Does anyone else struggle with the past a bit? Embarrassed by myself

[Timesachanging]

I just feel like I've done things quite wrong. I was a cow in secondary school, clung on to the popular group but never really felt expected. I was a bit desperate with them all, quite attention seeking and probably annoying. I was a bit of a bully to others not in my group. I was very insecure and acted the other way. When I actually left school I very quickly lost touch with absolutely everyone. I don't have a single friend from secondary school. I'm not even friends with anyone on Facebook, I've looked once or twice over the years and they all seem to be close still.

I went to a college over an hour away from my school, as I wanted a fresh start where no one knew me. I completely over sexualised myself in college. I cringe at what I used to wear, how I used to act, would talk blatantly sexual in front of boys thinking it was attractive. I started smoking weed, doing coke and mdma regularly. I fell into the popular group but a very different type than in school, it was all very drug oriented and the 'edgy' girls. One group of girls was friends with one group of boys, probably about 20 of us in total. I slept with a few of the boys. The girls all lived there and were very close since childhood, I was getting buses for nearly 3 hours a day to be there. I felt left out, naturally by distance, and was always a bit on the outside. Again insecurity made me cling to them, never felt 'cool' enough for them, tried to dress like them, act like them, just tried to be everything apart from myself, I remember one of the boys saying to another he didn't like me as I had no personality, I wasn't meant to know but it hit me so hard because it was true, I was just a mirror to people around me, no wonder I didn't form close relationships, I was just pretending.

Left college, again I'm not in contact with any of them now. Still follow them all on social media, they're all still close friends and have all moved on from the drug scene now.

I think I just feel very lonely and cut off from my past. I wish I'd just been my bloody self. I had my moments but I wasn't a mean enough person to end up with no one from my past. I think there just wasn't anything genuine about me for people to really like, I'm 27 now and a mum of two, I've made a couple of mum friends and I do have one very close friend I met in my early twenties and I'm very grateful for. I've had therapy, worked on my insecurities and I do know who I am now. I guess I just feel sad about it.

Most people have some friends from their past, and I feel like the two big stages of my childhood/teenage years have left me with nothing. I feel I let a lot of boys disrespect me. I cringe at how I sexualised myself so much, how easy and quickly I put out to try and be liked. I don't know what I expect to come from this, as I can't change it. I just find it all hard to accept. Does anyone else feel a bit like this?

How old are you? I doubt your the only one who looks back and thinks why the hell did I act like that?
I do and I'm 60!!
You can't change the past but can learn from it. Be a better, kinder person. That's what I try to do!!

I definitely did some things in my teens that I wholly regret. Mainly sexual things.

I try it to think about them and am mainly just grateful that camera phones and social media weren’t around then.

I need to come back to this but rest assured you are not alone!

Yes, I've had guilt/shame issues ever since, I'm 52 now!
Now realise if I was to die tomorrow people would remember the good things. It's just such a waste of time. You didn't commit serious crime against anyone so give yourself a break. Many women do the same and live great lives. You're fine.

Your post is very insightful.
I was just a mirror to the people around me

It doesn’t sound like anyone hates you or that you’ve done anything terrible. You were who you were at the time, just trying to figure stuff out, and your personality wasn’t defined enough to strongly attract any similar personalities.

It can be a problem going forward. Not being a definite enough “type” to find your tribe. But at least you know what NOT to do in your desperation to belong. Do you have any strong interests you could throw yourself into? Some people don’t!! I don’t know the answers but I think your OP was very interesting.

It's not going to go away, OP! I have this in my 50s and so does DH. I've mostly learned to think 'aaaagh' and then laugh and push it away. To be self-aware at 27 is pretty good really, you have most of your life still in front of you.

It's a rare person who hasn't said and done things which they regret during their youth which they look back on and cringe about and anyone who hasn't made mistakes is of little use to the world as they will never understand another's regret.

Try not to beat yourself up about it but learn from the past and behave better as an adult. It's all you can do, really. I cringe at many of my youthful memories - don't we all? I sometimes lie awake at night and think what would happen if I suddenly found 'revelations' about myself on the front page of a newspaper - the embarrassment! I remind myself that we were all young and daft once.

I've no friends from before university, I don't think it's rare at all. My two best friends now are people I met in my twenties. I don't give it a second thought these days (I'm nearly 40). One thing I'd say is I've never really found my tribe in the way others seem to, and my friendship group now is a hodgepodge of ages and life experiences rather than a group that does everything together. I often gravitate to others who don't quite seem to fit! It used to bother me that I didn't seem to gel with any of the usual gangs but now I prefer it that way. I'm in no way a partularly eccentric person btw and I'm not sure why I struggled in this way.

I thought your op was really emotionally intelligent and maybe you should try to think of yourself as having outgrown your old friendship groups rather than being ashamed or feeling rejected. That happens and it's better that than clinging on to friendships that don't work for you any more. There's nothing wrong with you, sometimes it's just luck and circumstance.

The only important thing is that you learn from your mistakes.

You're 27. There's a whole more time to make life choices and friends that you now know to be better.

I don't think there's many people who don't cringe at some things they've done in their teens.

I think you're post will resonate with a lot of people OP. Sometimes we only learn by our 'mistakes' and it can be character building. It's normal to feel regret bur it can spur you on to better things if you focus on what you want for your future

Don’t you have any compassion for the girl and young adult you, who wasn’t nurtured and made to feel secure and good enough from a young age? I doubt you developed such a poor sense of self in a vacuum. Why don’t you try to explore what some of the reasons might be and try to understand and be kind to your past self.

