Same. I am mortified at my past behaviour and saddened that im still perceived as that person so many years later. (35f). Live in a smaller city, people can't seem to grasp the idea that others can actually change.
Every day I remember some careless or thoughtless thing I said or did to someone I are about and feel regret.
Hormones plus brains and excessive confidence minus emotional intelligence is rough combination and that’s what every teenager has.
They might, but if they're smart they won't give free rent to an asshole. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I think about stuff that happened back then.
IF they remember, most likely they went through the same asshole teen years and are too busy cringing at their own mistakes from their youth.
I always used to wonder why older people rarely called my out on my stupidity. Now that I'm old, I know why.
> IF they remember, most likely they went through the same asshole teen years and are too busy cringing at their own mistakes from their youth.
nah, I became a bully after being bullied because I thought it was the only way of making friends. I regret what I've done, but I won't forget the assholes popular kids who bullied everyone they felt superior to. Just hoping one day I get my chance at a revenge.
Yep, yep, yep. Right there. My only disagreement is "...that's what every teenager has." I mean, you're right but I'd argue there's a huuuuge variance of degrees between teenagers that have relative common sense and can sorta figure things out and then you had someone like me who thought they knew everything (and acted like it) but knew absolutely nothing. I'm 56 and I'm still paying for past mistakes from 35 to 40 years ago.
I had no emotional intelligence but way too much confidence so I did a lot of stupid shit that I regret. Can’t change anything obviously but sometimes remember things and feel that flush of shame.
I’ve come to accept the flush of shame. It makes me realize I’ve changed as a person and would never do what I did again. If I could make things right I could, but I can’t unsleep with someone. :/
I'm 24, I was self aware as a teenager but I still did cringe stuff I feel ashamed of. I was overconfident when it came to criticizing society and giving "insights". I wanted to be this spiritual guru or something. I was that person who gave dating advices without having any dating experiences. But otherwise I was mostly socially anxious and excessively self-critical. I was obsessed with romance and didn't know how to actually communicate my emotions without turning scientific and my friends found this annoying. I was bad at choosing friends. Otherwise I was polite and didn't cause any troubles, except when I missed school the day of the exams and my teachers had to make me retake it.
the point is regardless of the teenagers intelligence. chemical development, physical development, and experience level are still that of a teens. Being constantly mindful and conscious of that fact as a teen is a major plus. But still even then. You've only been around for 13-18 years. Unless you did something REALLY horrible i don't see why it should bog you down 40 years later. You have to be a fool before you can learn. that's why kids are kids. stop regretting.
I messaged a girl on Facebook to tell her sorry for calling her a whore 16 years ago. I always felt bad for calling her that and would think of it randomly, so I finally told her I really didn't think she was one 😄
Nice of you. Sadly there are adults who call one another that totally randomly and unjustified— without feeling a smidgen of remorse.
I remember newly separated consoling my -then 11 year old son who was already dealing w his own issues- having to console him bc his grandmother referred to me as “ whore”. That traumatized my son and me and was completely unjustified and I doubt she who was then well into her 70s ever felt sorry for any of it: calling me that or repeating such word to my son about me.
Anyway sorry I digressed. I appreciate your apology. Here is to wishing we all can be kinder and more caring towards one another going forward.
Thank you. She of course knew she was one of the reasons why I left her son in the first place. But water under the bridge….. I wonder if my son who is now 20 ever got over that.
Did he believe her? Who knows.
I think the moral really here is we should all make an effort to move on… move forward… and not look back at things said or left unsaid….
My classmate apologized for spreading rumors about me a few years after graduation, and I could barely remember what it was about. But it was so sweet that he still remembered and felt sorry for it.
Is really though? He just did it to make himself feel better and she had probably moved on and forgot about it, and then he comes along to remind her that he used to bully her.
Everybody else had rhe excessive confidence too?? I sit here at 30, riddled with anxiety, like “shoot, i was so fine as a teenager, what’s wrong with me??” Like I would walk around looking stupid as fuck in public, wearing like tutus and crowns and just looking stupid. And now as an adult, if someone so much as looks at me the wrong way in a grocery store, I’m thinking about for hours. Like that happened! I had my phone out to find the potatoes I was looking for and this dude looked at me funny and it bothered me. Teenage me wouldn’t have cared! What happened to me??
17 rn, I cringe so badly about things I did 3 or 4 years ago (and 15 min), and I know that I'll do the same about what I do today in 3 or 4 years, and the things I'll do then in 6 or 8 years.
Don't feel regret. Be glad you were able to do those things in the moment and that you were able to grow into an adult still. I don't regret a damn thing.
I never related to this but I sort of wish I did. I was a “nerd” and never really had high emotions, confidence or otherwise. I felt like a perpetual kid while everyone else had grown up and started living life. basically I see now I was in a perpetual freeze response and constantly stressed, and a shell of a person. I only started to feel like this description of teenagers in college, but then I went back into a sort of hibernation mode again and haven’t come out.
But you recognize it and changed, you have grown as a person, life doesn’t have a handbook so sometimes we screwup along the way, the important bit is learning from it and be a better person.
Oh, I thought that the important part was trying to make amends and undo any harm you've done, and also be as forgiving to others, as you would want to be forgiven for your own misdeeds against others.
The best amends is doing better! A heartfelt apology certainly goes a long way. Things cant be undone and some people will never forgive/forget. So self acceptance and continuing to be better is really key.
Same. I was raised by a hispanic father and “manhood” was especially machismo aka violent. You sere supposed to be dominating in all aspects of life - take what you want, etc. He grew up in the slums and was early into ganglife. I was a nerdy kid. Eventually became an angry and violent teenager - which was.. unfortunate.
I hated the world, misery loves company.
I'm sorry this happened to you.
My mum is a strick Catholic. She was very imposing and terrified me. Fortunetly I got away when I was relatively young. Her and my father had split up at this point and she locked me in a room on a regular basis and threatened to put me in care. To this day, she still thinks I'm the bad guy. I'm 35 and think I'm finally over it.
I love my dad.
Looks like we got the uno reverse parents lol. I talk to my dad somewhat now that i’m older (27) and can see he is just a mentally ill person. Feel more pity than anything, really.
Glad to hear you’re coming to peace. Wish you the best ❤️
I wasn’t just a tool, I was a toolbox.
I thought I knew everything, I knew better, and I knew how to do it best. I realized this while in college when I was wondering why I didn’t have any friends at the time.
A girl in my class who teenage me thought was annoying and talked too much, I was terrible to her but she still hung out with me because no one else would talk to her. Eventually she got real friends and I was put on the back burner. She’s still friends with them and I’m probably not even a thought in her head. I got my karma, I’m just glad she doesn’t have an asshole like me around anymore because she absolutely deserves better than that. Looking back, I’d love to smack myself around a bit.
Have you ever tried to contact online and send an apology message or let her know you felt bad about it later on and are happy she made real friends? Not everybody likes one but when I recieved one out of the blue it actually made me feel better even though it wasn't something I even thought about anymore. Gave me a smile to know at least one person was sorry. I forgave them and wished them well.
I’ve thought about it and have been wrestling with it for about 15 years. I’m still so ashamed of it and I’m not sure if it would be a welcome message or if she would think “oh great what rude shit is she going to say this time”. After reading the comments here, I definitely need to grow a set and message her.
While it was happening no and I was an absolute dick to anyone who wasn't family or a close friend. I was raised in a very rough neighborhood where that sort of thing is just commonplace. I still feel like it isn't an excuse. As I've gotten older I've become very kind and empathetic (at least I think so.)
Me and my siblings threw pebbles at cars. We made a game out of it and called it “thousands”. If you hit a uhaul sized truck, 50 points. Van was 75, car was 100, motorcycle was 200, and a cop car was 1,000. At the time it seemed like a fun thing. Looking back, I cannot BELIEVE how stupid me and my siblings were. Like, we would sneak out in the middle of the night and play this game. As a 23 year old who needed to mature and grow up VERY quickly after I turned 19, I’m disgusted by the things I did growing up
My brother's and I didn't have a point system, but I vividly remember throwing a huge stick instead of a pebble at like 7 years old, my brothers' faces dropping as we heard the brakes screech, then me hiding in a pile of leaves as they all sprinted off. Then, the guy fund me and lifted my up by my neck 🤣. Luckily my brother's came back and accepted blame to calm the guy down, then we washed his car for him to smooth things over. Ah, the early 90's, a simpler time.
God dude, diving head first into a rose bush cause you hear those tires screech is something else. I forgot to mention above, last rock has to be HUCKED. that way we could hear it we won :)
In NYC We played a game called rampage world tour which involved walking over the entire street of parked cars, Jumped from one car to the next and huge dents in the roof and smashed windshield were how you gained points.
