Hey, Pandas, What Is A Survival Tactic You Were Told As A Child That You Now Realize Is Wrong As An Adult?

This is more of an emotional survival tactic. My parents never taught me how to stand up for myself. They actively discouraged it. It was always, "just ignore it", which is sad because they never stood up for me either. It took me a long time to have the confidence to stand up for myself and not feel bad about it.

Stranger danger. Which is followed by, “if you’re lost find an adult”. Strangers aren’t nearly as dangerous as the people closest to children but approaching a stranger and saying you’re lost is a recipe for disaster. Personally, my mom told me not to ask strangers for help and never go near cops. I was told to seek out a middle age female with kids or an elderly lady. My grandmother still says that the biggest star in the night sky will lead you home. I think I’ll stick with google maps.

Just to clarify before I answer this,
I am not an adult yet, and these were more things my mother told me because she was overprotective and never wanted to see me hurt. She was also kinda toxic though… anyways!

If someone breaks in, stay in your room! Spoiler alert, bedrooms are probably the first place an intruder looks. Also she told me this so many times it made me severely paranoid.

Always… ALWAYS… sit down to eat something. No walking around or laying down and eat VERY slowly (emphasis on VERY) so you don’t choke sweetie! Kept telling me this even when I was 12 and could literally do Heimlich on an INFANT as part of my babysitting training.

Don’t cry or get angry at school or everyone will hate or bully you. This was much less of a survival tactic as it was a way to enforce her “No anger” and “no crying unless physically hurt or bleeding” rule… and this made me hide all emotion from her.

I think that is it. Mostly because I have never been taught how to cook or do laundry, actual needed life skills. So right now she has no opportunity to give me paranoid “survival tactics” (heavy air quotes)

Trusting people

That I could make a fire with 2 sticks if I was stuck or lost in the wilderness. I have tried and it's basically impossible. I HAVE used a magnifying glass to start a fire though. Not because I needed to, I was just curious.

1. Not sure this counts as a survival tactic, but the idea that 'if you're a girl and a boy bullies you, ignore it, it's because he likes you'. Yeah, so the whole of my year level was after me in third grade?? hmmm...I think not.

2. 'Tell a teacher/an adult/your parents'. First off, when you're in school, telling a teacher does nothing. Secondly, sometimes, there really are no adults to help you. I was 12 when I had to convince my best friend not to kill herself. If I told my parents about ehr issues, I wouldn't have been allowed to talk to her for some stupid reason. HER parents were abusive. The school made matters worse. Then at 13 another of my friends was raped and could tell no one. And the list goes on all through my teenage years. The moral of the story? Adults are usually the ones CAUSING the problems. When you need them most, they're not there, and at other times, you're thought too young to have any real issues. I had to grow up quickly, and it wasn't just me.

I hated school I was very intelligent but did bad in class. I also got bullied very bad in my early years and I learned the only way I could avoid schools if I was sick. Pretty soon I would try to make myself throw up so I could go to the nurse and get sent home. Eventually it became so bad that now whenever I don't want to do something I automatically get nauseous and sick. It's something I am trying to train myself out of at 42 years old I still have this survival tactic get rid of.

NOT from my parents but I learned not to brag about my accomplishments. I was smart, pretty, friendly etc and wanted to be like big sister. Apparently she was jealous of me? I wanted so much to be her friend and hangout. I'm freshman she's a senior. 3 guys asked me to senior prom, one of whom I really liked. She went ballistic, I couldn't go. English class. I'm doing freshman college English and helped her with a paper. Teacher (same for both of us) thought I wrote it for her (all I did was clean it up), so blow to her ego. So I never tooted my own horn cause I didn't want people to think I was bragging. Finally away from sister, realized it was OK and good to be proud of myself.

Maybe not survival tactic... But definitely the wrong message.
My mother was applying a full face of makeup and curling her hair mid afternoon... I asked her where we were going. She replied "Nowhere. You want to look pretty for your husband when he comes home from work so that he always looks forward to seeing you."
This stuck with me well into my early 30's. I have since chucked that b******t right in the trash!

“If someone is trying to grab you or is following you yell FIRE as loudly as you can because people will look”

Ummmm, I don’t know about y’all but if someone yells fire imma run the opposite way.

Not an adult, but drinking your own pee or the juice from cactus

Sure Pee has water, but the waste in will F u up.

There is only one cactus you can drink from, the others will cause you to vomit or have diarrhea making you even more dehydrated