I get that. I was traumatized by a bully too. She went so far as to humiliate me in front of the whole school by spreading a rumor that I was having a threesome with two of my female friends, when that never happened. This was in middle school, when my sexuality was beginning to develop and left me confused and disgusted, being that I am a female myself, yet felt attracted and whatnot to other females, but was being raised as a Catholic by my mother who was in turn, doing so to appease her very demanding and devoutly Catholic mother. Add to the mental health issues I've dealt with from a very early age, and how emotionally and mentally vulnerable I was at the time, and you can begin to imagine the struggles I was dealing with. Having this bully start those awful rumors about my two friends and I, and the constant sniggering and berating of my classmates and how it got so bad my friends and I had no choice but to go to the school principal to put a stop to it, it really began to take a toll on me mentally and psychologically.

However, as hurt and scarred as I was by her tormenting me, I grew to realize she was nothing more than a pathetic soul who felt she had to build her own sense of self worth by putting others down and being the center of attention. She also probably had her own set of emotional and psychological issues that were plaguing her. All in all, I just feel sadness and pity for her now, and though her actions have impacted how I view people in a public setting, I am aware that the feelings of paranoia I have are just that, paranoia, and I can then move on.

So, please, don't be so quick to judgement next time. I know it's something that is part of human nature, and something that is more or less an impulse or reaction, but it helps to take a few steps back and look at things from a non-objective viewpoint sometimes and think with logic, rather than your emotions.

I still stand by what I said, that the OP needs to realize that, yes, the past can hurt, and even hold trauma, but they can take what happened, learn from it, and use it to move on and prevent themselves from further feeling that hurt. We all have things in our past that are painful but if we lived by the pains of our past, letting them rule us and dictate our actions, we'd never get anywhere, never grow and learn. Learning, growing, and letting go of our past hurt is all part of this crazy thing called being human.