I'm glad to hear you have friends, including ones who've dealt with psych issues. IMHO, that's better than a shrink and/or a therapist at this stage for you. On this side of the pond, pdocs do nothing but prescribe meds. I did therapy with counselors for years. There comes a point where that can stop being of any great benefit. I think "peer support" can be the best there is, once a person is not flipping out incoherently. You write well and seem to have an organized, coherent grasp of what you've been through and how it may have affected you. I see a lot of posters on these forums who seem to be trying to get their need for human conection met through seeing a therapist. They fall in love with the therapist, or imagine their T is their best friend. They spend days counting down the minutes till their next therapy appointment. I don't believe therapists are quite as special as people want to believe - like they understand life better than the average plumber or hair dresser. I've worked in jobs where I had professional therapists as co-workers. Some of them are as screwed up in their own lives as the average client they see. In some cases - more so.

An hour and a half is too far to go to attend meetings. So do make the most of the circle of contacts you have. I think a lot of what constitutes recovery from a troubled past is "social-rehab." By that I mean developing healthy relationships and improving how one interacts with others. Humans are social creatures. We really are, to a large extent, defined by how we are linked to others. I think most psych problems revolve around a sociability problem. In my case, I'm sure that's true.

One thing you mentioned above gave me pause. You seemed to say that you were bullied into behavior that caused you difficulties. I remember when being bullied had a narrower definition than how it is used today. It used to mean being coerced into something against your will by someone who had a power advantage over you. Nowadays, just being insulted is called being bullied. That really dilutes the concept into meaninglessness. Not every form of peer pressure rises to the level of bullying. It's not pleasant to be taunted, but taunts don't usually represent real coercion. So I think you might be over-looking some factors in what drove your behavior at age 17, by automatically putting it down to bullying. That might be over-simplifying things.