Stupid shit we did as teens which might suggest powerful drugs and surgery are not the choices to be made at that time

I got pregnant at 16, had a termination then had what I think now was a nervous breakdown. Hated being a woman, I started taking drugs that quickly became more and more serious ending in heroin. During this time I became an androgynous punk then a goth and I thought I was a vampire / high priest Ended up with the drug squad raiding my very upper middle class parents home and then finding out I was pregnant with DD1....
I suddenly realized I was going to die if I continued the way I was going ...I got clean...

Nearly 60 now....pillar of society ...deffo a woman....and pissed off!

Just generally the idea that medicalisation of personality is normal - without wanting to be thoughtlessly anti Yank, it's so American focused. I keep saying that 45% of the US population is on at least one medication, and 'only' 25% of the UK population is. It's a ripe market, if you think that way.

I spent my middle teen years doing very unsafe and stupid things, got married at twenty, divorced by twenty-five. Then woke up and started a new life. My judgment for those ten years was unbelievably poor, and I look back in amazement that I got out in one piece.

I'd be here all night if I wrote the stupid stuff I did as a teenager. Chief amongst them being giving in to peer pressure and allowing myself to be used by boys in the hope it would make me more popular.

And I wanted to be 'different' and I absolutely hated having breasts (and I'm middle aged now and still hate them). I can see a recipe for disaster right there in those two statements if I were a teenager today. If someone had given me the option for surgery at that age I would absolutely have taken it. Without a backward glance.

My misspent youth was centred around the church youth group, followed up by uni CU. Physically safe but...
...Obviously I'm an atheist now, my assessment is I was deluded then.

I was all set to change my name by deed poll as soon as I was 18. Trouble was, the name I wanted to use kept changing. I think for about a year it was Ferdinanda.

I remember deciding to be a nun. Of course that used to be super common. To be fair that was pre teen, I was about 12 and it had completely worn off by the time I was 14.

I remember being immensely proud of my family heritage and thinking being part of this bunch was something to be proud of. It isn't. It's also not anything to be ashamed of. But I also can't deny that this is my heritage. Hollywood films in the past few years spend an awful lot of time banging away at the idea that family of origin is completely meaningless and probably actively damaging, while your adopted family and friends of choice in your teens and early 20s are forever and totally nurturing (see also: Spice Girls). I was really struck by it watching Guardians of the Galaxy at the weekend, also Fast and Furious and other franchises who make money from the 'group of lovable misfits' trope. In its way it's just as limiting as the 'blood is thicker than water' trope.

We’d have been good pals I think, Buffster. I think I actually wrote I was Wiccan in a census back in my teens

More seriously I still shudder when I remember that I used to walk home alone from nightclubs, absolutely steaming. In London.

I also ran off to a hippy commune for a fortnight and told my parents I was camping with my friends. I think my parents could have been better at parenting to be fair...