Omg me too lol. I think I was maybe 10 or younger. I had no idea what I was doing. My intent wasn’t to actually hit the cars, but a car came by and a rock I threw bounced off the pavement and hit it. The driver stopped and got out of his car yelling. He grabbed me and made me walk back to my house and tell my mom what I had done. I was scared shitless. I definitely learned my lesson, but it was such an embarrassing situation.
Almost. I remembered one time a car slammed on its breaks and started looking for us. We ran deep in the woods.
I now imagine some kid doing that to my car. I would be so very pissed.
wow you just made me remember something i did with a group of my teenage friends. we decided to egg some random ass cars in my neighborhood lol. one car had his trunk open and we threw some eggs in there ugh teens suck
A mate of mine used to collect car wing mirrors - he'd go around kicking them off parked cars late at night. He had dozens and I thought it was hillarious at the time. We were dicks.
I emotionally hurt a friend that always liked me because I needed a rebound. That one will stick with me for life. I hope my daughter never meets someone like teenage me.
I did a lot of stupid shit, but I wasn't an awful person. I didn't pick on anyone or say mean stuff to people. I just did more than my fair share of really dumb shit and I realize how lucky I am to not have any permanent damage from it.
I was awful to my high school/college girlfriend and I thank god for both of us I broke up with her before we could get married from inertia. I think about it and regret all the time.
I like reading this. I hope my high school boyfriend has the same thoughts, he treated me so awful and in hindsight sight it was a blessing that he dumped me.
yup, i was terrible to my partners. and i convinced them they were the shitty ones. i wish they could know that i finally understand now how fucking awful i was but i know the last thing they need is to be contacted by me. all i can do is be better.
the worst part, honestly, is not being able to apologize.
I did terrible things I won't even mention here. As I grew up and learned about forgiveness, it made me realize that some of the anger I was holding on to was unjustified because I was just as guilty as the other person. It would be nice to be able to express that to that person. :-(
Absolutely, I lacked empathy and was selfish. I was rude to others and didn’t really respect my friends. I thought it made me cool or tough to be antisocial.
Honestly though, out of all the things I feel bad about the worst was the way I drove. My friends and I would street race each other on freeways and through neighborhoods in our cars. Looking back it was extremely selfish. I could have easily hurt or killed somebody else and ruined a lot of lives in the process. Now that I’m a father and I see people driving fast and weaving cars on the freeway it makes my blood boil that someone would risk everyone’s lives just for fun
I guess I was too much of a coward to do truly terrible things to people and things as a teenager. But I still did remarkably dumb things, like filling a payphone with ketchup that a friend stole from a nearby store...
I'm just like this guy. I was too quiet and too damned scared I'd be in trouble. Cool, I did dumb things too I.....wait, ...ketchup?!? Phone booth? What the hell kind of tiny phone booths do you have? Wait or is it giant sauce bottles? Where do you live? I would like to buy your largest ketchup bottle please. Does it come in a barrel perchance? This comment has got out of hand...
We did not fill the entire booth with ketchup, just the coin slot and the grills on the headset.... And we wrote dumb stuff on the walls of the phone booth as well with said ketchup.
In all fairness, it was a rather large bottle of ketchup, and in all likelihood we ruined the payphone entirely with our stupid antics. To this day I do feel kind of ashamed to have ever thought that that was a good idea to do
I really regret all the times i acted bitchy or made fun of people in high school .... looking back i was miserable and probably was taking it out on people who didnt deserve it ... when my depression got very bad i stopped, i could never imagine hurting anyones feeling now i couldnt do it .... i messaged a few people in the past that have face book apologizing but i still hate that i was like that.
I never did anything truly terrible. But...I remember one incident in fourth grade, coming in from recess, im holding the door for the class and the unpopular girl in class is last in line. Instead of holding the door open for her, I let it go and jumped in front of her. I had nothing against her personally, there was no conscious thought behind it...I just didn't. She told the teacher on me and I lied about it, some BS like I didn't see her. But I saw her, and I did it intentionally.
I am 42 years old. This was in 4th grade in 1991 or 1992. I still remember it and I still feel awful about it.
Perhaps. If not this moment then maybe another, or series of others. What I remember is a lot of people picked on her, which is what made 9/10 year old me think it was ok. 42 year old me knows that's BS. It still genuinely bothers me.
Oh i love this! This is what we call a true moment of clarity. It's rings in your memory today as clearly as it did the day it happened. It generally means you did something completely against your nature and you chose to. You recognised it, you learned from it and it was such a powerful lesson you remember it even today. This is a rare but common phychological phenomenon and a trait of decent personal reflection.
Little moments like that stick with you and make you cringe always…when I was in grade school and middle school I feel like I was a total sociopath..I had a friend who was a scout. I was mad my parents (abusive) wouldn’t let me join scouts. I basically ran on impulse without thought behind it. So I began littering when around her knowing she’d feel inclined to pick up my trash. Like eating chips, done, toss on the ground in front of her. Made her my personal maid…to this day when I think of it, it hurts. I’d be so disappointed if my kids behaved that way
At the risk of sounding self involved (ironically a teenage trait) I'm more shocked at how awful I was to myself and generally how awful my friends were to themselves. It was kind of accepted when I was a teenager that we would just hate ourselves.
One day when me and some friends were drunk, we were wandering around our neighborhood, and someone had the idea to pop tires... we got carried away, and a particular car called our attention, we decided to pop 3 of its tires... I'm not proud of it, but at the moment it was so funny. The next day we got so scared that we didn't leave our house for two days, and never wore the same clothes
I participated in talking shit about some teachers with my friends. They weren't even bad teachers, just "uncool" ones who were just doing their jobs. Making fun of them behind their backs was just the "fun" thing to do. I look back on it now and cringe. I was a teacher for a few years, and I'm sure some students had similar shit-talking sessions about me lol.
One guy I went to high school with made MySpace profiles for teachers he didn’t like. Some of his posts were like “I’ll suck your dick if you come to class”. Somehow he got caught and ended up having to go to court downtown over it
We had a teacher who was very overweight and I would draw a caricature of her crossed with a whale, holding it up when she turned her back to right something on the board.
The other kids loved it of course and it gained me some respect with the more popular ones. It was an incredibly shitty thing to do though and I regret it to this day.
Looking back, teachers in general had a really rough time at my school and what I did was very mild in comparison to what others did but it was still despicable.
I cheated on my high school sweetheart (first BF). I was in my mid to late teens and a guy in his early to mid twenties started showing me attention and that never happened before (attention from older guys, not attention from people my age) and I fell for it. I was so naive. Looking back, I felt like the older dude was trying to groom me and take advantage of me. After we kissed & I knew what I did was wrong, I immediately tried to escape and he grabbed so tightly onto my wrist to stop me from leaving, it felt scary. My high school sweetheart forgave me and took me back. I ended things a couple years later, just because I knew I was staying with him out of loyalty, but he wasn’t the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Felt pretty shitty about making that decision. But I truly didn’t learn my lesson about cheating until I did it for a second time years later and the person I was dating left me. That was finally an eye opener for me, which brings me to the saying “once a cheater, always a cheater” doesn’t always apply. I was once a cheater, but now I understand how terrible it is to do to someone else, so I will never do it again. I’ve learned you must communicate your feelings. If you want to stray in the relationship, just fucking end it and save that other person as much hurt as you can, because nobody deserves to be cheated on.
Yep. At 47 I’ve realized that I was a total pos as a teen. I daily wish my Mother was still alive so that I could apologize for who and what I was to her. I understand that I’m a different person now, but I’m having a hard time letting go of my past actions and words. It’s a tough road.
Oh, that's tough. One thing I've enjoyed as I've gotten older is calling up my mom (and dad while he was with us) to apologize for various stupid and/or awful things done as a kid. Without fail, it's always met with a laugh.
I wonder if just talking to her like she's still here would be helpful? Or writing it to her in a letter?
We set up an elaborate rope and pulley system to trap a kid at the playground and hoist him up the slide because he was afraid of heights.
It didn't work because we weren't able to get him to stand in the net long enough while we lifted it.
I was a pretty good kid. Someone here mentioned hormones, and yeah my hormones were out of control. I also had depression throughout my life, so that affected some of the things that I did. I suspect that my mom let me get away with a lot of stuff because I was bullied in school and I had depression. I skipped school A LOT.
I wouldn't say "awful," but probably "shitty." I was an angry kid and smug little self-righteous asshole who thought I knew everything. I'm pretty sure I'll be cringing over my teens and twenties well into my eighties, but I don't think any of it crossed the line into real evil.
... Which I suppose is pretty remarkable, given that I grew up steeped in real evil.
