I had a fairly rough childhood and was raised by my father who was agnostic. Since he never argued for God to me I then became an atheist fairly early on (probably defining myself as such by the time I was 12 or 13 because religious people were "deluded idiots who are ruining this country, etc." and because of the "evidence" to the contrary as described by our school system.) I was never accepted by my peers throughout most of my post-stepmother years (my stepmother from when I was 7 to 9 years old was unbearably strict and emotionally abusive) which was a stark contrast to the kid I was before she was in my life (a very open, friendly, innocent, loving kid who could make friends with anyone). Because of the things that had happened during those years I probably gained about 10 years of age in cynicism and hate toward people for a good while, but this was masked by my overall happy demeanor towards the people that accepted me (those who didn't I absolutely loathed, the "popular" kids and such.) This lasted throughout all my middle school years up until High School when I began to really desire acceptance from my peers. This included the common "scene" dressing and skinny jeans and underage drinking / partying / drugs, conformity to peer pressure, etc. I had many horrible failure relationships with many people and had a hard time even starting new friendships for quite some time because I was so incredibly judgemental and elitist about who I did and did not befriend, all for the wrong reasons.