Discussion»Questions»Life and Society» Did you do anything in your youth because it was the "in thing" then, which adversely affected your life for several years thereafter?
I didn't try in school. Where I'm from it's very blue collar and people had jobs before they were even done school. It wasn't cool to pay attention or even show up for class back then. There was no shows like "The Big Bang Theory" being a nerd wasn't popular. I don't actually have my highschool diploma because I was working already and partying my guts out on the weekends. I think if I would've applied myself I could've done whatever I wanted, but sometimes things happen for a reason and I have no real career so I have a lot of time to be a dad and that's been the best thing to ever happen to me so maybe it turned out how it was supposed to?
I was, unbelievably more of a trendsetter than a trend follower when I was younger... I am almost the exact opposite now. But no, nothing I did had lasting consequences :)
I was very self-destructive as a teen and young woman. That is not to say I didn't take care of myself, more like I didn't know how to properly do so. I would stay up for days, I would not eat right, I would take recreational drugs too much in my late teens. That kind of thing. It was never more than LSD or pot. No cocaine or heroin, but hardly nutritional.
So, it wrecked my nerves and caused a lot of undue anxiety. Also I drank too much. That really affected my nerves.
I would have NEVER touched booze had I known it would hurt me like this. So, that one for sure.
I don't know. Don't really think I have ever really known much about what was the "in" thing. But certainly drugs and smoking were around a lot in the early 70s and most people I know did them and I got into them which, yes, was very harmful and I am still undoubtedly suffering the negative of even now years later. But I wanted to feel good - not sure how "trendy" that is.
A certain number of girls my age rejected the supposed societal norm that sex was supposed to be about getting a proper husband and we wanted to think of ourselves as "liberated" so we gave ourselves more simply and easily even though we were not mature enough to really handle that. Which was I guess "in" for us then. I don't know - I think in a way that saved me because I could feel good about myself for myself and not just through harmful means like drugs and alcohol and smoking. Though those went along with it for many years. But I guess it quite unfitted me for monogamy because I became accustomed to the thrill and strokes of multiple lovers and though I always wanted and needed a serious close and continuing relationship the way it has worked out is I continued to some extent to want the other as well.