Weird things you did as a kid?

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Is there anything you did as a child that you never realized how weird it was until you looked back at it as an adult? When I was eight or so my little sister had a toy telephone that could take little five second recordings and play them back and I played with it more than she did. Eventually my mom found me and gave me her old cassette player and taught me how to record myself on it. I would spend hours sitting in my room speaking gibberish into it and giggling nonstop after replaying it. Then I had some friends over and played it for them saying it was the funniest thing in the world and I remember them just being like "... what the hell?"

Your turn!

I used to keep rewinding a video every time there was a burp, and listen to the burp about 10 times. I seemed obsessed with burps as a kid. I must have thought it was weird at the time though, because I remember not telling everyone I did this.

I used to HATE whenever someone would take a bite out of my food, so much so that I would flat-out abandon whatever it is I was eating. ...this did not go over well with family, as it came across as me saying they were repulsive, which was in no means my intent. This got to a point where one time when I was around 15 or so, my brother who is much stronger than I am threw me against a wall, pinned me there, shoved a slice of bread in my mouth and then proceeded to eat said slice. Sharing still bothers me, but I've learned from that to not make it other people's problem, and I've been able to hide it pretty well because it seems I'm completely over it.

I used to spend ages sitting in the dark in my wardrobe with the door closed. I also spent a lot of time lying underneath my heavy mattress. I used to think they were pretty weird things to do but now I understand why I did them I no longer think they are weird.

I am interested in why you spent so much time doing what you did. Just out of curiosity.

I used to spend hours on end in my bedroom, alone.

I disected the household while my (single) mom was at work. Toasters, Radio/CD-Players, TV Sets, mobile stuff, computers, loudspeakers, wall plugs (Had a shocking discovery ), our TV-Cable inlet, telephone, our telephone line inlet. I just tore everything that ran electricity apart out of wanting to know how it works. And more than once, clumsy me broke it in the process of doing so. My mom said she was always afraid i would one day tear the washing machine or our fridge down lol

To be fair though, i probably would have if i had the physical strenght to move them around

Peace
TK

* I scooped ice cream into foil, wrapped it up, squeezed it, then ate it. I thought it gave it a nice new flavour.

* I stared at clocks so I could watch the hands move.

* I made up a game/story where I closed my eyes, covered them with one hand, then put my other thumb between my fingers, making sure I wouldn't see it. It was "The Big Thumb," which was a giant thumb that went to every house once a year to make sure everyone was asleep. Anyone who saw The Big Thumb would die immediately. I scared myself with this once, and had to sleep in my parents' bed.

* I looked at signs and pretended I couldn't read them so I could remember what it was like not being able to read. I still do this sometimes.

* I thought photos of people could see me, so I would never get changed near photos. If I embarrassed myself in front of a photo, I waved my hand in front of the person's eyes to erase it from their memory. I was like this for most of my life, and still believe they can see me sometimes.

* Whenever I went to the city, I pretended to put a spacesuit on like the ones astronauts wear, and I put my feet in the middle of every square on the ground, making sure I never stood on any of the edges.

* Until I was 13, whenever my family went to our favourite Italian restaurant, I arranged my leftover ham on my plate in the shape of a clock. It was always about 2:00 PM on my clock, and I did it every time. The person taking our plates away smiled at it.

* I loved water, and I played with toilet water a few times. One time, I remember the water going up to about my elbow.

* At night when the light was out, I could see tiny bits of colour floating around. I thought they were fairies, and I pictured them flying around the house. It made me feel safe.

* I span in circles, even after I was dizzy. It was fun. I started doing it again for a while when I was 12. It was for over 30 minutes sometimes. I would spin one way for a while, then change to the other way.

* I put my head underwater in the bath to pretend I was snorkelling. I imagined tropical looking fish.

* I pretended I could move things with my eyes. If I was in the car and it didn't go in the direction I wanted to go, I moved my eyes to where I wanted it to go.

I have liked doing that ever since I got a walk in wardrobe two years ago. I lay on the floor with the door shut and the light off. I go in there sometimes when my niece and nephew are here and house gets too noisy, and it's good for if I'm feeling anxious or need to cry. It always makes me feel better.

Too much heat and noise are my biggest sensory sensitivities. It was cool and peaceful inside my wardrobe and I found the darkness comforting. Lying under my mattress was also calming and comforting as I enjoyed the feeling of weight pressing down on me, and still do. Nowadays I use a heavy weighted blanket which is better as I can drape it over myself, giving me the same sensation of pressure all over my body, whereas the mattress only touched part of my body.

I also used to make up things and think adults would believe me. Like once when I was about 10 I was playing in the woods for a long time, and decided to tell my mum that I was kidnapped by pirates and had an adventure on their ship, and I tried to sound all serious about it and I thought she'd actually believe me. She obviously didn't, and she just assumed I had been playing a game of pirates.

I used to eat snow. And sand.

You have much in common with Temple Grandin, as she also gets comfort from weight upon her body. Check her out on YouTube.

My mother once had to convince me that swimming in a bathing suit in the summer was better than swimming in a dress. Which is really hard to believe since I haven't worn a dress in ages. Why must a woman's femininity/sexual orientation still be questioned over her preferring practical clothing?

That gets a big giggle of recognition from me!
In fact, I still do this quite a lot. One of my special interests is writing computer code for audio processing, so I usually have a live microphone on my desk for quick tests. Very often, this leads me into hours of spouting random nonsense while I fiddle with the controls. Anyone else who has heard this usually describes the mangled sounds as disturbing or something from a horror movie, but to me, it's hilarious to the point that I end up gasping for air. Poetry made up of nonsense words often has the same effect.

The other big one when I was a kid was an obsession with taking things apart and putting them back together again. I remember that when I used to have a shower, I would quite often take the shower head to pieces, as if I was a secret agent looking for "bugs". I did it a lot with those "clicky" ballpoint pens too - if I couldn't think what to write, I would take them apart and put them back together again over and over. I got in trouble quite a few times for taking things apart that I couldn't get back together again!

I was obsessed with the penis between the ages 6 and 8. I made up chants about the penis, replacing that word with the word tail. One of the chants went like this:

Girls go with a wipe-wipe, boys go with a tail....boys go with a tail....Tail!

Back in elementary school, during recess time whilst all the other kids would play on the swings, slides and monkey bars, I would instead lay down and press my face into the loose gravel that was all around the playground.

Another thing others thought weird was that I would hum seemingly randomly (not like singing, but rather a flat hum typically heard from people meditating). The reasons for this though, were simply because a). the vibrations from it on the roof of my mouth were pleasing, and b). sometimes I'd be trying to match the pitch with another sound coming from somewhere else (like a bathroom exhaust fan while I was in the living room) to where the two sounds seemed to "mingle" with one another (the name of such phenomena escapes me at the moment).