Ok, I see, but you "still" had a period where you were productive and thrived, that is a positive in "your" life that you deserve to be proud of. There are times where when a person finally finds their way towards functioning better, that person can experience an awareness of what was "missing" in their life that interfered with their having that happen sooner. There are things that person experienced in their life where looking back that person can see how they were failed and how that contributed to holding them back from achieving more and being more confident in themselves and feeling "safe" to be more self confident. This kind of grief is something a lot of people experience and it's actually very common for a person to go through a period of depression in their life because of this too. Truth is cool09 even people who have achieved stardom and fame and success can experience this challenge. If you spend time learning about different individuals and read their biographies, there are things you will learn about different individuals who "looked" like they had it ALL, and yet they actually suffered and struggled to achieve a sense of "safety and happiness" in their lives.

I believe you when you talk about things you experienced that were "wrong and unfair" to you. I really believe that you "know" yourself and the history of your private world, your own life and how you had needs that were unmet that contributed to your feeling "low self esteem and self worth" and you are at a point where you can point out places in your history where you were failed and perhaps even traumatized.

It's actually not surprising that you struggle with your history the way you have described, truth is a lot of people have that challenge and have to take time to reach out for help and therapy so they can "grieve" whatever they feel was "lost" to them in their personal history. I believe you when you share how you fell through the cracks and struggled in school too, this is something so many people experience. Unfortunately, there is too much focus on what a child gets wrong instead of what a child learns to get "right" so it's not surprising that a lot of people have some "self esteem" issues when it comes to their experiences with school.