Things that you used to do as a child repetitively and now think "WTF?!"

[ConfusedPixie]

The hot chocolate thread got me thinking about this. For some reason, I used to tip a full glass of water onto the carpet, the same patch of carpet, every single day. No clue why. I was asked to stop, but I just did it anyway

I ate chalk too, like the chalk kids draw with. Both of these things happened until high school age?!

Anything utterly random and repetitive you may have done?

ROFL @ the tricycle hedgehog cemetery

Oh god i have a few:

Making a small hole in a bag of crisps, squashing them into tiny bits and then eating them with a spoon while chewing chewing gum.

Inused to wonder my crisp eating was so noisy but my siblings could do it silently.

Count the steps as i walked

I used to walk under a large road sign and had to close my eyes, cross my fingers and count to three so bad stuff didn't happen.

HAD to start the stairs with my right foot.

Eat uncooked spaghetti. A lot. And raw potatos when mum was making chips. And frozen peas. And have a spoonful of black treacle when she ws baking (eeeww!)

Get under my quilt and try to fltten myself into the bed and wait til my parents realised i was 'lost'

Eat paper cake cases - so mum made fairy cakes, eat the cake then chew and suck on the case.

Yes also to sucking the bathwater out of the flannel.

Dear god i'm sure there are more.

Oh yes lay in bed and do leg movements kind of wiggling and tensing, over and over.

Now this is gross.

I used to ask my mum if I could pick out the dandruff/ dry skin eczema stuff on her scalp by scratching it with my nails.

I still love picking at people though. She doesn't suffer with it now but darn it hurt trying not to pick my kids cradle crap off.

I had/have OCD. I was and still am just one big quirk.

Clearly I am the only kid of the 70s that didn't sew my fingers! However I had long and strong finger nails and I would pierce them with pins and attach earrings to them as I wasn't allowed pierced ears.
My mother was very strict and I wasn't allowed sweets. However I used to go to a youth club once a week. There was a tuck shop there and I would buy a packet of m&ms. I'd smuggle them home and then line them up on the radiator so the chocolate would melt.

I had to make it back to bed before the toilet stopped flushing or the ghost would come out of the airing cupboard.

Some strange things on this thread! The idea of sucking a flannel goes right through me.

I used to put individual pieces of sherbet or sugar in my hair them pretend they were nits so I could find them and squish them.

And I dip my toast in my coffee

I used to put my dad's spare specs on then jump off the arm of the chair. The ground would rush towards me and I'd pretend I was landing after a parachute jump.

I used to rip leaves into dinosaur shapes.
I used to rip the corners of pages and eat them.
I used to eat raw bacon.

On car journeys I would imagine a horse galloping along beside us, keeping up. Clearing hedges, etc in the fields by the roadside.

In my head I'd draw a line between the corners of objects, or four wheels on a car. To make a square. I'd join the dots, one, two, three, four. And then I'd have to reverse it to take the line off the object.

Oh yes a few more....

Drink the vinegar out of the pickled onion jar

Tomato soup - sliced white bread. Peel the crusts off dunk and eat. Tear remaining bread into small bits the squash and roll into solid balls, drop in soup, eat.

Eat dry weetabix with butter and marmelade on

Wind hair round fingers then run between my lips. Everyone thought i was sucking it but i wasn't.

Apparently you shouldn't drink bathroom water as dead rats could be floating in the tank......

I'm another one who had to be properly wrapped in quilt - used to roll back and forth to get it wrapped, tuck it under feet and grasp with hands under my chin.

My brother would eat the dog treats that looked like little wedges of cheese.

I used to steal birthday cake candles from the drawer and then take them upstairs and light them in my dolls house! I liked pretending it was Victorian times in my dolls house and only candlelight would do....how I LOVED that game and how my Mum didn't notice is beyond me!

Now my DD is at the same age and I'm sure I'd notice if she did such a thing. My dolls house was a 1970s one and constructed entirely out of plastic and paper for God's sake!

Pull all the petals off my Mum's roses that her father had planted for her so me and my cousin could make perfume for her. She always put some of it on and said how lovely it was shortly before binning it when we were out of the way so we made her some more as soon as the roses had petals again.

I had mirrors on my wardrobe doors, that when I opened the doors the mirrors faced each other, so I'd open the doors, sit on the floor between the mirrors, and see my reflection mirrored dozens of times. I'd name all the images, and pretend they were my friends. We'd all sing together, like a choir.

