Ryan Annese, a 25-year-old who goes by @rytoast10 on TikTok, recently asked other TikTok users to share "the most messed up thing you did as a kid that you still feel guilty about today."
Ryan told BuzzFeed that his parents are, in fact, still married today (to answer one of the main questions he gets in the comments). Here's his full story below:
"When I was in fifth grade, me and my friends were talking at recess about what we wanted for Christmas. One of the kids was like, 'Yeah, I get two Christmases now because my parents got divorced last year.' So, my immediate thought was, 'Wow, I want two Christmases.' After school that day, I went home, made a Match.com account for my mom and left it up on my dad’s work laptop. He checked his email that night, found it, packed my mom’s bags, and she went to a hotel room. I immediately felt regret, and the next day we had a family meeting with my brothers, and they told us they were getting a divorce. Seconds after they said that, I said it was me, and it was because I wanted two Christmases. My parents and my two older brothers did not look at me or talk to me for two months after. But I was 11."
After Ryan's video, several TikTok users shared the "messed up" things they did during childhood that they still feel guilty about. Here are some of the wildest ones:
1. This brutal revenge:
"This neighborhood kid stole my skateboard, and I asked his dad if he could come out and play. When he came out to play, I was waiting on a hill with a rock, and I chucked the rock in his general direction, hit him dead in the face, and broke his nose. It was horrible, and I’m sorry."
2. This hit-and-run:
"We committed a hit-and-run at 12 and 13 years old and told no one. So, my dad had to go return a library book. He left us waiting in the car, [with the] car running. My brother thought it would be hilarious to jump into the driver’s side seat, reverse out, and pick up my dad at the door, and be like, ‘Haha, we moved the car.’
"As he was pulling out, he bangs into this minivan — like HARD. My dad’s car is fine, this minivan is [messed up]. We just put it back in park, we jump back over to our seats, and we’re like, '...We’re gonna be in so much trouble. What are we gonna do?...' My dad gets back into the car, and we’re just silent. And as we’re pulling away, both of us looking at each other, this mom comes back to her minivan, and you can just hear her screaming."
3. This very rocky accusation:
"When I was in pre-K4...I collected a bunch of rocks in my shoes from the playground, and I was putting them in both of my ears. I put like five in one, empty them out, and then do the other ear. So, in my left ear I put six rocks in, emptied them out, and only five came out...
"At this point, I’m freaking out ‘cause I don’t wanna tell my mom that I put rocks in my ears, so I lied and said that a kid from school was throwing rocks at me at recess. We’re [4 years old], and I had to go to the hospital and had to get put to sleep so they could take it out, then go to the school. It was a huge thing, [the kid] is bawling in the principal’s office, and I’m accusing him like, 'You did it, stop lying' — and he’s crying."
4. These loyal friends:
"My friend and I were annoyed at another friend, and we made a map and a plan to lose her in the forest. It was third or fourth grade, but still, that’s awful."
5. This fundraiser thief:
"I was in junior high, and we had this fundraiser where it was basically just a blind bag. If you gave them a dollar, you got to reach in and get a Starbust. The odds were weighted so that most people just got pink and all they got was the Starburst, but for orange, you got your money back. If you got a red, you got two dollars, and if you got a yellow, you got ten dollars.
"That school also had a vending machine where you could get a whole pack of Starburst for one dollar, so I did that with my first dollar instead, and I put a yellow in my sleeve so that when I reached into the bag, I always got the ten dollars. They were like, 'This kid is so lucky!' I was stealing from a fundraiser that was feeding other kids."
6. This slippery playground:
"When I was in middle school, I got a pair of Soap shoes...they’re basically if rollerblades didn’t have blades, so you could grind on stuff. [Me and my friends] went to the playground, and my friends didn’t have Soap shoes, so they couldn’t grind on stuff...So, we went to the grocery store, bought a big can of Crisco, rubbed it all over everything on the playground [so that] my friends could do cool grinds.
"The next day, a newsletter came out to the school and was like, 'Somebody put grease all over the playground. Several kids fell and got hurt'...and it was awful, but we were just trying to do Soap shoes stuff, and I never owned up to it until right this moment. And I’m so sorry. Sorry if you were one of those kids."
7. This flushable solution:
"I think I was 5. I went into a public restroom, and they must have been doing maintenance or something, because there was stuff all over the floor — including screws. My child brain was like, 'This looks important; they shouldn’t leave this lying around. What if somebody takes it?' So, I flushed all the screws down the toilet. And I was like, 'Now they’ll learn not to leave things lying around.'"
8. This pretend prank that was actually very real:
"When I was younger, I thought that I was in a TV show at all times...I would be in a normal situation, then I would look 'off camera' and be like, 'Can you believe this is happening?' — things like that.
"One time in particular, my older brother spent all day typing a research paper, and he had to help my mom with something. So, my mom was like, 'Liv, whatever you do, do not touch the computer.' I was like, 'Got it.' The second they left the room, I went over and pretended I was gonna delete it, because I’m the 'evil sister' in this TV show that I’ve created in my mind. Unfortunately for me, I [actually] deleted it."
9. This ruthless crush:
"Fifth grade, I had a massive crush on this boy named Timmy. And we were playing that jump rope game where it’s like, 'Who do you like? A, B, C, D,' and so I purposefully landed on the T, because I liked Timmy. The entire class was like, 'Ooo, Timmy!' and I felt instant regret...So, I was mean to him for the rest of the year, and he had this best friend, Jake, so I was mean to Jake, too.
"At one point, I told Jake — I feel really bad even saying it out loud — 'You know, you’re so ugly that your mom has to put a paper bag over your head before she kisses you goodnight.' He said, 'My mom doesn’t kiss me goodnight.' And I said, 'Exactly.'"
10. This first grade joke gone wrong:
"I was in [first grade], and I brought a knife to school — it was a play knife, like a plastic knife. We had just gotten to school, and I was unpacking my backpack, and I looked over at the boy next to me, and I was like, 'Look what I’ve got.' He told the teacher, and she grabbed me by the ear and dragged me to the office...I was in a lot of trouble."
11. This Webkinz burglar:
"I would go into stores that sold Webkinz and memorize the codes that came with them. I’d go home and adopt the pets online with the codes that I memorized. Then, when people would buy them in the stores, it wouldn’t work when they went home because I already used the code."
12. This ~knotty~ trick:
"I was in first or second grade, and at recess, this kid asked me to double knot his shoes. Like, I knew he meant, ‘Would you just tie my shoes in a bow and then knot the bow?’ But me, I was such a jerk — I literally took his shoelaces and tied them double into really tight knots that he could not get out... He looked at me and just said, 'Okay, thanks.' And he didn’t know that I did it wrong.
"I knew it was so rude to do, and I still to this day feel so bad."
13. And this horrifying pencil incident:
"We were in grade school, and the teacher assigned us into these little groups, and we had to go in the hallway to work on this project...This girl in my group was sitting there and had a pencil, and she stuck it up her nose...trying to be funny or something...
"My body — it was a reaction, and I still feel bad to this day — my hand, I just went WHACK [and hit the pencil], and the pencil went up her nose. She started gushing blood everywhere.
"I remember that, and I still feel bad to this day, so I’m sorry."
What's the wildest thing you did as a kid that you still feel guilty about? Let me know in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.