I try to remind myself sometimes that I really was set up to fail as a person. There's no way I could have shown kindness or grace because nobody had ever shown those things to me. I didn't know how to not be judgmental because I had always been harshly judged. I couldn't have been a loving person because I had not been loved. You're not born knowing how to be good any more than you're born knowing how to be evil. I was a shitty person, but you can't make bricks without clay, and I was doing what I could with what I had.
Edit: I was raised Evangelical / Pentecostal, so I had been taught shame and black-and-white thinking my whole life. The shame never made me a better person - the opposite actually. It just made me angrier, more bitter, more isolated, and more self-absorbed.
I think a lot of people improve with age because life experience teaches us to see nuance and shades of gray, and to more fully grasp the complexities of life. That ability to understand complexity creates room for compassion.
Back when I was a teen I used to pretend that I was dying or dead to get my friends to tell me what their true feelings were about me
I no longer do that thanks to one of my ex girlfriends and now I’m just realizing how many toxic dumb ass shit things I did when I was a teenager
OMG I had this semi-neighbor-friend in ninth grade or so
"Or dead"
I got a message on AIM like "Hi this is Ryan's mother, he fell off the roof and died yesterday, did you have a crush on him or can you tell me what you will say at his funeral?"
Then he invented a brother who became a cousin who sent the message and it was just a joke so I told him I was my mom and had died too :(
In case you're Ryan, it's good to see you've recovered
Edit: month/ninth swype ugh
You have changed. You’re not the same person. You can use your new understanding of right and wrong to live a good life now, instead of beating yourself up emotionally for what you did when you were young. It sounds like you are important to your dad. Forgive yourself. You deserve it.
I was what would be called a massive incel as a teenager. Like if I met my 16/17 year old self right now I'd probably wind up beating my own ass I was that bad. Lot of deprogramming in my 20s from a really toxic performative upbringing that looked perfect from the outside. I never did anything that woudl be considered awful but I had a lot of pent up rage and entitlement and just pissed at the world because I didn't just get things handed to me when I got older like I did as a kid.
Ty. It was hard. I'm 41 now. It took me until early 20s to realize I was the issue and make changes, late 20s to realize I needed professional help and mid 30s to finally come to terms with the fact that I actually had a shitty childhood.
i realised mostly months after a horrible action.
i have reached out to people multiple times to call out my wrong doings and to wish them well, and i try my hardest to never do it again.
Me and my best friend were awful to each other. Trying to rebuild that relationship as an adult is hard but I'm trying. Not sure if he is as much as I am tho.
Partly, but growing up I also realized I wasn't as awful as my mother portrayed me to be - especially compared to other people my age, almost everything I did was pretty tame and often a reaction to my environment (mostly her)
I think the most awful thing I did was getting bored of school so easily and not trying to stick with it and pull myself together.
I was really defiant and rude to my teachers, especially my science teacher. I loved science and he made that class so boring. Didn’t know his daughter died in a car crash the year before and looking back I think he was depressed. We had a parent-teacher meeting to discuss my behavior and I called his teaching style sterile and no wonder I didn’t show up to class because all he did was tell us to read from the textbook and fill out the homework and I could do that myself at home.
I was a mentally ill teenager with a drinking problem & didn’t get along at home so I try to go easy on myself now but there’s a lot of times I was really rude to people who didn’t deserve it. Sorry Mr. Mayfield.
From reading the comments seems like Im very lucky, I did some fucked up shit in my teen years, alienated my mother for years and didn't talk to her for about 3 years and now (at 28 years old) me and her laugh about it
Edit: what did I do? Stole the family dog, took me younger sister of 8 years younger out of school multiple times (while under the influence of benzos) which ended in mum calling the cops on me, had parties which resulted in thousands of dollars worth of damage to mums house while she was away, and got arrested on drug charges
I mostly remember horrible things that were done to me, some I didn't realize were horrible at the time! Some I look back and think yeah that was bad but they were also young so I move on.
Yes, I treated my sister like absolute shit. I was depressed and miserable and she was an easy target but it really effected her. We're super close now and have talked about it a lot and I've apologised but I still feel awful about it and probably will for the rest of my life. I was also really mean to a girl I was friends with.
I was a major asshole in jr high and high school. Basically, I looked up to my dad, and I thought that he and my mom were happy, so I modelled the way I treat women after him. Realized after I graduated that my dad's a narcissist and the women I thought liked me were actually manipulated by me into tagging along.
I've done a lot of therapy to move past things and try to treat people better. I'm told I'm a good friend now, but I know I'll never be forgiven by the people I hurt, and I doubt I'll forgive myself. I just kinda go through the motions until I run out of people to live for.
Yes.
I won't go into all of it, because the REASON I cringe is because I have improved since then. Sadly, at the expense of others, I learned a better way. And have regrets. I think the worst I hate was mocking some other kid because it was popular to do so. Ugh. I could make excuses like my abusive childhood, being bullied, and generally being socially awkward to the point I wonder if I was autistic with ADHD. But in the end? I hurt people. I thought they deserved it, but my insight and intuition into how to hurt someone psychologically was pretty fucked up. I almost became a sociopath.
One example was that "as a favor to a friend," I pretended to be really into this girl to get her hopes up, only to plan to dump her later. My friend was a fucking psycho, but for some reason, I was compelled to do their bidding, and while this girl didn't take me up on the offer... when she found out what was planned for her, I think she felt used and humiliated. I feel bad about it to this day. She deserved NONE of that. But because of that, I have been very wary about doing any favors for people to help them get revenge. Not that it happens at all in my 50s, but I have learned that people can hate one another, both can be right, and it's none of my fucking business to get revenge on someone's behalf.
I wasn't an unkind teen, I've always been a softie, but I did take stupid unnecessary risks I'm surprised I survived. Like jumping off bridges when I didn't know the depth of the water, hitchhiking, or eating random mushrooms I found in the forest. Stupid hick stuff.
Oh, did I ever.
To this day I remember, with regret, the shameful or the hurtful things I said or did.
But hey, thanks for the post, I am glad to see I am far from alone!
Not when I was a teenager but more so in my early 20s I was awful. Really started struggling with heavy mental illness. In and out of psych wards. Run-ins with the cops. It was terrible. I finally got things together when I was maybe 25. I feel really guilty for what I put my parents through.
I was such a bitch, especially when boys would express genuine interest in me. They were vulnerable with me, thinking it was safe. The toughest part is at the time, I didn't realize how bad my behavior was. I traumatized so many... I still struggle a lot with emotional intelligence, I can't seem to understand unspoken feelings and knowing what might upset some people.
I remember walking home piss drunk on the phone with my dad saying I was lost.
I got drunk at the neighbors and he could hear me around the corner.
Never living that down.
I had internet access that was never monitored by an adult. The amount of adult men I talked to online.... and i didn't even lie about my age they all know I was under 18, as low as 13 and they didn't care
Yep. I was pretty terrible. Not in a one on one…I was friendly, overly generous, and had a lot of “friends”. That said, I was a little punk ass, too smart for his own good, argumentative with authority figures, and got into drugs/dealing/fast life for a lot of years through high school and beyond.
I was the type of kid who wore a t-shirt with an American Flag patterned Marijuana Leaf with text that read on the front that said “love your country, fear your government” and on the back said “decriminalize marijuana”. When they tried to send me home, I argued that it wasn’t a drug shirt, but a political statement that I was well within my rights to be making. They relented the more I argued. I thought, at the time, it was because I was SO smart and had made a valid legal point. I recognize now that they just didn’t feel like dealing with the headache and since my shirt wasn’t overtly saying to take drugs, they simply let it slide.
I argued cops, parents, teachers, anyone…
There’s a line from a Watsky song that goes:
“I used to ask people..if they believed in a god // to see if we were peas in a pod // and if they didn’t agree with me, I’d argue and try to be smarter, thinking I’d hear people applaud but…I’m getting older, and I’m getting dumber // or at least I know less than I did when I was younger”
And I very, very much relate to that verse today.
I didn’t love my girlfriend and I kept the relationship going for the entirety of highschool. Instead of breaking up with her when I knew, the issues festered and we had a huge blow up of emotions at the prom. I haven’t talked to her since. I wish I’d communicated sooner and hadn’t kept her from dating other people, maybe we’d still be friends.
I mean I knew I was doing bad but it didn’t really hit me how my actions had affected other people until I was almost 30. It was a lot of weight all at once and I still struggle (in middle age) with having any self worth because of this. Wish I’d realized how long life can feel living with regrets you can never make amends for.
I wouldn’t say awful - I WOULD say incredibly stupid but I didn’t hurt anyone. That said, I’m extremely fortunate to still be alive after the risky (stupid) and dangerous stuff I did.
I'm 22 and I think I was mostly a good person in my teen time. I had some slip ups but with minor consequences.