Also used to believe there was a little old couple living in my ear, who would sit on a tiny sofa and watch telly.

I used to collect the cardboard inner tubes from the toilet roll. I had hundreds.

Also sucked sponges and flannels.

Oh, and when I was slightly older (11 ish?) I'd set fire to tissues in the kitchen sink.

On holiday in Portugal one year (I was 7) I adopted 2 drinking straws, named them, chatted to them, kept them under a rock for the fortnight. Meant to bring them home, but somehow lost them on the plane. I was devastated.

I used to bite the pine furniture - it made a really nice sound.

I would ask the butcher for stickers every Saturday morning, then come home and stick them to the side of the bookcase. I'd be annoyed if the butcher messed up my pattern - e.g. giving me light blue 'pork loin' stickers 2 weeks running, when I needed a red 'beef mince' sticker!

I LOVED making potions! My favourite was talc and water in a little jar, to which I would add orange pips and store on the shelves of my 'A la Carte Kitchen'. Or I would mix up all the lotions from the bathroom under-sink cupboard and make beauty treatments to cover my doll's 'skin' with.

Flannel sucker here too . I also used to drink the scummy soapy water that came out of my mums washing machine hose.

I was a prolific nose picker and if I got a big one that rolled up into a nice ball, I'd stick it back up my nose for safe keeping.

I also like to suck the end of bone knitting needles ,they tasted lovely

I ate a whole plastic bead bracelet...

I was about 5 and did this lying in bed (not at all dangerous!) It began with absent mindedly chewing on one of the smaller beads (they went from pea sized to malteser sized!) which cracked and came off the elastic. For some reason I really enjoyed rolling it around in my mouth then swallowing it. This went on every night until eventually I'd ingested the whole lot - apart from the elastic

I also used to eat tissues and the beads (again!) off those cheap coin purses you used to get in the 80's.

Another flannel sucker/finger seamstress and I also enjoyed licking defrosting bacon, like some sort of savoury ice lolly

Oh god I have just remembered that I would chew up bits of paper and then store them in a plastic bag and then...SNIFF THEM. Why would anyone ever do that??

I had a cousin who wouldn't eat anything for breakfast except Go-Kat dry cat food with milk poured on it. And my aunt let her do it and thought it was hilarious! Went on for years.

Shaky:
"I also had a phase of pulling my hair out, strand by strand. It was very satisfying, especially if it was a very thick, rough hair. I now know that it a very subtle type of self harm. I still do it now, especially if I am particularly anxious."

:O really. I did this a lot (until I discovered straighteners in fact!) And still pull out any really rough ones I find! I didn't know it was an anxiety symptom but it makes sense!

"I am also a skin picker, especially on my heels. It bloody hurts when you do it too much but very difficult to stop. Also another form of self harm."

I still do that. Especially cuticles

I don't eat paper, sleep with my duvet folded under me (did this at Uni a few times even!), make myself dizzy trying to focus on things flying past the car/ count things/ watch the barriers go up and down, make little sugar 'eggs' (half-fill an eggcup with sugar and put a drop of golden syrup on it, then tip into my mouth like a shot and suck on it! No wonder I had so many fillings), write my name, age, and address in all my books, or drink bathwater any more though!

I used to make shoes out if paper... a lot

i used to walk everywhere on my tiptoes.doesnt seem too weird but think of doing it asll the time everytime.it got to a point i had to go to the dr as i was cringing in pain.

I used to waddle around upstairs on all fours pretending to be a dog.

Once, I tried to go downstairs on all fours like dogs do. Just the once

Having been told that holding your breath can cure hiccups, I held mine every morning whilst the water from my morning wash ran down the basin plughole to ensure I didn't get hiccups that day. I did this for years. Most days it worked!

Had to leave the loo before the flush had stopped.

widdle I tried going down the stairs head first too, except I was emulating a cat. My head felt very heavy & as if it was pulling me down & I thought "this wasn't a very good idea!"

I used to have to sing the theme song to a telly program before getting into bed "hey, it's tickle town, and there's the river tum, tickle on the tum, tickle on the what? Tickle on the tum! Oh yeah, tickle on the tum!"

I used to swallow cherry stones. I remember my mum counting the stones that were left & realising I'd been eating them too.

I tried walking sideways from one side of the house to the other to see if my eyes would go all the way round and I could see inside my head. Made sense at the time!