What’s the worst thing you ever did as a teen/young person?

[Roxietrees]

Just thinking about some of the truly insane things myself and some of my friends did/thought at that age. I’m sure I’ll get judgement for this - and I probably wouldn’t actually have done it, and I would of course never, ever even consider anything like this now, but I guess it just goes to show how different teenage brains are to adult brains (or maybe it’s just me!…we’ll see)

I was relentlessly bullied by this one girl in my year. I was 13/14. I wasn’t an easy target, she was actually part of my group of friends, none of my other friends ever stood up for me but I usually stood up for myself, often leading to nearly getting into fights etc. but she always seemed to get the upper hand, probably cos she was better with words and quick witted put downs. She made my life hell for years, often getting her friends I didn’t know to harass me with constant creepy phone calls and abusive texts with death threats etc. Kids can be so awful. Anyway one day I decided I’d had enough, and as I hung round with a pretty dodgy crowd I knew of some pretty shady people. I decided I’d “hire” one of them to kill her, started saving up 50 quid (as clearly I thought that’d be all it’d take) and intended to ask around for someone to do it! I never got the nerve to actually ask anyone but I really convinced myself I was going to. It kinda scares me to look back on how insane I was! I’m sure many people will say maybe I really was insane and this is not normal for anyone at any age. But I’m curious- as this is an anonymous platform, to hear some of the truly awful things you did/planned to do as a teen.

Bunked off school, smoked young, broke into a garden centre that had shut down and just wandered around until a neighbour caught us. We used to drink on the streets and the police would regularly be called. The thrill of running from the police while drunk on cider was brilliant.

When I was primary school age I plunked school one day around Halloween time with a couple of older family members. We went into town the whole day and all ended up going home with a full school bag each filled with stuff we'd shoplifted. This was in the woolworths days so was stuff like cds, sweets, make up, fake blood for Halloween etc

Absolutely wild we got away with it completely and not one security guard in all the shops wondered why we weren't in school and kept going in and out all day. No parents found out we'd plunked it and for a smallish town, no one we knew seen us in town. I never shoplifted again after that as I remember the absolutely fear of getting caught after and guilt. I did plunk it once more at secondary.

Me too. Some of my lies were outrageous that I cringe today. I claimed all sorts.

What makes it worse is when I had cancer just two years after finishing school, half of the people from school didn’t believe me. Brought it on myself really.

I agree it was low self esteem, plus a desperate desire to feel liked and popular, which I wasn’t, as well as having parents who didn’t see any issue with lying. It was only when I met my husband that I realised the importance of honesty and healthy relationships!

Broke someone's nose. She was the school bully and wasn't a nice person, but I knew my own strength and shouldn't have done it. I've played rugby my whole life and it was a judicious elbow... but I shouldn't have done it. Have felt ashamed ever since because it was deliberate.

I loved high school and was a complete goody two shoes.
However I was also a prolific shoplifter and I went through a phase of prank calling too. Nobody I knew, just randoms from the phone book.
I remember me and my pal calling a Kwik Fit garage and singing ‘you can’t get quicker than a Quik Fit fitter’ over the phone.
Proper cringe 😳

And OP, I don’t think you’re insane. Just fucking hilarious. And maybe an avid Eastenders viewer 😄

You need to forgive yourself right now. I abhor bullying and she had it coming to her.

Had sex with the boy my sister had a crush on.

Bless you. Those aren’t the actions of a happy kid, so please be gentle with yourself x

Drunkenly stole a fork lift truck & drove it round a car park. Didn’t crash into anything, miraculously

me and 4 friends robbed the ‘Blind Tins’ 🫣😩🤦🏻‍♀️. Our primary school was given a number of those, actually plastic, containers with the string handle and the coin slot on top and we collected for the blind went home and used a knife to rob the money. Shocking!!! Maybe that’s the reason why I am so charitable now.

Some of these are really cruel and shocking - maybe me and my circle of friends were just unusually 'good' teenagers although I don't think so. I never knew anyone doing more than ringing a boy they fancied, smoking or hanging around where the aforementioned boy lived.

Oh, we did do prank calls. It was mid/late 80s and we did stuff like call somebody called for example, Dempsey (from phone book) and when they answered, we asked for Makepeace.

I stole an icecream from an icecream van and ran off with it when I was about 6

Aged 15 in the early days of chat rooms- told my parents I was going to a friends and then went to meet an 18 year old guy I'd met online who picked me up in his car. He dropped me off safe and sound later that day but not before my parents had rung my friends and I'd been rumbled and the police had been called. As an adult I am horrified at what I did getting into a strangers car like that. It was so dangerous. I was lucky he wasn't some kind of a murderer.

Threatened to kill my boyfriend because he slept with a mate 😬

God, this has just reminded me of our shenanigans in early days chatrooms.

We'd post our A/S/L (age/sex/location - always 13 or 14 and female) in the main room and get a flurry of men wanting to do sex chat.
We arranged to meet tonnes of them in-person opposite McDonald's in town. We used to sit in the window and watch these men show up.
Sometimes we'd just watch them hang around and then be all dejected that they'd been stood up.
Sometimes we'd approach them as arranged but acting stupid like putting on an accent or pretending we'd lost our memory.
Sometimes we'd accost them en-masse and publicly shame them.
Sometimes we took hard-as-nails boys along with us to accost them.

Chat rooms in the early 2000s were shocking places.

Stole magazines by putting them on.top of each other and only paying for the top one
Got caught.
Bunking off school.
Smoking
Prank Calls.
Knocking on people's doors and running off

I was a goody goody, I went to an all girls' school and my friends were "nice" girls from respectable homes. They were really nice, but by "nice" I mean they didn't smoke, drink or have sex underage, so nice in my mum's opinion.
The worst thing we did was phone random numbers and recite rude poems down the line. One day we were doing it for ages at my house and all evening I was terrified that someone would trace the calls and the police would turn up.
I don't think they could even trace calls in those days.

I was horrible to a teacher with a visible disability. I HATE myself for it now, I look back with such shame as he was actually a really kind man and a good teacher, but everyone bullied him and I joined in.

I also stole a lot.

Went out with a much older married man aged 17-19.

Apart from that, not much at all, but that is quite a doozy.

I reckon you phoned my in-laws 😂

Probably not that bad as it caused neither us nor anyone else any harm.

l was UK born but because of dad’s job was brought up in Paris. On a summer’s evening a group of us used to stand on a bridge over the River Seine and flash our boobs at the passing tourist boats. The boats had bright flood lights on them back then lighting up the river banks.

No camera phones in those days. 😀