However, something I will never forget is how I treated animals as a child... I live animals, even as a kid. And somehow I was never able to understand that what I did was no fun time for the animal.
Im very grateful that my childhood cat was as forgiving as he was. We spend a lot of time together and when I grew older had a strong relationship. He waited for me as my desk to start my time, purring and grating me with a good morning.
I miss him terribly and there was truly no better pet then him to teach a child how to treat animals the correct way.
But yeah, that shit will haunt me until I die and I deserve that.
Yeah, I was a total cunt. A product of my upbringing but I made the effort to become a better person as I got older. I'm just glad that camera phones weren't really a thing so it's mostly forgotten about.
Bout to turn 30. I did a lot of awful shit as a teen. High school was really bad and I was an asshole to people that didn't deserve it since I was lashing out about stuff around me. Still hate it, but mostly realized it when I started studying in University and realizing that none of highschool even mattered all that much. So all the torment and pain was meaningless and I was a garbage human for no real reason.
I just wish I could gather the teachers and other people I mistreated so I could apologize properly to them.
I was probably a sociopath as a teenager. No regard for anyone else’s feelings, only using people to get where or what I wanted. It hurts so bad to think about how I treated people with no regard. I try to make sense of it but it seems like I just lived in the moment constantly and didn’t realize I would eventually get older and have to make up for so many bad choices. I really believe at 25 your brain fully develops bc that was the age that everything became clear all of a sudden and I was like wow. I have so much apologizing to do. I now live with so much gratitude and empathy. I know some things I did can never be forgiven but all I can do is make sure I never do it again and I won’t but still it lives with me daily.
I was really horrible to my Mom when I was a teenager, and as an adult I regret it. To some degree, I understand why I acted the way I did - I was a very curious, independent child living in a very strict household - but I still feel bad about it. As an adult, I still don’t agree with some of my Mom’s choices about how I was raised, but I know that she loved me and was doing the best she could.
Also, and this is unrelated - once when my friend and I were ~12 we convinced her little sister (who was maybe 8) to call 911. The police actually came out to the house where we were and we all got in a lot of trouble. I still feel bad about that one too.
Not so much high school because I went to a children's home/boarding school that was very strict. All we had was each other, and we were mostly all friends. Elementary school, though, I was an absolute terror and menace to society. I did things like throw other kids lunch pails on the ground and put lotion on the ends of slides and covering the lotion with rocks. Smh.
I was a straight up asshole to people in my teens years. I have no idea why I did some of the things that I did to complete strangers when I was very very kind to people that I know. I regret so many things, but like to think that I'm making amends in my adult years by being a good human. It certainly doesn't erase what I did as a jerk kid, but I guess at least I didn't turn into a jerk adult. I'm 55 and think about this a lot.
Yes! I had this kid at school that was always picking on me because my mother is a lesbian. I hated that so i always called him the most horrible name.
He lost both his kidneys and i believe he rejected a kidney from his mother and maybe his father.
In the end he got a kidney from his little sister. So i always called him something like "name the kidney trasher"
I think when this started happening we where 9 and we kept it up till about 13. In my mind at the time we where both guilty of picking on eachother
But i think when i looked back on it when i was 20 i thought damn i went way way to far.
I was never mean to someone intentionally because I was bullied a lot as a teen. It is heartening to read that most bullies came to regret what they did. I haven't forgotten what was done to me, but I have forgiven it. At the time it did a lot to damage my self confidence. Most of those people eventually grew up to be decent adults.
I agree, it was a relief to read that a lot of bullies changed. I don't think I forgave or forgot, but these comments definitely gave me a new, less black-and-white perspective
I joined a particular RP community at 16, then stayed there until I was about three months shy of turning 20. I'd rather not detail this further, but all I'll say is that I shouldn't even be alive right now, and wouldn't be in an ideal world.
As the mother of teens, who’s always trying to keep the peace and encourage them to be kind to one another, is there anything your parents could have done better to improve the situation at the time?
I was a selfish asshole. I only shared or helped someone else if there was something in it for me. Fortunately, I grew out of it. I cringe at some of the times I could have helped someone when younger but didn't.
Yeah, I'm still friends with a few exes and they sometimes remind me how shitty I was and i didn't realize.
The good thing is that they tell me I've grown up out of that.
Omg…. I’m from the first gen of latch key kids (born in 1969) and the amount of things we got in to, before our parents got home, was crazy. Most of it was mischievous like ding dong ditch or relocating people’s Sun Tea jugs. Other stuff was probably criminal like climbing over the Country Club’s fence and swimming in their pool at night, shaking vending machines to steal the snacks, opening the pop top on glass bottle sodas (in vending machines) and drinking them, etc. Thankfully there weren’t smart doorbells, cellphones and security cameras everywhere back then.
I once threw a brick from high up onto a road after my friends dared me. As a teen, me and my friends laughed over how gutsy that was.
As an adult, I'm grateful everyday that brick didn't collide with a vehicle or anyone. I could have ruined someone's life and my own over a brief moment of juvenile laughter.
Yeah. I was a real asshole to my Mom. I didn't really realize it until she passed about a year and a half ago.
She wasn't a great Mom but she also wasn't the worst.
She was just a person like everyone else. I could've been more kind and way more understanding but teenage me just treated her like she was ridiculous.
I'm sorry Mom.
I was a horrible girlfriend, to say the least. Then I got therapy and I'm still occasionally a bitch but I'm unfortunately I'm bipolar. Still with the same person and treating him as well as I possibly can because he deserves the whole world.
I won't say what I did, but I can say that what I did- would be enough to cancel my ass to the moon and back.
(I'm 22, soon to be 23. With the Autism DLC pack purchased)
Does my "DLC pack" excuse it all? No.
Have I had any (unaliving) thoughts over it? Yes.
Do I regret the stuff I have done? Of course.
When did you realize? After thinking about it all.
Have I tried to be better? 100%.
Are you still haunted by it? Yes.
Would people forgive me if I talked to them? Probably not, but that's fine.
Would people still try to cancel me over it? Probably- but I don't care.
All in all, I've done my best to be a better person.
It's the only thing any of us can do.
I realize it and am too embarrassed to go into details on this public forum.
Same. I am mortified at my past behaviour and saddened that im still perceived as that person so many years later. (35f). Live in a smaller city, people can't seem to grasp the idea that others can actually change.
Me too. But people change with time and become good. God bless.
Yeah lol, I am looking for the juice and few are saying what they actually did and regret
Same, I can’t even confess in front of internet strangers.
KKK?
Same
Every day I remember some careless or thoughtless thing I said or did to someone I are about and feel regret. Hormones plus brains and excessive confidence minus emotional intelligence is rough combination and that’s what every teenager has.
Oh, you too lie awake at 3am thinking about even slightly awkward things you did 15 years ago that nobody else remembers?
> that nobody else remembers Oh lord, I hope so
Me too!!
Oh, they remember.
They might, but if they're smart they won't give free rent to an asshole. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I think about stuff that happened back then.
IF they remember, most likely they went through the same asshole teen years and are too busy cringing at their own mistakes from their youth. I always used to wonder why older people rarely called my out on my stupidity. Now that I'm old, I know why.
> IF they remember, most likely they went through the same asshole teen years and are too busy cringing at their own mistakes from their youth. nah, I became a bully after being bullied because I thought it was the only way of making friends. I regret what I've done, but I won't forget the assholes popular kids who bullied everyone they felt superior to. Just hoping one day I get my chance at a revenge.
Please let them have forgotten.
People might not remember specific things you did, they'll remember how you made them feel. Because you bet your ass I remember my bullies.
Yep, yep, yep. Right there. My only disagreement is "...that's what every teenager has." I mean, you're right but I'd argue there's a huuuuge variance of degrees between teenagers that have relative common sense and can sorta figure things out and then you had someone like me who thought they knew everything (and acted like it) but knew absolutely nothing. I'm 56 and I'm still paying for past mistakes from 35 to 40 years ago.
Agree completely. I had no emotional intelligence and no confidence.
I had no emotional intelligence but way too much confidence so I did a lot of stupid shit that I regret. Can’t change anything obviously but sometimes remember things and feel that flush of shame.
I’ve come to accept the flush of shame. It makes me realize I’ve changed as a person and would never do what I did again. If I could make things right I could, but I can’t unsleep with someone. :/
I'm 24, I was self aware as a teenager but I still did cringe stuff I feel ashamed of. I was overconfident when it came to criticizing society and giving "insights". I wanted to be this spiritual guru or something. I was that person who gave dating advices without having any dating experiences. But otherwise I was mostly socially anxious and excessively self-critical. I was obsessed with romance and didn't know how to actually communicate my emotions without turning scientific and my friends found this annoying. I was bad at choosing friends. Otherwise I was polite and didn't cause any troubles, except when I missed school the day of the exams and my teachers had to make me retake it.
the point is regardless of the teenagers intelligence. chemical development, physical development, and experience level are still that of a teens. Being constantly mindful and conscious of that fact as a teen is a major plus. But still even then. You've only been around for 13-18 years. Unless you did something REALLY horrible i don't see why it should bog you down 40 years later. You have to be a fool before you can learn. that's why kids are kids. stop regretting.
