Things it took you far to long to work out (or admit)

[Slowontheup]

I'm so annoyed with myself for drinking so much (socially and more or less within normal UK limits but still far too much)

it made me bloated and fat. I used to deny this could possibly be the case and went to every exercise class going plus starved myself. It was the booze.

specifically and most irritating - it made my arms fat. I considered going to Brazil for expensive and risky arm surgery ffs. My arms are thin now and I'm in my 40s

i must have spent a bloody fortune. Also did many risky and undignified things in my 20s and lost many many items in taxis (more expense incurred)

maybe it's part of growing up but wish I'd limited it to 2 years instead of best part of 20!

what did you do that you wish you'd cottoned on to a bit blinking sooner?!

That, when you go to a social event, work thing, whatever really, and you are nervous about walking into a room where you don't know anyone , reframe it. Don't think 'oh I hope they like me'. Change it to ' I wonder who I will meet and if I will like the people there'.
You won't like everyone you meet in life and not everyone you meet will like you. That's fine. You don't need to try to make people like you/ fancy you/ love you/ marry you. You can just be you . Your tribe will find you. If they don't make you feel comfortable then they aren't for you.

I see it more as bad things happen to most people at some point. It's not karma, just law of averages. And it applies to the nice people and the successful ones too. Which is comforting when shit happens and you can tell yourself this is normal and expected.

That if jobs don't display their salary they usually want the cheapest labour they can find and have discriminatory pay policies. I'm so glad more young people are rejecting these and demanding to know upfront before applying.

Sugar kills you. I was probably in my late 40s before I realised it's harm.

Absolutely.

That many men don't care about their own children, and that society doesn't judge them much if they make it obvious, and that many will use separation as an excuse to disappear from their lives.

Hard lesson, but women are deceived from girlhood about this one.

How did you find this out please?

And just because, in my case, you are a teacher and someone throws out the phrase ' oh but it's for the children' when they want to add another bloody task to your already massive list, doesnt mean you have to do it . ' Sorry Jessica I'm just going to have to say no on this occasion '. Smile and walk away.

But if your parents had told you that you couldn't do the degree that YOU WANTED to do, would you be here bemoaning your controlling parents who didn't support your dream?
Eventually we have to take responsibility for ourselves. Not many of us get dealt the hand we want.

Have you realised that the faux Marley is called Bob...?!

My 87 year old granny was able to put her tights on while standing she was amazing. Her GP was stunned. 😃

Some marriages last forever. Some marriages have a sell-by date. Both of those things are fine. You will not get a better, softer , velvet covered seat in heaven ( which I also don't believe in) by staying in a marriage that is making everyone miserable. You have this one life and it's precious .
The same applies to friendships. You should look forward to meeting up with someone and you should feel uplifted after you have see them. If a friendship fills you with dread, sucks the joy out of you, causes you financial stress then it's time to let it go. You might have been beasties since you were 5. You're 35 now and , if it's not working, it's time to let it go.

There's a cliché that this is a women-only belief, and that men only tell you a problem when they want you to solve it, or help solve it, or supply a solution

I know it's certainly true for everyone I know - my male friends tell me a problem when they want a solution, my female friends when they want to talk about the problem

That "We spend hours and hours at work to get extra money to buy more and more things that we don't actually need to impress people we don't even really like"

You have three types of friends in life: Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.

My daughter (nine) is petite and I LOVE this - I am going to save it if she ever feels like she wishes she was bigger.

That daily exercise is essential not a superfluous hobby.

Never sacrifice the number of DCs you have for the sake of a career.

You'll always have your DCs.

Careers can melt in a moment.

You are replaceable at work, but irreplaceable to your family

" Shitty people say shitty things because they feel shit about themselves". It rarely has anything at all to do with you. Smile and walk away

Took me years to realise that i am an introvert, im a people person not a party person. Forcing myself to go out and not enjoying it, i couldnt work out why, and make plans then on the day not want to go and stay home but forcing myself to go out.

I used to look at my friend who has the most active social life, always out, always meeting big groups, i used to feel envious that i didnt have such an amazing social life. One day i suddenly realised i would hate it, being out all the time and socialising. I love my friend she is a warm and gregarious person but i find being in her company for too long draining.

Absolutely you are right! Our poor parents, we blame them for everything!

I decided to 'improve my health' by adding in various vegetable powders, like you do.

I was suddenly in all body pain but my hands and arms were badly affected and I got instant cystitis.

I Googled, one of the possibilities was oxalates so I started to research. I started a low oxalate diet and started to dump oxalate from every orifice and it made a few of it's own! I thought I was going to die and the dumping brought a histamine release with it but this is normal apparently.

After a while I deliberately slowed the dumping a bit by going back to drinking some tea, just to give myself a break because I wanted to claw my skin off. After eight weeks it slowed and stopped and then has come in waves since then.

If you want to research it, Sally K Norton on YT is recognised as an expert in the field. She was bedbound as a child with it from living on home grown veg including Swiss chard, rhubarb and spinach (which is nothing but oxalates).

I get no joint pain and I no longer get cystitis all the time for no reason.

What a great idea for a thread...

I wish I'd known:

• Smoking was something never to have started
• Saving money rather than spending it would have been a good idea
• Men are not that important
• Other people's opinions are just that - and they don't really matter
• Dogs are great, I would have had more of them, all rescues
• Never buy a house in your lunch break out of temper
• Don't fall in love with a car and stubbornly maintain it long beyond economic repair
• Sports and exercise are for everyone and twattish gym mistresses didn't get the final say on that

That was cathartic! Off to read everyone else's now.

1, that it was so easy for me to stop drinking, I should have done it years ago. (I never drank regularly but felt awful when I did.)

2, that I deserve everything good in life. By that, I mean financial security, a sense of ease and a healthy lifestyle. All things in my power, through making better choices. I lived with a terrible situation for much of my life and it came to a tragic, devastating end a few months ago. Not something I'll 'get over' and it's still hard, but now I know I deserve a good life and I will put in the effort required to try to make it so.

That mothers don't in fact know everything.

That unless it's what you want for yourself the hight of achievement for a woman is not to raise kids and do all housework and childcare and also work. It's not a competition about how much you do and how little your husband does. If he's not pulling his weight you absolutely can leave and that's not your failure it's his.

That marriage brings financial security if you have children but also vulnerability if he's a cock lodging leech. To know and understand the value of marriage also doesn't make it ideal for everyone. Single mothers by choice are amazing people they haven't failed

Boys will be boys is a harmful way of thinking. Girls are not buffers for poor behaviour from boys and should not be corrected when they speak up