I guess it was bullying for me. I was picked on consistently throughout most of elementary school. Why? Because I had really good grades and was shit at pretty much every sport. It never reached the level of serious fights or whatever but it really affected me. I was already a rather sensitive kid and you know, when everyone around is laughing at you for whatever reason they can find, every day for about 4 years, it can really fuck your shit up. I wasn't bullied later on in middle school but the damage was done, so to speak. I developed terrible social anxiety and this type of "us vs them" mentality, always suspected everyone of trying to pick on me, always took things more seriously than I should have, isolated myself from others and couldn't make friends at all. I've largely gotten over that anxiety part but my social life still sucks (probably due to the lack of experience in making friends as a kid).

I'm trying to not get too hung up on the past and so on but I sometimes wish I hadn't kept it all bottled up inside and just snapped at the people who picked on me. That I opened up to my parents more about the problem - they have always been very loving and supportive of me but I think I just quickly adapted to the role of a scapegoat and didn't think that it was as serious as it really was. I wish I had bonded with my classmates in middle school - now I see that they were actually pretty cool people I could have been friends with but I was just so weird, unapproachable and isolated... I'm doing much better now but all of it definitely had a big impact on me.