Apart from stuff on social media, an ex-partner telling me I’m unlovable.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
An English teacher said, “You’ll never make anything of yourself.”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 September 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 125 →“Your cooking sucks” – before I learned to cook in Covid.
They tend to say it behind my back.
Someone once saw me in a play and said that I was disgusting.
More from Penny Lancaster
View profile →Trusting someone and being let down.
I’m a bit of a hoarder.
Lack of empathy.
It was reading out loud, but no longer. (I am dyslexic.) I was encouraged by my husband to do a speech for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which helped me gain my confidence, and the fear disappeared.
In a different sense, I’ve helped to try to resuscitate a dead man.
The children. As a mother you are constantly worrying whether you’ve done the right thing.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 372 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 207 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 79 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 40 answers
Also answered this
Maggie O'Farrell, Mariella Frostrup, Dervla Kirwan, Jason Manford, Rita Wilson, Clive Myrie
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- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject