What did you keep hidden from your parents as a teenager?

[BeckyRac]

What did you keep hidden from your parents?

That their acrimonious divorce broke my heart.

If you asked my parents they would say everything. My mother would regularly search my schoolbag, cupboards, drawers to find out what I was hiding.

In reality I hid nothing but it didn't stop them from believing I lied about everything.

If I said I was in the library, I was!

I was even accused of lying about having a lot of homework as “your older brother and sister don't have as much as you say you get” yes, that was because they didn't bother to do it!

Their constant distrust of me led me to leave home as soon as I was able to afford to. 18.

Drinking, smoking, sex, drugs if you count 18+19.

I had quite a lot of independence anyway so the line between 'hid' and 'didn't tell' is blurry.

Tattoo and a vibrator

I never told my mum anything. As long as it wasn't illegal or involved the police, affected my grades or harmed her reputation, she didn't really care.

Absolutely everything! They were completely hands off by the time I was 15.
Once I had a stomach bug and my mum ignored me for 2 days because she thought I was hungover! I wasn't.

Mine knew everything as I didn't do anything remotely exciting. I told my dad a about everything. Not close now though. Once I went to uni and became my own person and especially now as a mother myself I realise a lot of their views and so on are outdated and I was too 'good'.

That I was allowed to split my day between two schools so I could maximize my advanced courses.

That I occasionally spent time platonically with male friends.

That I had a really good job that was easy to work around my school schedule.

As little about my school, extracurricular, or accomplishments as possible.

I was a very good kid. Super high achieving. My dad was just an abusive asshole and any time he noticed me was a bad thing.

That I was having sex, trying out some drugs, staying at all night parties. I was 17/18 tbh and still a quite hardworking sixth former.

Nothing really, I was dead boring lol

That their over controlling nature drove me away and I ended up 100 miles away. I regret that now.

Early teens: that I'd lost my "expensive" cartridge pen (about £1)

Mid teens: that when I went to my friend J's house we sometimes shared a can of lager

Late teens: that I fancied someone religious at uni and had been to church several times because he did

My brother, at about 16, had a box of Farley's Rusks hidden in his room.

Lots. Just because I eas a teenager.
One example - I left for school each morning in flat shoes and changed into 2 inch heels on the bus. Reverse on the way home. Such a rebel!

The fact I used Mumsnet!

More depressingly, the fact I was sexually abused.

I also hid it when I started my periods. I also hid anything that I felt emotionally insecure about or anything that would have made me look weak, so I was open about drugs/ alcohol etc but very private about friends/ relationships/ sex etc. I hid that I was bullied, I had an eating disorder and self-harmed which I did my best to hide (they did eventually find out) and was generally quite closed to them about how I was feeling. I’ve never discussed sex with them, I didn’t tell them when relationships started or ended, I guess in general I didn’t really share much of my personal beyond the surface stuff and still don’t really.

@Whatalottachocca

Everything. They were very controlling so the less I told them the better.

Same here

How miserable I was.

I was somewhat neglected as my parents were complicated, so didn't engage or didn't cause too much in the way of problems as my own parents were more problematic than me

However i did have an egg size lump on my back /spine area by my waistline that took about a year to go - I wondered if it was cancer at the time

Losing my virginity at the age of 15 and bleeding so badly that I was dripping blood onto the street as I walked home. Soaked through a tshirt I took off and put between my legs. Lasted about 3 days. Looking back it really wasn't normal and it must have been some kind of haemorrhage. Frightened the hell out of me at the time.

Drink, drugs, boys and all kinds of dangerous behaviour. And absolutely anything emotional/ feelings-based. I was embarrassed, and they didn't ask. It shocks me now how little they knew about me. Things have improved thank God but it baffles me how they were seemingly so uninterested and didn't notice my wrongdoings!

So glad I'm not the only one who hid my period starting. I remember having the lesson in school and coming home with the little pack of stuff to talk to my mum about them and she shut me down straight away as if it was something you couldn't talk about.. never spoke to her about them after that and when I started I had to go hunting for pads in the bathroom, if there was none there I'd have to use rolled up toilet roll.. horrific time for me

I used to hide the fact I skipped school to avoid being bullied, that I smoked, my under age drinking, I never did my homework, went to the pub when I should have been at school. I also hid my stash of painkillers for my crippling period pains, if I asked my mum for any I got told "it's only a period, you don't need painkillers" I used to buy them with my dinner money & hide them in my school bag, it was only when I collapsed & passed out due to the pain when I was in my forties & was diagnosed with endometriosis that my mum learned the truth that I had been in terrible pain right from my periods first starting.

Pretty much everything. They were so religious, practically everything I thought, wore, wanted, believed, laughed at, loved and hated was in some way wrong.

The maddest part of my relationship with my mother is that, if you listened to her tell the story of my teens, you'd think I spent six years of my life on ketamine travelling with gypsies.

I didn't.

I smoked some cigarettes and went to a festival, once.

History is written by the victor, as they say.