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?

And I still bite skin off my lips and from round my fingernails.

I used to paint my fingers with pva for the joy of peeling it off! I also used to lick keys..... My fingers all had genders/family roles etc as well - in my defence I was an only child.....

I used to twirl my hair into knots, my parents gave me a really severe haircut in the end, which appeared to stop it. In fact, it just made me slightly more careful about really tying it in knots and I still twiddle it a lot now.

I was also a horse until I was about 12.

My sister and I used to play barbies by throwing them out the window, then making plaster casts out of loo roll (goes satisfyingly hard if you get it wet then let it dry), probably considered an early sign of serial killers (or nurses) in the making (we are neither). We also used random product names in our imaginary games, Timotei was a hero, Jojoba a total villain.

And I wonder why my kids seem a bit odd at times...

Used to lock myself in the bathroom and put some water in the sink, then add EVERYTHING i could find, shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath, shower gel, tooth paste, mouth wash, and always lastly, talc... lots of it, to turn it all into a paste.

Then when my mum would come knocking asking what I was up to I used to shit myself trying to get it to all go down the plughole

This thread is hilarious!

I'm not sure if this counts but, I had this weird phobia of eating everything on my bed in my sleep. So if there we're any toys nearby or mum put my clothes on my bed for the next day,I'd go to sleep worrying that they'd be in my stomach when I woke up.

I was a greedy kid

"I also, until very recently in fact, could only sleep when my duvet was fully wound under my toes, so that no spiders could creep up my toes at night and bite me in the leg a la Arachnaphobia!"

You are the only person I have ever heard of who does this too! I am beyond myself with excitement at that purely so I can tell DP "Up yours!" because he thinks I'm a blanket-stealing toe-wiggling paranoid muppet.

I have to have the blanket wraped under my feet and tucked in around me. I have only very recently started being able to wear socks to bed which has stopped me doing it so much under my feet but I still have it tucked in around my sides.

This stems from a childhood fear that snakes would get into my bed. For the same reason I would never have the window of my bedroom open until last year as a child at night.

I would be paranoid about spiders crawling into my mouth or ears as I slept so would cover my mouth and ears too.

I used to have a small screw that I would twist into the wooden window sill in my bedroom. It was covered in holes and I would collect the sawdust I produced. At the same time I would completely deny I was doing it

I stopped completely when my parents had the windows and sills replaced probably under threat of murder from my mother

Put my tongue on the end of batteries

Id steal oxo cubes from the cupboards and eat them - only beef ones though! Also used to mix vinegar with water and drink it

I used to eat toothpaste and drink mouthwash, including in other people's homes. Not just fresh stuff from the tube either, if there was a splat clinging to the inside of the sink, from other peoples teeth cleaning, I would scoop it out and eat that too, ewww
Not surprising that my mum had to supervise my brushing until i was way into secondary school.....the shame

I used to full all the 'sticky up' feathers out of the duvet.

Ooh...the Oxo one reminded me of eating concentrated Jell-O Powder and Kool-Aid Mix straight from the packet on the school bus. We also used to have these disgusting lunch-box treats called 'Fruit Roll-Ups' that you could roll around your index finger into kind of a cone and we used to leave them on all day and suck on until they got all soggy and disgusting.

Sick.

Oh my god, I used to love eating Winalot biscuits.

The sink in the bathroom had a rubber plug on a chain. If I got up through the night thirsty, I would turn the plug upside down, fill it with water and drink it. It held a tiny bit of water so I would sit there for a while till my thirst was quenched!!
I can still taste the 'bathroom water'

Roonil I did this time. He actually found them years ago as well when we were still friends and at that point I denied all knowledge as I hadn't been living at my parents house for years by this point. Completely forgot until it happened again a couple of months ago and he just knew, like he always bloody does when I've been caught out doing or thinking something embarrassing! Git.

educated RE skin biting, same. I've stopped biting my nails now but the skin chewing remains, though it's better than it was! I have used the nail clippers once or twice too to do the same as when I was a child weirdly

knees My Dad got me into doing that to batteries. He thought it was hilarous to dare us to do it! Until we then started doing it for the sheer hell of it

Sniggering away at Timotei and Jojoba

I'm loving this thread!

confusedpixie eeeeee I wondered if I'd find anyone who did it! I honestly only just stopped about 2yrs ago but when I'm on my own in bed, or if I'm feeling a bit tired and my brain is frazzled I still have to do it to be able to relax properly to sleep :)

Aaaaaaah I feel all at one with the world now

Oh! My brother made me put my tongue on the end of a battery when I was 4. I remember the buzzing feeling!

I was obsessed with cleaning out the gunk from the butterfly back of earrings. I'd clean it out using the stem of the earring. My mums used to be full of gunk and I had such an obsession with poking it out. I might have to ask her if she's got any gunky earrings tomorrow

I used to scratch my head until it bled, wait a few days and then pick the scab. So satisfying. I'd check my mum and dads heads for scabs too.

I used to perform concerts in my bedroom every night too but that's normal, right?!

Oh, also eat the 'clover' from the school field because it was 'sweet'....god knows what was on it (dog wee etc) - I'm strangely ok with my DCs eating random things after my childhood. mummy I did the plug-drinking too - you've just reminded me! Why didn't I just use my hand?

I did plug drinking too but had forgotten. The plug was always a bit grotty too

Oh cleo! How funny! I remember my mum telling me that you couldn't drink bathroom water so it was like I was doing something really naughty.

I was a book eater, don't think I have a single childhood book with all the edges on the pages. I would also pick of and eat dried pva on the glue bottles. bite my lips til they bleed, same with my fingers. and I bit the hands and feet of all my barbies and dolls. I'd chew anything tbh. Still do Guess whos a smoker

My mum and dad had 'padded' wallpaper stuff in the toilet - it was the 80's! And I used to sit on the toilet and dig my nails into it to make patterns. By the time they got rid of it there was hundreds and hundreds of nail marks dug into it and yet I denied that I had anything to do with it!