The teenage years can be brutal.. no doubt, but as Digs mentioned it can be harnessed for the remainder of your life for the better.
I lived on both sides of the coin in my teens.. through middle school and especially early in high school I excelled in sports and was fairly popular overall. Although I never became the prick some were, I definitely had a chip on my shoulder that was perched looking for someone to knock it off.
I was getting college letters for football and basketball already my freshman year and got a visit from my first college scout the first week of summer practice of football going into my sophomore year.. they were scouting another kid at practice that was senior, but they pulled me aside for the 15 minutes of selling their school and coach.. I had bumped into college scouts at the football camps.. but not at my school for all the others to see.. full of myself I became.
Then life changed in the blink of an eye... at first the outpouring of support got me through the remainder of the sophomore year and the lack of sports.. Then I started to consume myself that following summer.. started using alcohol to numb the pain.. never anything more than booze.. but it reached a point in my senior year where a half of a 1/5 was normal. Before school.. at break.. always vodka to help mask the smell..
I was humbled beyond belief.
I became an outcast.. I didn't fit in anymore in my own school.
Anytime I went anywhere, I got the looks either because of how I walked or this metal leg... I became very protective of it and insecure to the ninth.
I would try to fit in.. yet it just never seemed quite right.. but I somehow made it through high school and graduated.
Change of senery at college was supposed to help things.. to some points it did with the level of maturity increased and my selection of schools that avoided the football at the college level.
Put I still got the looks and sank further into the depth of insecurity.. until I finally had enough someplace my second year of school. The rebuilding phase took years and at times I slipped here or there.. but I was building confidence and accepting whom I was.
From there you harness that pain you felt.. and allow it to make you a better person to yourself and others. You start to forget or really don't care if people look at your a little longer.. actually to the point where I engage them to prompt to ask the question they may have.
I was then I realized that I could do just about anything anyone else can do.. just a little different... that I will always be a bit different than everyday society.. but I accept and actually embrace that.
In other words.... other perception of you on the outside matters little, yours does... become okay with yourself and then you can start to improve yourself on the outside and inside.
Sounds easy.. it is not.. but you have to start at square one. And build from there.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"