do you regret things you did when you were young

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when i was 17 i moved out of my mum's house as she wanted me out anyway and i was practically homeless so i thought that drinking alcohol would help me make it in the world
i was the biggest attraction with men and i slept around with different men and they gave me alcoholic drinks and money for having sex with them
i worked in a chippy with men that all fancied me even the boss and he even let me drink alcohol at work which i did
i didnt really understand at the time that these guys were dirty and using me for sex but the alcohol covered my autism up big time and i was loud and flirty
i got other jobs besides the chippy but got fired from those for turning up drunk
for some reason i came off the contraceptive pill and became pregnant with my son and from the day I found out i was pregnant i didnt touch a drop of alcohol and i havent drank since
my dad made me move out of london and in with him and my sister in a smaller town to bring up my son and and he my dad was manager of a coach company and he made me have driving lessons then trained me up driving coaches he got me a job as a coach driver

but i still regret the life i lived when i was young and if my dad hadnt have known what i was up to and hadnt saved me i still might have been an alcoholic prostutite type of slut today ugh what was i thinking
uh

Wow your story reminds me what a privileged upbringing I had. I can't honestly relate to your experience other than going through a period where I was alcoholic in my early 30s and having no idea where I was, waking up in strange places and getting into fights. Yeah I do regret those decisions.

There's a really good book by an Australian writer called Kate Holden called "In My Skin" a memoir of her life after leaving home and becoming a drug addict and prostitute.
https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/in-my-skin

Kate is really good about retelling her life/experiences and how she came to terms with her past life. I strongly recommend it and hope you come to terms with your regrets.

Everyone has past regrets even if some of mine were rather tame in comparisson to others regrets, and I still make mistakes to this day. Everyone does.
You did very wdll to come off alcohol. It is common for people with drink problems to deny they have the problem. Orhers can see it, but those who drink seem blinded to it. It is good you saw that it was not a good thing for you and you made the change.

Put it this way. There is good that has come out of the bad. You have a son. You have also learned from your mistakes and you have a good job that you would not have been able to get if you had never given up the drink. (Bus driving jobs are almost as strict as railway jobs as far as alcohol is concerned).

It seems to me you've put these awful things behind you. You should be proud of your life and not regret those things.

Some small things, sure, but I have way more regrets about things I didn't do. For example, had I really understood the importance of social skills and networking when it comes to getting a good job and creating a career out of it earlier, I would've started to seriously study those things a lot earlier.

yeah...I err almost became a neo-nazi when I was 17, certainly not my proudest moment. I did back out before it went all the way that far but still it was disgusting IDK what got into me that I would have considered that. I mean I kind of know I was trying to deal with trauma and may parents were too busy fighting to be much help and so idk I was having a lot of negative mixed up feelings and somehow viewing one thing on the internet led to another and I don't even remember how it initially started I just remember getting sucked in a bit and then my mom confronted me because my younger brother 'snitched' but not badly he was concerned about me and so I don't blame him like any sibling should maybe bring it to their parents attention if their sibling is getting sucked into nazi crap.

I guess I am just glad that after all that, me and my brother still have a good relationship...sure he from time to time gives me crap about the 'nazi phase' but I mean that is understandable it happened and it was shameful. I mean maybe I shouldn't even post this or 'cancel culture' will get me. Well if it ever comes up publically(unlikely as I doubt I would ever get public spotlight) I'd still own up to it rather than trying to justify or defend it. Like I figure all I could do is apologize for anyone I may have offended during that phase and then just own up that I did something crappy that I regret.

I know I didn't go off the rails when I was in that age bracket (18-24) but I did suffer with bad mental health. If you go back on my old posts here from 2011-2013 you'll see what I mean.
I was so angry with myself and kept having rage outbursts, verbally lashing out at my family. It felt like bipolar, but I don't think it was because I'm not sure one can develop bipolar then grow out of it again. But sometimes I was happy and content, then all of a sudden it wouldn't take much to find myself screaming and crying and swearing and even hitting myself and taking it out on my family. It was like I had manic depression because I hated myself for having AS.

Just be glad your dad came to your rescue, and you responded well to what he did, and that you moved forward, and didn’t let the past influence your future.

Just be glad you’re alive—for it’s possible you might not have been had you continued living the sort of life you were living.

To me, regretting the past is useless. It doesn’t do any good. It might actually be very bad for you.

I’ve seen too many people allow the past to influence their future.....and end up in very bad situations.

YES

But I was the extreme opposite. I took everything too literally and was too pedantic and too much of a perfectionist and too prissy and too uptight.

I had no social awareness and crossed over lines with people too often which makes me cringe now.

I pushed people away rather than drawing them to me and now I'm old and single.

I've mellowed out though and have made some good friends, but I find young me very annoying.

Yes I do regret a lot of what I did when I was young.... BUT.... Asperger's was ultimately the blame for it (or, should I say not knowing I have it).

At the time I didn't know I had Aspergers and so I couldn't recognise behaviour and adapt my life to cater for it. For example, I remember overhearing a group of lads talking about their clubbing antics. To me this was "cool" and a way to fit in with people. So I'd become obsessed and went out clubbing a lot (on my own, no friends to go with). Then because of all the Aspergers symptoms, I would typically drink quicker and drink more. I'd end up so wasted that I acted like a drunken idiot and would do such stupid things. I'd be thrown out of clubs, and even on several occasions, this one bouncer would go for me in a rage because I'd have wound him up. Again, behaviour I was just mimicking. I'd seen some lads winding up another bouncer and all of them, including the bouncer were laughing and joking around (I did it expecting the same joke and laughs reaction from the other bouncer). In hindsight I can see the reason for the jokes and laughs was because those lads knew the bouncer personally and were friends, so of course a bouncer who didn't know me would react differently.

Once, I ended back up at some random peoples house. Not very nice people at that. When they smoked, they dropped cigarette ash on the carpet. Again, I somehow latched onto them doing that as it being "cool". So when back at mine smoking, I'd flick ash onto the carpet as well.

The crazy thing is until knowing I have Asperger's many years later, I didn't recognise any of this "latching on" and "mimicking" behaviour. It was done subconsciously.

Certainly I regret my actions, but I'm more annoyed and regretful that medical services were no help in correctly diagnosing me, when looking back on it, it would have been completely obvious. This would have helped prevent any of that happening because I'd have taken a different approach.

Yep. I did stupid things to seem “cool,” too.

Once, I wore (American) football shoulder pads to school, thinking it would make me look stronger. That backfired....

I certainly did very similar things to what @Markasp and @kraftiekortie describe. But that comes nowhere near the sort of things the OP experienced.

I came close a number of times

When I was 10 years old, I followed my bus driver to his home, hoping he would be my friend.

Luckily, this was 1971, and not 2020; otherwise, I would be accused of “stalking.”