I was pretty aggressively bullied for several years in middle school (2008-2011), and I'm still really sensitive to a lot of insults. In particular, I was bullied for being a 'faggot' by the popular group (10-15 boys, one of which was my next door neighbor and childhood friend (we haven't spoken since 2011, despite living 40 feet from each other)), but I think I mostly brought it on myself by trying to fit in with them instead of appreciating the people who were actually kind to me. This kind of wrecked my self-esteem for a few years, and I think I only truly pulled out of it when I met my current girlfriend. I'm doing WAY better now, but I still have trouble connecting to other men. I haven't really processed this yet, but I'm pretty sure I was molested at summer camp. I really only realized this a few months ago, but I remember having a HUGE crush on a counselor at camp, and eventually she started reciprocating--we did some stuff that was VERY intense for my age (I was 11 or 12 while this was going on), mostly making out and touching. We kept texting after summer camp, and she would convince me to exchange exposing pictures with her. This spanned ~1 year until she suddenly stopped talking to me. At the time, I loved the attention, and obviously I was crushed when it ended, but now I can't help but feel like the situation was incredibly fucked. She told me that she had a thing for very young boys (she was into shota/yaoi type shit, afaik), and it never processed. Like I said, it didn't click until recently that she is 6 years older than I am...and I have NO idea if this has affected me at all. I have a normal relationship now, and I don't think it's caused me any problems, but holy shit...was I molested?
Some people on that minecraft server were constantly calling me gay, which on it's own would be fine but the way there saying it has left me finding it rather difficult to open up, or even become close to guys. It's nice to know I'm not the only one, and I wouldn't have even consciously realised without your post.
Back in the day when I hadn't even known of the word gay, it meant happy. So guys, I can he super gay at times lol, seriously have to make a YouTube video on that one - proud to be happy! Gay! Which is happy! Emotional scars by insecure turds, never a good experience. That's why they call names, having issues of their own, throwing it to others.