To ask what your teenage life was like?

[Laraloodoo]

Following a thread where I was told my teenage behaviour was abnormal by many’s standards I’m interested in all the different experiences we had growing up as teenagers.

Dull. Wouldn't have dreamt of rebelling or disappointing my parents. No boyfriends.

Pretty OK.

Grew up in the 80s, in London. While I disliked Thatcher with a passion, as I wasn't ''quite'' an adult and wasn't in, for instance, a mining district, I was largely unaffected by many of the problems she caused (eg my father wasn't a striking miner!)

I loved the fashions, music and films and had enough freedom to enjoy going to parties, nightclubs etc. I had a good social network, a Saturday job so some money in my pocket, and my parents were decent people who let me have freedom with appropriate boundaries.

As it was pre social media, any faux pas didn't end online!

I was very popular

😂

12-14 video games

15-17 parties, skipping school, stealing, selling certain substances

17 left home

17-18 various squats in london, sofa surfing, taking lots of substances, getting into lots of fights. Charged and convicted of assault twice. Developed an eating disorder, diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

19 lots of parties, alcohol and drugs, still managed to get into Oxbridge (I still to this day think it must have been an admin error!).

It took until 22/23 to calm down, which unsurprisingly coincided with actual MH treatment.

Some of these are really sad

My parents finally split up after a lengthy abusive marriage.

I was constantly picked on by one sibling

I was bullied at school and my closest friends ended up being my own cousin who lived abroad and a girl who lived in another city, so I was often isolated on weekends

I was a Saturday Girl in a Library and always had my head in a book

It was lonely and lacking in rebellion

Yeah I was popular too. These threads seem quite popular. It's nice. Everything is popular.

Grew up in a poor area on the outskirts of a northern mining town.
Large Irish family.
Loving, but a bit wild, extended family living all around so no shortage of friends.
No money as such but managed to convince my Dad to build me an aviary and I bred birds for profit through most of my teens.
Also helped an elderly neighbour (retired mechanic) with his allotment and in return he gave my cousins and I several motorbikes which we used to race around the canal banks and across fields.
There was no point being in the house much as the TV never worked.
Went to a terrible, failing school but somehow I excelled there.
Was quite depressed around age 16-18 as I didnt fit in at all at the "posh" sixth form I'd got into, but got the grades I needed for uni and loved uni life.
Dad was a heavy drinker and smoker (like most of the men I knew) so I grew up seeing the damage alcohol and cigarettes did.
My mum and a lot of my friends Mums were addicted to tranquilisers. I have never smoked or taken drugs as a result.
I'm a bit of a rough cookie underneath it all.
My own DC have had it so easy by comparison.

Utter misery. My mother was (still is) a bully and cruel. I had trichotillomania and anorexia. She doesn't believe in mental illness so that was fun.
I was bullied at school for being poor.
My parents had seven children and I was left in charge of them from age 9, so I missed a lot of school too.

2 aspects spent most of my childhood/teenage years at the stables loving life. The other aspect was shit, sexually abused for 3 years as a kid and raped x3 as a teenager. Thank god I had the stables to keep me on track

Horrific. Absolutely heartbreakingly horrific

If I could erase my whole time on earth from birth - 18 I woukd tbh

Too uneventful.

My father had died when I was young and my sister moved out when I was eight, so it was just my mum (who remained single) and I. I was too worried about upsetting her to do anything she'd object to.

So I never went to any wild parties, didn't have a boyfriend til I was at university (and didn't have sex til my mid 20s), went to church like a good girl twice a Sunday and was basically rather boring. I was rarely allowed to spend time alone in my room (had to be downstairs keeping my mother company) and got no privacy in the bathroom either (no lock on the door, and she refused to contenance putting one on).

Whilst I don't want my (as yet unborn) child going completely wild as a teen I do hope I give them more freedom than I had when they reach their teenage years.

Bit of a mixed bag really. Early teens, big swot, minor bullying.

Then my mum was pretty ill and spent a lot of time in hospital and I rebelled a bit. Started hanging out with a bad crowd. Had a lot of fun but wasn't very nice. Underage sex, shoplifting smoking, cannabis, drinking. Somehow managed to pass my GCSEs despite never being at school. I was horrible to my mum - I think I resented the attention when she was ill - horrible. Had an older, really controlling boyfriend who was cheating on me with everyone and when I finally saw sense and broke up with him he assaulted me.

