Confess something weird you did as a child, that you don't know why.

[iloveeverykindofcat]

Inspired by the secret thread, which reminded me of this.

When I was about five I drew a house in biro on my parents' single piece of antique furniture. I have no idea why I did this. I was generally an extremely obedient, rule-abiding child, the sort that got nervous when other children were acting out. I was just suddenly overcome with an irresistble urge to draw the house. I still remember the feeling, and I don't know why I did it.

Did you ever do something inexplicable and out of character, that you still don't understand?

I've only read the first page and have thought of a few.

Antique china cabinet had been handed down a couple of generations, I carved my brother's name in the top of it and replaced the school award's that sat on top of it. I have no idea why I did it but yes I denied it when he got punished for it.

I used to be allowed to draw on the bathroom wall as I had a bowel condition as a child which involved a lot of sitting trying to go and so the nearest wall to the toilet was painted with chalkboard paint, very expensive in the 70/80s. I was in a friend's house and so I took a permanent marker and did lots of doodling on their wall as I had no chalk, her siblings then added to it.

I cut a large v up the middle of the back of my hair which was waist length and ultra straight so v noticeable. I should have been wiser, I was almost 16 and playing with scissors while watching telly.

I "ran away" when I was about 6 or 7, packed a bag and left a note for my mum while she was in the shower. Thing was I only ran to the play park round the back of the house that was visible from the back garden. Apparently I came home about 3 hours later when I realised I had no way of getting food.

I also painted the bathroom door with sudocrem when I was 4. I now know what a bugger that must have been to clean off!

Shaved off my siblings eyebrows while playing a shaving game with my dads razor blade and foam

When I was 10, I was at my friends house, she lived in a bungalow which I thought made her really posh. She also lived with her Mum and Aunty. For some unknown reason I persuaded her to pick some worms from the garden, pop them into an envelope, and place the envelope with the live worms in her aunty's bed. I think we had written 'surprise!!' on the envelope. The next day I went round to see her, my friends mum opened the door and said she was banned from ever seeing me again. To this day, I have no idea what possessed me to get her to do this.

I wasn't allowed to use my mums make up and one day I decided to use nail varnish on my lips as a lipstick. It really really stung when applying and was impossible to take off. My mum tried everything

My older DB let me ride his tricycle up the street ( it was a little red one with 'Triang on the front) I asked the rag and bone man if he'd buy it and got 2 shillings for it 😊 my brother was not happy with my exchange and ran up the toad after the horse and cart to tell R&B man that the. Ike was not mine to sell. 😳

My mum used to have a few Busy Lizzies around the house, and I would quite often pull off a "leaf" and eat it - I wasn't keen on normal leaf vegetables like cabbage, but Busy Lizzies, yum!
ps. I don't think my parents ever knew about this, if they did they never said anything!

We had a manky old very dark oil painting in a side room and one day, aged about 8, I gently scratched my favourite girls name into the corner of it with a compass point that was in my pencil case. It was too faint to see without really looking, but when you knew it was there, it was very obvious. It haunted me for years and years, could never understand how my parents never noticed it.

@Losttheplotyearsago i’m so sorry you had a troubled childhood too. i hope things are going ok for you now.

nobody ever knew about our house either. we were VERY middle class and it was all behind closed doors. i used to long to go into care but i would never have dared tell a soul about how things were at home. i’m still working through a lot of stuff, including some horrendous memories that have recently surfaced that i know i need therapy for. it’s all such a bloody struggle though.

Ate dog biscuits. Winalot prime I think. I loved them! And the bonios(?) Biscuits shaped like diamonds and bones etc.

Used to go fishing with my dad as a teenager (early teens!) and we used groundbait called red lake or something. It smelled delicious! It did not taste how it smelled.

Oh, I was such a weird kid. I used to:

• wee in a tin waste paper basket in my room.
• get a square crisp, lick the flavour off both sides, then balance the damp crisp on the incandescent lightbulb in my bedside lamp until it fizzed, went brown and started to smoke.
• pretend I was a ferret and that both my parents were dead.
• pretend I had double vision (which I’d read about in a book), which led to many visits to the optician and culminated in a neurological assessment at the hospital.
• spit on the bathroom floor every time I did a wee.
• make up a weak shampoo/bubble bath solution every time I was in the bath and use it to gargle with.

I, too, actually had some weird and hard stuff going on at home, and in retrospect I think much of this was a cry for help.

I used to steal tiny bits of fruit and veg and eat them while at the market with my mum! I think it was things like a tiny bit of broccoli or lettuce. I didn't even really like the veg, really not sure why I did it! Can't even remember how old I was but I think it was quite young. I too was a generally well behaved timid child!

My brother and I stabbed hundreds of holes in the polystyrene kitchen ceiling with a tent pole 😂

@BrassyLocks I did that last week 😳

@LunaNorth I feel very sorry for your Dad but I did chortle at the idea of using his knackers as an experiment.

I nipped the ear of my baby cousin because I wanted to hear him cry. I didn't do it hard and there was no bruise but he did cry and felt so bad! I must have been about 8 or 9 at the time.

My mum told me never to put fingers in a plug socket, especially wet ones as you "might die". I can still remember sitting in front of the socket, licking my finger and sticking it in. Later on I was hysterical thinking I'd suddenly die in the night until my dad explained it better

Nibbled loads of tiny holes in my duvet (I was about 8 - why!?)

Steal icing sugar from the kitchen and eat it with a spoon. We had loads of actual, much nicer food available.

Shoved a lolly stick up my nose. I was about 5 and I have no idea why I did it. Scary thing is that I don't ever remember getting it out so it could still be floating around inside me somewhere. I used to eat pencils as well. Paint, wood and the graphite 'lead' inside, the lot.

I was given money to go buy something from the shop for my mother and I threw it on the railway line. I told her I had lost it and got a whalloping from my dad.

I tied my little sister to a lamp post with her skipping rope and piled branches around her feet. I told her we were playing Joan of Arc and went to find some matches to burn her at the stake. I forgot about her and went to play with my friends. I got another whalloping for that.

I threw water over the kid next door - yup - another whalloping and sent to bed

I should add that this was in the 1950s when parents still hit their kids and thought nothing of it!

@Phyllis321

How funny, OP! I got out of bed once when I was about 6 and drew a house on the chest of drawers in my room. I also was a quiet, well-behaved child and have no idea why I did it.

Ha ha that's amazing! I actually remember feeling sort of horrified once I'd done it...like I didn't know what came over me.

God these are GOLD.

I love you all

I'd come out thinking I had managed a reasonably long hibernation stint, only to be told that I'd been in there 20 minutes.

^

I'm no psychologist, but there seems to be a common theme of wanting to mark things - maybe its a way of asserting 'I am here', when children are beginning to realize their independence as a person. Just a guess.

@Littlelegs2

I used to write my name on the wall then say it wasn't me

I did this, and then said it was my brother who wrote MY name so he wouldn't get into trouble for writing his own...