I had an ok experience as a kid, whenever I wasn't feeling tormented. Parents divorced. Lived with mom and 3 younger brothers. esfj mom had a hard time recognizing potentials in us. It really is remarkable how influential our father was on me, how his absence from age 6-on led me to direct my feelings inwardly, to avoid sharing them with family or anyone else. My mom was very loud, something which makes me tense, freeze up (I attribute it to her emotional rages), so made a case of avoiding her. Part of growing up has been learning to acknowledging the value of speaking with complete strangers, non-family, etc., in a search for truth, advice, bits of knowledge that can help fill the gaps.
Time alone to reflect has, in my experience, been in direct conflict with my need to be around people, interact with, study them.
School was terrible. As a human looking outward in search of others to contact, authenticity is really important to me. Unfortunately, I found it hard to come by (likely due to how direct/obstinate my approach is just as much as others' projections). It still is. I eventually adjusted, and learned to appreciate my ability to think clearly, to cut through the emotional fog, though as an infp, satisfaction is hard to come by when one desires badly to connect, but cannot due to inherent fears (emotional hoarding?).
I taught swimming lessons for about a decade (up until several months ago), and the ability to distance my working mind from the emotions of the moment helped me become one of the better teachers. I envisioned a sort of color code, a bank of emotions when I taught, with specific methods to handle each, with constant adjusting, revising.
I feel that my close ties to/over associating with the darker aspects of life help me to appreciate/savor, give depth, additional meaning to the moments that ought to be.