I was quite a jerk in the teenage years and regretted that too until not long ago. I come to convince myself that turning into a jerk was only an adapting react

I was quite a jerk in the teenage years and regretted that too until not long ago. I come to convince myself that turning into a jerk was only an adapting reaction to fend off abusive people. From what I've noticed in the pool of abuse-avoiders friends, the ones having enough social skills maybe managed to deal with it gracefully enough, but for the others (me included) being a plain jerk was the simplest working solution. If you still beat yourself over it it may be because you just forget the problems and limitations you had back then.