Been bullied

I'm no angel. I freely admit that, but I do wonder how much of my behaviour stems from my experiences growing up.
I am short. There's no denying it. And with being different, I have always been an easy target.
Midget, titch, short-arse, you name it, it's been directed at me. Even folk that think they are being cute and remind me how small I am - eye-roll - don't help.
I'd like to think I'm also pretty clever, not A* smarts, but a good B+ and being smart and a weirdo don't mix. I've never been very good at keeping my head down and liked putting my hand up in class when I knew the answers, again making me teacher's pet, blah blah.
I am also about 50% deaf in my left ear and while I've had a silicone implant to try and build onto the little Auditory Ossicle that was deformed from birth, I still can't hear that well in a group which meant that teasing me came even easier. Oh and did I mention that I'm also as blind as a bat and have had long-sight correcting glasses since I was four?

I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm writing this to try and explain that as a people we are all very different and any kind of bullying or harassment (don't even get me started about bad bosses) moulds us and can significantly erode our mental health and can create behaviours that aren't always beneficial. Being chased down by a privileged mother in the supermarket and forced to apologise to her socially unaware five year old after retaliating because he announced to the whole store of my short stature was a particular highlight.

I've lashed out emotionally a lot and while CBT and talking to people I trust always helps, I still see the bullies of my past whenever I try to better myself.

I was once told by a boy I liked that 'You're not much to look at' and more recently was told that 'I should dress for the job I want' so now I spend a lot of time and energy trying to make myself presentable whenever I leave the house and hardly ever wear less than a smart-looking dress and eye makeup to work. 

I've had my share of mental issues, taken anti-depressants and try/have to fight to be a positive force every day. I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that the more problems I have to face in one go, the less well I cope. So if the car has a problem, my knee is hurting (hopefully this will soon be a non-issue), someone in the street calls me something derogatory and one of my animals (I have a few) is poorly or being naughty, the meltdown is imminent.

So the morale of the story is everyone, please be excellent to each other, we have enough to deal with being human and adulting everyday already.
P.S. we measured my right leg last night and it's a whole two centimetres longer than my left now,  so maybe,  just maybe there will be a little less of the midget comments in the future.  Lol.