I know this sounds so whiny and assholeish, I'm sorry.

All my childhood I used to be bullied by many different people. I changed schools a few times and was bullied by my classmates at each of them. It was always 5 - 15 people who I saw all day, the rest just watched and laughed. Back then, I had no self esteem and couldn't defend myself. The way I coped was by feeling superior to them intellectually. I felt ugly, unlikeable and inherently flawed, but at least I knew I had better grades than most of them. I fantasised about how it would be when we were going to be adults - I was going to be a masters student and strive for great things while they would work boring dead end jobs. God I know how narcissistic that sounds. But I held onto that belief because the thought of justice or karma made the experience so much more bearable.

Nowadays I obsessively try to look up everyone online whose name I can remember to see what became of them, and it's so hard to deal with the fact that so many of my former bullies seem to lead the best lives now, either with a family of their own or a promising career. Meanwhile I dropped out of college twice due to my insecurities and bad choices. I do badly at my job because of my mental health. My apartment is a fucking mess. I don't even have the courage to adopt a pet. It's like I fail at everything I'm supposed to do. And now, the one thought that always kept me going ("I need to succeed so I'm better than them at this")... it's like my one coping strategy fell away. The bullying happened a decade ago but it's like I'm still the kid from back then. I don't know what to do.