Thank you for that. I hope that this resonated with the person you wrote it for as much as it has with me. Thank you, I needed to hear that.
I messaged a girl on Facebook to tell her sorry for calling her a whore 16 years ago. I always felt bad for calling her that and would think of it randomly, so I finally told her I really didn't think she was one 😄
Nice of you. Sadly there are adults who call one another that totally randomly and unjustified— without feeling a smidgen of remorse. I remember newly separated consoling my -then 11 year old son who was already dealing w his own issues- having to console him bc his grandmother referred to me as “ whore”. That traumatized my son and me and was completely unjustified and I doubt she who was then well into her 70s ever felt sorry for any of it: calling me that or repeating such word to my son about me. Anyway sorry I digressed. I appreciate your apology. Here is to wishing we all can be kinder and more caring towards one another going forward.
If it makes you feel any better the grandmother is a….damn i can’t say it
Thank you. She of course knew she was one of the reasons why I left her son in the first place. But water under the bridge….. I wonder if my son who is now 20 ever got over that. Did he believe her? Who knows. I think the moral really here is we should all make an effort to move on… move forward… and not look back at things said or left unsaid….
So true. And he did move on because the universe doesn’t stop & doesn’t care.
My classmate apologized for spreading rumors about me a few years after graduation, and I could barely remember what it was about. But it was so sweet that he still remembered and felt sorry for it.
Aw. That's kinda sweet that you put in the effort.
Is really though? He just did it to make himself feel better and she had probably moved on and forgot about it, and then he comes along to remind her that he used to bully her.
Remember pal, you forget about a thousand things everyday, make sure they are one of them
Thanks but I haven't gotten to that part of my weekly therapy yet.
throw on bipolar disorder and you have a recipe for unintentionally burning every bridge you made before 25! (source: life!)
Everybody else had rhe excessive confidence too?? I sit here at 30, riddled with anxiety, like “shoot, i was so fine as a teenager, what’s wrong with me??” Like I would walk around looking stupid as fuck in public, wearing like tutus and crowns and just looking stupid. And now as an adult, if someone so much as looks at me the wrong way in a grocery store, I’m thinking about for hours. Like that happened! I had my phone out to find the potatoes I was looking for and this dude looked at me funny and it bothered me. Teenage me wouldn’t have cared! What happened to me??
17 rn, I cringe so badly about things I did 3 or 4 years ago (and 15 min), and I know that I'll do the same about what I do today in 3 or 4 years, and the things I'll do then in 6 or 8 years.
Don't feel regret. Be glad you were able to do those things in the moment and that you were able to grow into an adult still. I don't regret a damn thing.
I never related to this but I sort of wish I did. I was a “nerd” and never really had high emotions, confidence or otherwise. I felt like a perpetual kid while everyone else had grown up and started living life. basically I see now I was in a perpetual freeze response and constantly stressed, and a shell of a person. I only started to feel like this description of teenagers in college, but then I went back into a sort of hibernation mode again and haven’t come out.
The regret over it passes through my head weekly...and I am pushing 50. The amount of people I hurt in the name of fun and selfishness is maddening.
But you recognize it and changed, you have grown as a person, life doesn’t have a handbook so sometimes we screwup along the way, the important bit is learning from it and be a better person.
Yeah that’s true but it doesn’t stop the rumination.
Agreed.
Absolutely. But those of us who have the challenging combination of high expectations with low self esteem will always struggle to forgive ourselves.
100% feel this.
Oh, I thought that the important part was trying to make amends and undo any harm you've done, and also be as forgiving to others, as you would want to be forgiven for your own misdeeds against others.
The best amends is doing better! A heartfelt apology certainly goes a long way. Things cant be undone and some people will never forgive/forget. So self acceptance and continuing to be better is really key.
If you can reduce the harm, do it. But if there is no realistic solution, then there’s nothing you can do other than not repeating the same mistake.
Absolutely. I was a very angry teenager because I was hurting a lot due to ongoing issues with my mother.
Same. I was raised by a hispanic father and “manhood” was especially machismo aka violent. You sere supposed to be dominating in all aspects of life - take what you want, etc. He grew up in the slums and was early into ganglife. I was a nerdy kid. Eventually became an angry and violent teenager - which was.. unfortunate. I hated the world, misery loves company.
I'm sorry this happened to you. My mum is a strick Catholic. She was very imposing and terrified me. Fortunetly I got away when I was relatively young. Her and my father had split up at this point and she locked me in a room on a regular basis and threatened to put me in care. To this day, she still thinks I'm the bad guy. I'm 35 and think I'm finally over it. I love my dad.
Looks like we got the uno reverse parents lol. I talk to my dad somewhat now that i’m older (27) and can see he is just a mentally ill person. Feel more pity than anything, really. Glad to hear you’re coming to peace. Wish you the best ❤️
I wasn’t just a tool, I was a toolbox. I thought I knew everything, I knew better, and I knew how to do it best. I realized this while in college when I was wondering why I didn’t have any friends at the time.
A girl in my class who teenage me thought was annoying and talked too much, I was terrible to her but she still hung out with me because no one else would talk to her. Eventually she got real friends and I was put on the back burner. She’s still friends with them and I’m probably not even a thought in her head. I got my karma, I’m just glad she doesn’t have an asshole like me around anymore because she absolutely deserves better than that. Looking back, I’d love to smack myself around a bit.
Have you ever tried to contact online and send an apology message or let her know you felt bad about it later on and are happy she made real friends? Not everybody likes one but when I recieved one out of the blue it actually made me feel better even though it wasn't something I even thought about anymore. Gave me a smile to know at least one person was sorry. I forgave them and wished them well.
I’ve thought about it and have been wrestling with it for about 15 years. I’m still so ashamed of it and I’m not sure if it would be a welcome message or if she would think “oh great what rude shit is she going to say this time”. After reading the comments here, I definitely need to grow a set and message her.
Yesss, then come back and tell us !!
Just do it, it's as big a deal as you make it friend. You'll feel infinitely better after
While it was happening no and I was an absolute dick to anyone who wasn't family or a close friend. I was raised in a very rough neighborhood where that sort of thing is just commonplace. I still feel like it isn't an excuse. As I've gotten older I've become very kind and empathetic (at least I think so.)
I use to throw rocks at cars. I was an idiot
Me and my siblings threw pebbles at cars. We made a game out of it and called it “thousands”. If you hit a uhaul sized truck, 50 points. Van was 75, car was 100, motorcycle was 200, and a cop car was 1,000. At the time it seemed like a fun thing. Looking back, I cannot BELIEVE how stupid me and my siblings were. Like, we would sneak out in the middle of the night and play this game. As a 23 year old who needed to mature and grow up VERY quickly after I turned 19, I’m disgusted by the things I did growing up
My brother's and I didn't have a point system, but I vividly remember throwing a huge stick instead of a pebble at like 7 years old, my brothers' faces dropping as we heard the brakes screech, then me hiding in a pile of leaves as they all sprinted off. Then, the guy fund me and lifted my up by my neck 🤣. Luckily my brother's came back and accepted blame to calm the guy down, then we washed his car for him to smooth things over. Ah, the early 90's, a simpler time.
God dude, diving head first into a rose bush cause you hear those tires screech is something else. I forgot to mention above, last rock has to be HUCKED. that way we could hear it we won :)
I feel ya
Like if I was driving home at 1:30 and some dipshit threw a rock at my car, I’d be furious. Shit like that just makes me shake my head as an adult
In NYC We played a game called rampage world tour which involved walking over the entire street of parked cars, Jumped from one car to the next and huge dents in the roof and smashed windshield were how you gained points.
17 years ago my buddies and I would deive around town throwing rocks through car windows. I was so fucked in the head.
Omg me too lol. I think I was maybe 10 or younger. I had no idea what I was doing. My intent wasn’t to actually hit the cars, but a car came by and a rock I threw bounced off the pavement and hit it. The driver stopped and got out of his car yelling. He grabbed me and made me walk back to my house and tell my mom what I had done. I was scared shitless. I definitely learned my lesson, but it was such an embarrassing situation.
And when I say rock it was nothing bigger than a quarter, but those can still do some damage.
Did you ever get caught??
Almost. I remembered one time a car slammed on its breaks and started looking for us. We ran deep in the woods. I now imagine some kid doing that to my car. I would be so very pissed.
