When I was twelve y/o, there was a girl in my class that was different. Her family was Mormon, and her dad was a hardliner. He made all the girls (even his wife), wear only long dresses of the type we used to call "granny dresses". None of the girls or his wife were allowed to wear makeup, and everyone had to get up at 4:30 am and go to bible study until school started. I, as a sheltered twelve y/o, did not know any of this or what it was like to live In a family where the children were basically "seen, not heard". For the first time in my life, I (and my best friend) thought it would be hilarious to pull a prank on her. I knew nothing about her family's religion. I had been so sheltered (along with lacking in real world common sense) that I thought everyone in the world was Catholic like my family. Like there really was no other religion anywhere. So I did not have a basic background in how other people's families might be different from mine. This is so terrible, but I promise you that I never meant to cause serious repercussions. At the time, as it was the late 70s, there was a bit of a sexual revolution going on, and there was an author named Erica Jong who wrote books that were the equivalent of our current '50 Shades of Gray'. I had never read them of course, but with titles like 'Parachutes and Kisses', they seemed just risque` enough to raise the proverbial eyebrow of parents. So there were, at the time, 'book clubs' that if you filled out the card with your reading choices and sent it back, you would receive those books in the mail and not have to pay until later. So, that is what we did, but using her name and address so that she would get these "risqué " titles, and everyone would have a good laugh after she told her parents that it was not her who ordered them. Wrong. Being unfamiliar with the dynamics of totalitarianism, I had no that just because she denied doing it did not mean she would be believed, and also, Mormons have the rule/belief that at eight y/o you become "responsible" for your actions and thus you don't get a "free pass" for your behavior just beause you're a kid. Ironically enough, I and this girl, Diane, became friends in high school. Good friends. I know she knew what I had done because the girl who I had thought was my best friend in 6th grade turned out to have been telling all her friends all the weird things I did. I say this because I am on the autism spectrum, undiagnosed and virtually unknown at the time, and had what other; kids would think were "weird" behaviors. (Irony anyone?) So a lot of things (and I mean a lot) about interpersonal relationships and how people convey their meaning and relate to each other went straight over my head.) We were talking about dads one day, (another factor, my dad died when I was eight. Getting weirder, huh) and she told me that she and her dad "didn't get along",something that I had never had any experience with, as my dad and I adored each other. She said it to me in a regretful, wistful way, which of course went right over my head. Another time, we went to her house during lunchtime to retrieve a textbook she said she needed. We went in the house downstairs, where her grandfather had a little shop he puttered in. As we ran by, she said "Hi Grandpa" in a little girl way, and continued up the stairs to the kitchen, where her mother and father were having coffee and lunch. She barely said hi to him. He turned around and gave me a piercing stare and that was the end. I'm sure she was trying to show me how my "prank" had affected her family dynamic and relationships, but I didn't think anything of it because I, like I mentioned before, was truly oblivious to the normal challenges other young people faced in their everyday interpersonal relationships with their parents. I really liked Diane, and if she had said something, anything, about my prank, I would have figured it out and probably 'fessed up. That was forty years ago, and I still feel awful.

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Michele Lein

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This isn’t very tragic, but every little embarrassing stuff I’ve ever said.
ever

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That one kid

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I blew $150k worth of inheritance on nonsense. Still kills me.

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ExistentialSoup

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Not being there when my son returned from Afghanistan. I’ll forever feel the guilt.

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Georgia Hebert

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Every social interaction I’ve ever had because :sparkles: anxiety :sparkles:

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An Unpopular Opinion.

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I have to add this for context. I was raised progressively and had a liberal mother. She had 'the talk' with me when I was four years old, so I grew up knowing about, and being able to read about, a lot of things that other kids would be forbidden to know. That is the main reason I did not think this little "prank" would cause trouble. I thought that everyone's parents were like mine. Totally open and uninhibited. No excuse, I know, but relevant.

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Michele Lein

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