WTF things you used to do and wonder how you're still alive....

[Bedheadretention]

I've just been reading the thread about people not being able to do simple jobs around the home e.g, changing a bulb/plug, and it got me thinking about when I was around 7-8 years old, not only being fully competent and able to rewire an electrical plug, but also jamming into the electric sockets wires from the video player in my bedroom that didn't have a plug (blue wire into left bottom wall socket hole, brown wire into right bottom wall socket hole) and the tv plug kind of wedging them in over the top after seeing my DF doing the same thing with other small electricals.

WTF did I do this? I thought at the time it was probably ok as DF did the same when a plug was missing, but part of me knew deep down it was wrong! TBF DF did go full on gobshite tell me off when he noticed, and unplugged them, muttering he would 'get me a plug', but then forgot, so I never received said plug, so just jammed the wires in again. I would go barmy if my dc did this, and am cringing now at nearly frying myself and thinking I could have caused a house fire too, (to be fair, this was early 80s, so slack on health and safety).

Please tell me I'm not the only knob to have done something so stupid, I've only just thought of this for the first time in decades and feel so daft. How did I not see what I could have done?

Too many to list and a couple too bad to admit to. But my favourite dumb risk is going home with a complete stranger at 22, staying over and then moving in with him the next day. 20 years and a bunch of kids later, it doesn’t seem such a terrible risk but if our kids did that, I’d kill them! 😄

Used to go on those 18-30 holidays every year and would drink copious amounts of alcohol and night and day for 2 weeks. Barely had a hangover. Now I so much as snuff wine I have a throbbing head the next day.

Haha Gotaheadache bet we were!

purple that was me. Yeah 20 a day was totally normal, this was pre-2007. And 30 a day when going out was probably also normal. But it's a thing that I look back on and think was crazy! It seems mad now, I guess because so many people have quit entirely (myself included) or just vape. The health risks are pretty bad. Also I baulk at the money that cost me!

I also took the MAP around 10 times in 1 year once. With the same guy, obviously no condoms used. He gave me chlamydia .

Oh. Thank goodness.

Done an awful lot of these. Including shenanigans in other countries.

Never played on the railway line though. Despite living right near one.

When I was 14 I started seeing (shagging) 27 year old now-DH. DD is now 13 and I would go mental if she even thought about having any type of sexual relationship with an adult, so would her father

Walking home so drunk on my own most Friday night's I would wake up with no idea how I got there.
Drinking a bottle of vodka like lemonade.
Smoking weed/going to meet dodgy strangers in unknown flats/alleyways to procure weed (or worse if exbf sent me).
Just general how on earth was I not attacked or worse stupidity from 16-18

Hitchhiking aged 15 from the North East to London and back just to go to a show. And having to talk my way out of a really dodgy situation with one man. Hitchhiking to Edinburgh aged 15 and sleeping on park benches. I'm amazed I made it home.

Funny how so many of us played on building sites! I remember a group of us exploring a half-built new estate which is now nearly 40 yrs old, whenever I drive past I think about it, my Mum would have gone mad if she'd known.

Drugs, drugs, and more drugs at uni. I can't believe a) I didn't kill myself and b) I graduated with a 2:I. We used to take pills/speed Fri & Sat whilst clubbing, wouldn't have an appetite until Tuesday and got thinner and thinner. I started blacking out randomly and people would find me on the floor. I knew it was bad when some people I considered hardcore druggies told me to go home one night and stop taking stuff!

Walking down the roughest street out of town to get home with a chip kebab at stupid o clock after a club pissed as a very and giggling all the way home. Splitting with my mate about 15 mins from home as she lived slightly the other way leaving me to walk past the creepy isolated graveyard . Id go mental if my dd did that... my poor mum goes grey even now - 30 years on - when she recalls it!

Pissed as a very = pissed as a fart!!

Oh...and walking home with a mate from a rural beer festival in the middle of nowhere to a bit further from the middle of nowhere in the pitch black through country lanes....pissed again! Bumping into some lads also on their way home from said festival and ending up at theirs for a quick fumble ,,,,then getting home just as the sun was coming up. Id be doubly mental if my dd did anything like that. I look back and cringe!!

@LemonBeachTowels

What now???

Played on building sites, slum clearances and the docks

Went for 'walks' without telling anyone where I was going

Climbing scaffolding & very high walls then jumping / dropping off

Accepting a lift from total strangers so I could direct them to where they wanted to go

I knew a lot of very....dangerous...people and spent a lot of time with them. One specifically asked me to be his 'bit on the side' (I declined)

Judgey pants hoiked

I took a ridiculous amount of drugs in my late teens. I partied constantly, had many ONS, used to walk home alone in the early hours and was generally a fucking idiot. I was raped by an older man who was my 'boyfriend' at the time and that was the turning point. Was never admitted to
Hospital, got pregnant, got an STI, more good luck than good management though

lemon that's very shocking.

When I tell DH what I used to get up to when I was younger he always says he's thankful we don't have a girl who would take after me.

Accepting lifts from random guys on my way in to town. Lots of ONS's at uni, lots and lots of drugs.

Probably most risky was an ex of mine, I was probably 16 or 17 at the time and he was a bouncer. He used to put me in his stab proof vest and run at me. I thought it was hilarious at the time, but now realise that was pretty fucked up.

You'd never guess it to look at me now, middle class mum in the middle of suburbia. I hope DS doesn't go down my route, but I never caused problems to my parents. I always erred on the side of caution.

I remember being about 7 years old and climbing out of one side of my bedroom window (bay windows) and walking around the external windowsill, to go back in through the other window. I was really annoyed that my next door neighbour was shouting at me to get back inside.

Between the ages of 14 and 16 I would spend the majority of my time at school being drunk, as I was so miserable there. I attempted suicide a couple of times by taking far too many paracetamols, crunching them up in my mouth without a drink 🤮. Obviously they didn't work but I never told anyone about it until now. I can't stand the taste of paracetamol nowadays.

Spent many a night smoking weed, using bongs etc. One night I did a "bucket" at a friend's house and drove the short journey home afterwards. That was the most terrifying thing that I've ever done and never done any sort of drug/drink driving since.

I took speed on a daily basis just to get through work and ended up addicted to it. That all stopped once I was an inpatient on a MH ward.

Lemon now you have a 13 year old daughter, do you look at your DH in a different light?

Ride a motorbike
Shoplift
Snort anything going

I'm so fricking straight now you wouldn't believe. And I would never do any of the above!

As a kid - fishing in streams whilst lightning was striking around me.
Swimming in cold lakes.
Hiring rowing boats with holes in that we had to bail the water out with a tin can because they were cheap.
As an older teen 14 plus drinking so much I would do stunts on the walk home like hang off bridges etc
Take magic mushrooms and ..nights would disappear into psychedelic hazes.
Went travelling round se asia alone for 3 months. Too many risks to recount. If my dd did it I would be 😩😱. Swam alone in shark infested waters in Indonesia. Slept next to / above a Komodo dragon all night😱

Tinkly Yes I do look at him differently. I do think what the he did take advantage of me back then. I try not dwell on it to much as the feelings are so complicated.

God this makes me feel so much better!

I took so many drugs and I’m sure that’s
The reason my short term memory is so bad. I used to get cabs off the street all the time. Just haggle a price and get in. I had to jump out of one once. Drinking until I blacked out. I once got so drunk and took so much coke I fucked someone in a toilet on a work party thing. No idea who. I’m cringing thinking about it.