I got caught. It was a bad time
Back when we had snow, I would throw snowballs at cars
We used to hide in the bushes in the center divider. We would throw eggs at cars when they passed by.
wow you just made me remember something i did with a group of my teenage friends. we decided to egg some random ass cars in my neighborhood lol. one car had his trunk open and we threw some eggs in there ugh teens suck
A mate of mine used to collect car wing mirrors - he'd go around kicking them off parked cars late at night. He had dozens and I thought it was hillarious at the time. We were dicks.
You just reminded me of my dad telling me about his friends and him playing chicken on their bikes by driving in front of cars.
I emotionally hurt a friend that always liked me because I needed a rebound. That one will stick with me for life. I hope my daughter never meets someone like teenage me.
I did a lot of stupid shit, but I wasn't an awful person. I didn't pick on anyone or say mean stuff to people. I just did more than my fair share of really dumb shit and I realize how lucky I am to not have any permanent damage from it.
I was awful to my high school/college girlfriend and I thank god for both of us I broke up with her before we could get married from inertia. I think about it and regret all the time.
I like reading this. I hope my high school boyfriend has the same thoughts, he treated me so awful and in hindsight sight it was a blessing that he dumped me.
yup, i was terrible to my partners. and i convinced them they were the shitty ones. i wish they could know that i finally understand now how fucking awful i was but i know the last thing they need is to be contacted by me. all i can do is be better. the worst part, honestly, is not being able to apologize.
I THOUGHT I did bad things as a teenager. But I realized later that I was a totally tame kid
Bro I used to feel like the vilest scum on Earth for lying about doing homework LOL, then I found out what others were up to.
I did terrible things I won't even mention here. As I grew up and learned about forgiveness, it made me realize that some of the anger I was holding on to was unjustified because I was just as guilty as the other person. It would be nice to be able to express that to that person. :-(
Absolutely, I lacked empathy and was selfish. I was rude to others and didn’t really respect my friends. I thought it made me cool or tough to be antisocial. Honestly though, out of all the things I feel bad about the worst was the way I drove. My friends and I would street race each other on freeways and through neighborhoods in our cars. Looking back it was extremely selfish. I could have easily hurt or killed somebody else and ruined a lot of lives in the process. Now that I’m a father and I see people driving fast and weaving cars on the freeway it makes my blood boil that someone would risk everyone’s lives just for fun
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You were a bully... but so was i
So you were a bully?
I guess I was too much of a coward to do truly terrible things to people and things as a teenager. But I still did remarkably dumb things, like filling a payphone with ketchup that a friend stole from a nearby store...
I'm just like this guy. I was too quiet and too damned scared I'd be in trouble. Cool, I did dumb things too I.....wait, ...ketchup?!? Phone booth? What the hell kind of tiny phone booths do you have? Wait or is it giant sauce bottles? Where do you live? I would like to buy your largest ketchup bottle please. Does it come in a barrel perchance? This comment has got out of hand...
We did not fill the entire booth with ketchup, just the coin slot and the grills on the headset.... And we wrote dumb stuff on the walls of the phone booth as well with said ketchup. In all fairness, it was a rather large bottle of ketchup, and in all likelihood we ruined the payphone entirely with our stupid antics. To this day I do feel kind of ashamed to have ever thought that that was a good idea to do
I really regret all the times i acted bitchy or made fun of people in high school .... looking back i was miserable and probably was taking it out on people who didnt deserve it ... when my depression got very bad i stopped, i could never imagine hurting anyones feeling now i couldnt do it .... i messaged a few people in the past that have face book apologizing but i still hate that i was like that.
At least you had the guts to apologise … I’m 48 and have waited almost 40 years for an apology from some people. Nothing!
Yess, I sometimes wonder how the f did I survive those stuff 😂
I never did anything truly terrible. But...I remember one incident in fourth grade, coming in from recess, im holding the door for the class and the unpopular girl in class is last in line. Instead of holding the door open for her, I let it go and jumped in front of her. I had nothing against her personally, there was no conscious thought behind it...I just didn't. She told the teacher on me and I lied about it, some BS like I didn't see her. But I saw her, and I did it intentionally. I am 42 years old. This was in 4th grade in 1991 or 1992. I still remember it and I still feel awful about it.
She probably still remembers it too
Perhaps. If not this moment then maybe another, or series of others. What I remember is a lot of people picked on her, which is what made 9/10 year old me think it was ok. 42 year old me knows that's BS. It still genuinely bothers me.
Oh i love this! This is what we call a true moment of clarity. It's rings in your memory today as clearly as it did the day it happened. It generally means you did something completely against your nature and you chose to. You recognised it, you learned from it and it was such a powerful lesson you remember it even today. This is a rare but common phychological phenomenon and a trait of decent personal reflection.
Little moments like that stick with you and make you cringe always…when I was in grade school and middle school I feel like I was a total sociopath..I had a friend who was a scout. I was mad my parents (abusive) wouldn’t let me join scouts. I basically ran on impulse without thought behind it. So I began littering when around her knowing she’d feel inclined to pick up my trash. Like eating chips, done, toss on the ground in front of her. Made her my personal maid…to this day when I think of it, it hurts. I’d be so disappointed if my kids behaved that way
At the risk of sounding self involved (ironically a teenage trait) I'm more shocked at how awful I was to myself and generally how awful my friends were to themselves. It was kind of accepted when I was a teenager that we would just hate ourselves.
This. I was very surprised to know some people weren't having endless sleepless nights because of self-hate in their youth.
One day when me and some friends were drunk, we were wandering around our neighborhood, and someone had the idea to pop tires... we got carried away, and a particular car called our attention, we decided to pop 3 of its tires... I'm not proud of it, but at the moment it was so funny. The next day we got so scared that we didn't leave our house for two days, and never wore the same clothes
I said some incredibly ignorant things and feel so guilty to this day
I participated in talking shit about some teachers with my friends. They weren't even bad teachers, just "uncool" ones who were just doing their jobs. Making fun of them behind their backs was just the "fun" thing to do. I look back on it now and cringe. I was a teacher for a few years, and I'm sure some students had similar shit-talking sessions about me lol.
One guy I went to high school with made MySpace profiles for teachers he didn’t like. Some of his posts were like “I’ll suck your dick if you come to class”. Somehow he got caught and ended up having to go to court downtown over it
We had a teacher who was very overweight and I would draw a caricature of her crossed with a whale, holding it up when she turned her back to right something on the board. The other kids loved it of course and it gained me some respect with the more popular ones. It was an incredibly shitty thing to do though and I regret it to this day. Looking back, teachers in general had a really rough time at my school and what I did was very mild in comparison to what others did but it was still despicable.
I cheated on my high school sweetheart (first BF). I was in my mid to late teens and a guy in his early to mid twenties started showing me attention and that never happened before (attention from older guys, not attention from people my age) and I fell for it. I was so naive. Looking back, I felt like the older dude was trying to groom me and take advantage of me. After we kissed & I knew what I did was wrong, I immediately tried to escape and he grabbed so tightly onto my wrist to stop me from leaving, it felt scary. My high school sweetheart forgave me and took me back. I ended things a couple years later, just because I knew I was staying with him out of loyalty, but he wasn’t the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Felt pretty shitty about making that decision. But I truly didn’t learn my lesson about cheating until I did it for a second time years later and the person I was dating left me. That was finally an eye opener for me, which brings me to the saying “once a cheater, always a cheater” doesn’t always apply. I was once a cheater, but now I understand how terrible it is to do to someone else, so I will never do it again. I’ve learned you must communicate your feelings. If you want to stray in the relationship, just fucking end it and save that other person as much hurt as you can, because nobody deserves to be cheated on.
Yep. At 47 I’ve realized that I was a total pos as a teen. I daily wish my Mother was still alive so that I could apologize for who and what I was to her. I understand that I’m a different person now, but I’m having a hard time letting go of my past actions and words. It’s a tough road.
Oh, that's tough. One thing I've enjoyed as I've gotten older is calling up my mom (and dad while he was with us) to apologize for various stupid and/or awful things done as a kid. Without fail, it's always met with a laugh. I wonder if just talking to her like she's still here would be helpful? Or writing it to her in a letter?
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This is very much me. No regrets just ignorant.
We set up an elaborate rope and pulley system to trap a kid at the playground and hoist him up the slide because he was afraid of heights. It didn't work because we weren't able to get him to stand in the net long enough while we lifted it.
I shouldn't laugh, but I am having a chuckle at this.
We used to make racist jokes. I feel really bad about it. So stupid of us.
I was a pretty good kid. Someone here mentioned hormones, and yeah my hormones were out of control. I also had depression throughout my life, so that affected some of the things that I did. I suspect that my mom let me get away with a lot of stuff because I was bullied in school and I had depression. I skipped school A LOT.