I really have only 1 friend that I met at school 9r University, the rest were from work.

I can really relate OP, and very much to what Llamapolice said as well. Part of my problem I think was being an army brat and moving repeatedly to the point where I was scared to let people in for the fear of losing them again. It really upsets me at times, I feel like a failure who can't hang on to people. I make friends reasonably easy but they drift after a while. I probably don't try hard to get into deeper friendship due to fear of rejection.

It's actually really reassuring to read this thread. I feel less alone.

@Whadda

I definitely did some things in my teens that I wholly regret. Mainly sexual things.

I try it to think about them and am mainly just grateful that camera phones and social media weren’t around then.

Same here.

It's almost comforting to read of others who have done the same.

I definitely have regrets. Only recently I was thinking how all my friends as a teenager and in my early twenties were boys. At the time I thought I was cool and that most girls seemed silly. Looking back none of these boys were real friends and it's not surprising I ended up in bed with several of them.

I had a very similar experience to you and also have no friends from school or uni, I didn't fit in and tried too hard to be 'cool' and thankfully for me there's no social media evidence of that! I go over it in my head regularly (I'm in my 40s now) and only recently started to be kinder to myself about it all. I still don't fit in but that's just who I am.

I don't have any friends from school or sixth form either, I don't think it's that unusual!

Just to spin your negative thoughts on their head a bit, I just wanted to say how mature and self-aware you sound, and you're only 27! I think you sound very thoughtful and interesting - I'm sure you will make more solid genuine friendships moving forward.

I think we all sort of have memories like that. I don't think I did it quite to the extent that you're describing, but I remember spending a lot of time thinking about how to fit in/get cooler kids to like me etc. I was really nerdy during school and was bullied quite a bit, but then kind of 'blossomed' during college and became pretty and popular. I was definitely seen as a bit edgy and wild and I liked being seen as the life and soul of the party. It all makes me cringe so much now and I spent a long time thinking about it when I was in my early twenties. I used to cringe if I ever saw anybody who knew me during those times. I wasn't even that keen on them anyway and not sure why I cared so much about them liking me or thinking of me as cool. I'm mid thirties now and it's died down a lot. I'm glad I have nothing to do with those people - we have nothing in common and I never really liked them. I think it's all a part of growing up and figuring out who you are. Honestly, you weren't doing those things alone, sounds like there were whole groups of you. So they either feel the same way, and it's normal, or they don't care anymore and neither should you. I'm mature enough to realise that the people I knew as teenagers getting up to no good are now likely very different and sensible adults. I try not to judge myself by harsher standards than I apply to everybody else. And if anybody still has a certain opinion of me based solely on knowing some stupid things I did as a teenager, I'd think maybe they need to grow up.

I can relate to this @Timesachanging. I was going through some difficult stuff at home in my pre-teen and teen years and was very insecure. I was absolutely desperate to be liked and accepted, and used to latch onto anyone, particularly boys. I had a bit of a reputation for being anyone's .

I do still have a few friends from school and Uni but we're not hugely close and I would have loved a really tight group of girlfriends as recently I've been feeling lonely and think it must be a wonderful thing to have.

I was a bit of a cow at times too and how I was makes me hugely uncomfortable looking back.

I was the opposite of you thanks to social anxiety and other stuff, so that kept me from being a typical teenager and having 'the full college experience'. You can regret what you haven't done as much as what you have, but neither will get you very far in life.

I think the important thing is that you have grown from these experiences and learned a lot about yourself. It sounds like you are in a better place now.

I also think you are idealising the whole 'friends from school/college' thing. FWIW I do keep in touch with about two/three people from school/uni. One of them I love like a sister, the other one... well, let's just say she's become a different person (or maybe I have) and I get frustrated with her a lot. I love her so much, and yet we have nothing in common anymore and completely different outlooks on life. We wouldn't become friends if we met now, I can tell you that much. My husband on the other side has no contact with people from school/uni and his friendships are more in tune with who he is today, which really is what you want.

But that’s normal. Get a bus at 3.30 and listen to the teenagers out from school talking. There’s a LOT of posturing, bragging, bullying etc. EVERYONE is insecure although some hide it better than others. You were learning about friendship and sex- of course you made mistakes and weren’t perfect.

If you change the narrative from “I was a terrible person “ to that lesson taught me the value of having real friends. Putting out too easily taught me the value of being respected in a LTR.

Everyone has scars from childhood; you were popular, you don’t sound too badly traumatised (read some threads on here about bullying and you will understand) and you have used your experiences to make yourself into a better person. How about you give yourself a break. You can’t change what happened but you can change how you feel about it.

When I have these kind of thoughts i find it useful to ask myself who I was before these periods. Who were you before secondary school, before college…? What did you like to do as an 7/8/9 year old? Obviously people change, but in recent years, my two great loves hobby-wise are things I actually loved doing as a kid. One of the comments that hurt (and with good reason) was that you didn’t have a personality, but trying to dig deeper into yourself and remember who you were before the peer stuff got in the way.

A lot of really insightful comments while I was typing mine…

To add I recently met up with college friends and I found it really difficult. The young person I was then is so far removed from who I am now, and a lot of that is because of soul searching and introspection that you have shown in your OP.

I would just let it go. Friendship groups like families can often mean knowing your place in the dynamic and limiting yourself to that.

@Timesachanging I know exactly what you mean but a few things might help

1. people remember less about you than you do.

2. you were young and boundaries back then were lacking. Sex education was awful and all young people make mistakes.

3. you sound really lovely. Focus on who you are now. Today and tomorrow is what matters.

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