Telling the Truth or Playing Victim: Are the Two Mutually Exclusive?

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I recently wrote a nonfiction piece detailing that through most of high school I used boys as a distraction and filler from what I was missing from my home life. I did edits on it at places where it was just tooooo cringe even though to some degree it is supposed to be cringe because it's written from my voice at said time. Still, it was just....a lot in some places. I read back over it and realized it was mainly shit-talking my ex-boyfriends and not really expressing why I needed them or how I was using them. It was, but not enough, so I withdrew it from any magazines or journals I sent it to. I told the truth, but I was also making myself look better than everyone else.

And I have a bad habit of doing that. In a lot of situations when I'm telling the truth, I don't always express my part of the truth. That's unfair. At the end of the day, I know those people will probably never write about me and put it on a public platform. I didn't say they couldn't. I said it probably wouldn't happen, so whatever little platforms I get to discuss them, I should be fair.

They're victims too, just in different ways from me. So how do I go about fixing this? How do I learn to tell my story (and theirs) in the most neutral way possible while still having emotions and a good story? Simple. I listen to myself in my most humble state. In my humility, I tell the truth on equal and respectful grounds. The opening of the piece is truthful. It's just the rest that needs work. Wish me luck.