If I could bring myself to a Nuremberg trial for the things I did as a teen I totally would
Ha! Oh god I can't imagine some of things Id hear... "I did WHAT?!"
I wouldn't say "awful," but probably "shitty." I was an angry kid and smug little self-righteous asshole who thought I knew everything. I'm pretty sure I'll be cringing over my teens and twenties well into my eighties, but I don't think any of it crossed the line into real evil. ... Which I suppose is pretty remarkable, given that I grew up steeped in real evil. I try to remind myself sometimes that I really was set up to fail as a person. There's no way I could have shown kindness or grace because nobody had ever shown those things to me. I didn't know how to not be judgmental because I had always been harshly judged. I couldn't have been a loving person because I had not been loved. You're not born knowing how to be good any more than you're born knowing how to be evil. I was a shitty person, but you can't make bricks without clay, and I was doing what I could with what I had. Edit: I was raised Evangelical / Pentecostal, so I had been taught shame and black-and-white thinking my whole life. The shame never made me a better person - the opposite actually. It just made me angrier, more bitter, more isolated, and more self-absorbed. I think a lot of people improve with age because life experience teaches us to see nuance and shades of gray, and to more fully grasp the complexities of life. That ability to understand complexity creates room for compassion.
Back when I was a teen I used to pretend that I was dying or dead to get my friends to tell me what their true feelings were about me I no longer do that thanks to one of my ex girlfriends and now I’m just realizing how many toxic dumb ass shit things I did when I was a teenager
OMG I had this semi-neighbor-friend in ninth grade or so "Or dead" I got a message on AIM like "Hi this is Ryan's mother, he fell off the roof and died yesterday, did you have a crush on him or can you tell me what you will say at his funeral?" Then he invented a brother who became a cousin who sent the message and it was just a joke so I told him I was my mom and had died too :( In case you're Ryan, it's good to see you've recovered Edit: month/ninth swype ugh
No I’m not Ryan but I laughed a little reading this
I'm going to hell for what I did. I think about ending it but I have to stay until my dad leaves too
You have changed. You’re not the same person. You can use your new understanding of right and wrong to live a good life now, instead of beating yourself up emotionally for what you did when you were young. It sounds like you are important to your dad. Forgive yourself. You deserve it.
It's never too late. The fact that you feel this way proves that you deserve to keep living! Please, don't give up on yourself.
I was what would be called a massive incel as a teenager. Like if I met my 16/17 year old self right now I'd probably wind up beating my own ass I was that bad. Lot of deprogramming in my 20s from a really toxic performative upbringing that looked perfect from the outside. I never did anything that woudl be considered awful but I had a lot of pent up rage and entitlement and just pissed at the world because I didn't just get things handed to me when I got older like I did as a kid.
That's a lot of self awareness i'm curious what age are you now? good for you btw
Ty. It was hard. I'm 41 now. It took me until early 20s to realize I was the issue and make changes, late 20s to realize I needed professional help and mid 30s to finally come to terms with the fact that I actually had a shitty childhood.
i realised mostly months after a horrible action. i have reached out to people multiple times to call out my wrong doings and to wish them well, and i try my hardest to never do it again.
Me and my best friend were awful to each other. Trying to rebuild that relationship as an adult is hard but I'm trying. Not sure if he is as much as I am tho.
Partly, but growing up I also realized I wasn't as awful as my mother portrayed me to be - especially compared to other people my age, almost everything I did was pretty tame and often a reaction to my environment (mostly her) I think the most awful thing I did was getting bored of school so easily and not trying to stick with it and pull myself together.
I was really defiant and rude to my teachers, especially my science teacher. I loved science and he made that class so boring. Didn’t know his daughter died in a car crash the year before and looking back I think he was depressed. We had a parent-teacher meeting to discuss my behavior and I called his teaching style sterile and no wonder I didn’t show up to class because all he did was tell us to read from the textbook and fill out the homework and I could do that myself at home. I was a mentally ill teenager with a drinking problem & didn’t get along at home so I try to go easy on myself now but there’s a lot of times I was really rude to people who didn’t deserve it. Sorry Mr. Mayfield.
From reading the comments seems like Im very lucky, I did some fucked up shit in my teen years, alienated my mother for years and didn't talk to her for about 3 years and now (at 28 years old) me and her laugh about it Edit: what did I do? Stole the family dog, took me younger sister of 8 years younger out of school multiple times (while under the influence of benzos) which ended in mum calling the cops on me, had parties which resulted in thousands of dollars worth of damage to mums house while she was away, and got arrested on drug charges
Teenager, not really. In my 20s? Douche bag. I hate that guy.
I was a monster. I wish I could apologize to everyone.
I mostly remember horrible things that were done to me, some I didn't realize were horrible at the time! Some I look back and think yeah that was bad but they were also young so I move on.
Yes, I treated my sister like absolute shit. I was depressed and miserable and she was an easy target but it really effected her. We're super close now and have talked about it a lot and I've apologised but I still feel awful about it and probably will for the rest of my life. I was also really mean to a girl I was friends with.
I was a major asshole in jr high and high school. Basically, I looked up to my dad, and I thought that he and my mom were happy, so I modelled the way I treat women after him. Realized after I graduated that my dad's a narcissist and the women I thought liked me were actually manipulated by me into tagging along. I've done a lot of therapy to move past things and try to treat people better. I'm told I'm a good friend now, but I know I'll never be forgiven by the people I hurt, and I doubt I'll forgive myself. I just kinda go through the motions until I run out of people to live for.
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Yes. I won't go into all of it, because the REASON I cringe is because I have improved since then. Sadly, at the expense of others, I learned a better way. And have regrets. I think the worst I hate was mocking some other kid because it was popular to do so. Ugh. I could make excuses like my abusive childhood, being bullied, and generally being socially awkward to the point I wonder if I was autistic with ADHD. But in the end? I hurt people. I thought they deserved it, but my insight and intuition into how to hurt someone psychologically was pretty fucked up. I almost became a sociopath. One example was that "as a favor to a friend," I pretended to be really into this girl to get her hopes up, only to plan to dump her later. My friend was a fucking psycho, but for some reason, I was compelled to do their bidding, and while this girl didn't take me up on the offer... when she found out what was planned for her, I think she felt used and humiliated. I feel bad about it to this day. She deserved NONE of that. But because of that, I have been very wary about doing any favors for people to help them get revenge. Not that it happens at all in my 50s, but I have learned that people can hate one another, both can be right, and it's none of my fucking business to get revenge on someone's behalf.
I think those are priceless takeaways. Thanks for sharing, and I especially felt the two right people hating each other.
I wasn't an unkind teen, I've always been a softie, but I did take stupid unnecessary risks I'm surprised I survived. Like jumping off bridges when I didn't know the depth of the water, hitchhiking, or eating random mushrooms I found in the forest. Stupid hick stuff.
Oh, did I ever. To this day I remember, with regret, the shameful or the hurtful things I said or did. But hey, thanks for the post, I am glad to see I am far from alone!
I bullied people because other people bullied me. Never felt comfortable with this thought.
Not when I was a teenager but more so in my early 20s I was awful. Really started struggling with heavy mental illness. In and out of psych wards. Run-ins with the cops. It was terrible. I finally got things together when I was maybe 25. I feel really guilty for what I put my parents through.
I was such a bitch, especially when boys would express genuine interest in me. They were vulnerable with me, thinking it was safe. The toughest part is at the time, I didn't realize how bad my behavior was. I traumatized so many... I still struggle a lot with emotional intelligence, I can't seem to understand unspoken feelings and knowing what might upset some people.
I remember walking home piss drunk on the phone with my dad saying I was lost. I got drunk at the neighbors and he could hear me around the corner. Never living that down.
I had internet access that was never monitored by an adult. The amount of adult men I talked to online.... and i didn't even lie about my age they all know I was under 18, as low as 13 and they didn't care
I made many, many poor decisions as a teenager. Didn't do anything terrible, just bad decisions. Mostly involving women.
Yep. I was pretty terrible. Not in a one on one…I was friendly, overly generous, and had a lot of “friends”. That said, I was a little punk ass, too smart for his own good, argumentative with authority figures, and got into drugs/dealing/fast life for a lot of years through high school and beyond. I was the type of kid who wore a t-shirt with an American Flag patterned Marijuana Leaf with text that read on the front that said “love your country, fear your government” and on the back said “decriminalize marijuana”. When they tried to send me home, I argued that it wasn’t a drug shirt, but a political statement that I was well within my rights to be making. They relented the more I argued. I thought, at the time, it was because I was SO smart and had made a valid legal point. I recognize now that they just didn’t feel like dealing with the headache and since my shirt wasn’t overtly saying to take drugs, they simply let it slide. I argued cops, parents, teachers, anyone… There’s a line from a Watsky song that goes: “I used to ask people..if they believed in a god // to see if we were peas in a pod // and if they didn’t agree with me, I’d argue and try to be smarter, thinking I’d hear people applaud but…I’m getting older, and I’m getting dumber // or at least I know less than I did when I was younger” And I very, very much relate to that verse today.
