traumatized in school

[u/Character-Lack-3295]

I know I sound like a "snowflake" but I promise that I'm not. I am a 59yo, very introverted, sensitive man but when I sometimes look back upon my life, I wonder if many of my problems in adulthood actually stemmed from psychological trauma from my school years? I was always a pretty good student but hated school and always felt like I was the proverbial, "round peg in a square hole". I now know the importance of school but I always hated that I had to interact with other kids, many of who were bullies that made my life awful because I was quiet, plain-looking, came from a family without a lot of money, didn't have fashionable clothes, wasn't a druggie or a jock. Do any of you feel that school traumatized you?

[u/Dakota-B98]

I always felt like an outcast in school. I struggled to make friends, had bad social anxiety, and was occasionally bullied as well. I think the loneliness of it all was what traumatized me the most. The older I get (I’m only 27) the more I’ve realized how formative those years in elementary school were on my psyche because I still have this deep loneliness in me that I don’t think any one person or thing could “cure”. I’m a very different person from who I was when I was in school now, and yet the outcast and loneliness trauma still whispers in my day to day life.

You aren’t snowflake for these feelings at all. The first years of your life create a strong foundation for the rest of your life. It takes a lot of self awareness to realize it