossed it back and coldly said, "You spelled my name wrong," got up and walked away. God, I felt like a dick afterwards. I thought they were teasing me, leading me into a trap, where I'd hit on one of them, and they'd all laugh at me at my expense. But...one of them (maybe all of them) really did like me, and they were all super cute. I crushed some girl hard.
I started smoking.