I sorted myself out by 16 and late teens were great. And my lovely mum forgave me for being an absolute cow!

My goodness this thread is hard to read! So sorry for those of you that went through such tough times 😥. I was bullied ( not physically) in my early & mid teens which deeply affected my confidence. I didn’t rebel until I was 18 & then it was very mild. Surprised I didn’t end up with an eating disorder as DM kept putting me on diets when I didn’t need to lose weight. When I look at photos, I had a beautiful figure but was never able to appreciate it back then

My dad killed himself and my mother never got over it. Terrible hoarding and depression. Awful years.

Drugs and raves

a deep pit of despondency and despair, my misery hung from me like a weighted shroud.

(alcoholic for a dad, manic depressive for a mum, no money, no choices, no hope)

I'm fine now though...

13 to 16 miserable.

My parents got divorced, my dad dangled a perfect life of ponies and fun in the countryside but I could not hack living with my sister (who had ADHD and a nasty violent streak) and a man who was using the bottle as a comforter and had no idea how to raise teenage girls so I moved in with my alcoholic mother.

Spent my time avoiding school, stealing ciggies, stealing money, being as bad as I could be as no one believed I was worth anything anyway and all the adults in my life constantly telling me I should look after my mum as she was having a hard time. I remember doing my own shopping with the child allowance, if i wasnt out the door of the supermarket in exactly 20 minutes or less she would drive off and leave me to walk the seven miles home, and she did do that several times.

16 + college away from home, riding horses, shagging boys, smoking weed and living on the scraps from teh canteen as the aforementioned alcoholic mother never put money on my meal card and my father who lived a few miles away said I was my mothers responsibility.

18 - moved away with friends, fell out with friends, slept with many unsuitable people and took unsuitable substances, had some great times, had some shitty times, moved back, ended up in a homeless shelter for youngpeople, got a council flat, realised i was suffering serious depression, spent the next 5 years trying to not die.

Fun, it was not.. but there were good times and there were stupid times and it didn't kill me :)

Fairly normal although a bit tame by some people's standards.

13-16 - youth clubs, school plays, trying to avoid doing my homework and hoping that one day the lead soloist in the school choir would want to be my boyfriend.

Aged 17 I discovered alcohol and got a part time job. Went out with my friends to cinema, pub and pizza hut most weekends. Used to host "dinner parties" with my friend when her parents were out. Pasta with sauce from a jar and wine, we thought we were so sophisticated . Lots of us piling into someone's fiesta, contributing £1 each for petrol and hoping we could get to Oxford or Milton Keynes and back before we ran out of petrol.

At 19 I went to uni and met dh. We had a lot less money then and had to do a lot more work so lifestyle changed a bit. Lots of staying in and watching friends, drinking in the student pub and making the most of our student railcards.

Awful. Father was an alcoholic, mother was a nasty selfish co-dependant. Sometimes banned from going to school so had to escape out of the bathroom window and run across the fields with my pocket money to catch a train. Thing was, I was really bright, and worked really hard so I got really good O and A level results.....but that makes no difference when you've got no self-esteem and not a single adult to give you any guidance whatsoever. My life has been a bit shit really but I try to look on the bright side whenever it becomes glaringly obvious exactly how shit it is. I am a really loving mum however and I will never let my children down. Ever. They will have much better lives than I did despite the fact that I have far less money than my parents did.

Chaotic from about the age of 14. Truanting, drug use, inappropriate older ‘boyfriends’, raving until all hours.

I’d come through it all by 21-ish and became a bit more sensible - got my act together with getting my education, got a good job, found a nice man, no more drugs.

All kinds of fucked up.

Sex, alcohol, abuse, insecurity, self harm, all sorts of reckless behaviour,an abusive relationship or two , some fun bits,some awesome bits, some gruesome bits. Didn't settle until I was 23 and moved countries.

Tupe about 4 50,000 word books, won some writing competitions, best A levels in the school, scholarship to university after sitting 3 x 3 hours of competitive exams; no boyfriends. 4 grade 8s. Just lots and lots of reading, music, writing, hobbies, usual stuff. No drinking.

I am seeing a pattern on this thread - the drinkers having sex were not happy; we teetotal virgins had a good time and did well.

Lots of sneaking out and drinking. Have to say I never did drugs or shoplifted though