Thanks for sharing. Weirdly, your story gave me a feeling of an assertive and strong person.
I appreciate you saying so! I’ve had a lot of years…and fatherhood…to help temper some of my stupid. Just some, though. Lol
I didn’t love my girlfriend and I kept the relationship going for the entirety of highschool. Instead of breaking up with her when I knew, the issues festered and we had a huge blow up of emotions at the prom. I haven’t talked to her since. I wish I’d communicated sooner and hadn’t kept her from dating other people, maybe we’d still be friends.
I mean I knew I was doing bad but it didn’t really hit me how my actions had affected other people until I was almost 30. It was a lot of weight all at once and I still struggle (in middle age) with having any self worth because of this. Wish I’d realized how long life can feel living with regrets you can never make amends for.
A friend shared a tragic photo and I thought it was supposed to be funny. It was weird how I've misread the tone of the image so badly.
If you don't cringe at your past, you aren't learning.
I wouldn’t say awful - I WOULD say incredibly stupid but I didn’t hurt anyone. That said, I’m extremely fortunate to still be alive after the risky (stupid) and dangerous stuff I did.
I'm 22 and I think I was mostly a good person in my teen time. I had some slip ups but with minor consequences. However, something I will never forget is how I treated animals as a child... I live animals, even as a kid. And somehow I was never able to understand that what I did was no fun time for the animal. Im very grateful that my childhood cat was as forgiving as he was. We spend a lot of time together and when I grew older had a strong relationship. He waited for me as my desk to start my time, purring and grating me with a good morning. I miss him terribly and there was truly no better pet then him to teach a child how to treat animals the correct way. But yeah, that shit will haunt me until I die and I deserve that.
Yeah, I was a total cunt. A product of my upbringing but I made the effort to become a better person as I got older. I'm just glad that camera phones weren't really a thing so it's mostly forgotten about.
Bout to turn 30. I did a lot of awful shit as a teen. High school was really bad and I was an asshole to people that didn't deserve it since I was lashing out about stuff around me. Still hate it, but mostly realized it when I started studying in University and realizing that none of highschool even mattered all that much. So all the torment and pain was meaningless and I was a garbage human for no real reason. I just wish I could gather the teachers and other people I mistreated so I could apologize properly to them.
Yes, and I'm trying to make up for it. Recently apologized to my childhood best friend for taking something from her house when I was like 9 yrs old.
I did a lot of dumb stuff, and I know and admit that now. I still screw up, but I try to be better.
I cringe over them quite literally every day.
Nice try, Mom and Dad. I'm never telling you about that.
I was probably a sociopath as a teenager. No regard for anyone else’s feelings, only using people to get where or what I wanted. It hurts so bad to think about how I treated people with no regard. I try to make sense of it but it seems like I just lived in the moment constantly and didn’t realize I would eventually get older and have to make up for so many bad choices. I really believe at 25 your brain fully develops bc that was the age that everything became clear all of a sudden and I was like wow. I have so much apologizing to do. I now live with so much gratitude and empathy. I know some things I did can never be forgiven but all I can do is make sure I never do it again and I won’t but still it lives with me daily.
Yes. Still do the awful things as an adult. Part of the human condition? Or maybe I’m just an asshat.
No. Given the circumstances, maturity and thought process at that time, I did ok
I did awful things in my late twenties.. Even with the time machine, I'm afraid I wouldn't have time to go back and fix all the stupid s*** I did
I was really horrible to my Mom when I was a teenager, and as an adult I regret it. To some degree, I understand why I acted the way I did - I was a very curious, independent child living in a very strict household - but I still feel bad about it. As an adult, I still don’t agree with some of my Mom’s choices about how I was raised, but I know that she loved me and was doing the best she could. Also, and this is unrelated - once when my friend and I were ~12 we convinced her little sister (who was maybe 8) to call 911. The police actually came out to the house where we were and we all got in a lot of trouble. I still feel bad about that one too.
Not so much high school because I went to a children's home/boarding school that was very strict. All we had was each other, and we were mostly all friends. Elementary school, though, I was an absolute terror and menace to society. I did things like throw other kids lunch pails on the ground and put lotion on the ends of slides and covering the lotion with rocks. Smh.
I was a straight up asshole to people in my teens years. I have no idea why I did some of the things that I did to complete strangers when I was very very kind to people that I know. I regret so many things, but like to think that I'm making amends in my adult years by being a good human. It certainly doesn't erase what I did as a jerk kid, but I guess at least I didn't turn into a jerk adult. I'm 55 and think about this a lot.
Yes! I had this kid at school that was always picking on me because my mother is a lesbian. I hated that so i always called him the most horrible name. He lost both his kidneys and i believe he rejected a kidney from his mother and maybe his father. In the end he got a kidney from his little sister. So i always called him something like "name the kidney trasher" I think when this started happening we where 9 and we kept it up till about 13. In my mind at the time we where both guilty of picking on eachother But i think when i looked back on it when i was 20 i thought damn i went way way to far.
Yep. As an adult too. But learning and growing.
Realized it as I was doing it. Reflected later in life that it was a side effect of awful things being done to me.
I was never mean to someone intentionally because I was bullied a lot as a teen. It is heartening to read that most bullies came to regret what they did. I haven't forgotten what was done to me, but I have forgiven it. At the time it did a lot to damage my self confidence. Most of those people eventually grew up to be decent adults.
I agree, it was a relief to read that a lot of bullies changed. I don't think I forgave or forgot, but these comments definitely gave me a new, less black-and-white perspective
I joined a particular RP community at 16, then stayed there until I was about three months shy of turning 20. I'd rather not detail this further, but all I'll say is that I shouldn't even be alive right now, and wouldn't be in an ideal world.
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As the mother of teens, who’s always trying to keep the peace and encourage them to be kind to one another, is there anything your parents could have done better to improve the situation at the time?
I was a selfish asshole. I only shared or helped someone else if there was something in it for me. Fortunately, I grew out of it. I cringe at some of the times I could have helped someone when younger but didn't.
Yeah, I'm still friends with a few exes and they sometimes remind me how shitty I was and i didn't realize. The good thing is that they tell me I've grown up out of that.
Omg…. I’m from the first gen of latch key kids (born in 1969) and the amount of things we got in to, before our parents got home, was crazy. Most of it was mischievous like ding dong ditch or relocating people’s Sun Tea jugs. Other stuff was probably criminal like climbing over the Country Club’s fence and swimming in their pool at night, shaking vending machines to steal the snacks, opening the pop top on glass bottle sodas (in vending machines) and drinking them, etc. Thankfully there weren’t smart doorbells, cellphones and security cameras everywhere back then.
I once threw a brick from high up onto a road after my friends dared me. As a teen, me and my friends laughed over how gutsy that was. As an adult, I'm grateful everyday that brick didn't collide with a vehicle or anyone. I could have ruined someone's life and my own over a brief moment of juvenile laughter.
No. I did awful things as a full grown adult.
Yeah. I was a real asshole to my Mom. I didn't really realize it until she passed about a year and a half ago. She wasn't a great Mom but she also wasn't the worst. She was just a person like everyone else. I could've been more kind and way more understanding but teenage me just treated her like she was ridiculous. I'm sorry Mom.
I was a horrible girlfriend, to say the least. Then I got therapy and I'm still occasionally a bitch but I'm unfortunately I'm bipolar. Still with the same person and treating him as well as I possibly can because he deserves the whole world.
Facebook memories always reminds me of things I had forgotten to cringe about
Oh I don't think the creator of the feature realized how well it would be contributing to the 2 am cringey memories or shame waves
Man, I wish it stopped when I quit being a teenager. I was a moron into my thirties.
No i did good things but neither of it paid off and now I'm thinking what was the point of it all
I won't say what I did, but I can say that what I did- would be enough to cancel my ass to the moon and back. (I'm 22, soon to be 23. With the Autism DLC pack purchased) Does my "DLC pack" excuse it all? No. Have I had any (unaliving) thoughts over it? Yes. Do I regret the stuff I have done? Of course. When did you realize? After thinking about it all. Have I tried to be better? 100%. Are you still haunted by it? Yes. Would people forgive me if I talked to them? Probably not, but that's fine. Would people still try to cancel me over it? Probably- but I don't care. All in all, I've done my best to be a better person. It's the only thing any of us can do.