I used to think like this about my younger years (I to an extent still do), but I realised that my happiness from my childhood, was all manufactured, I was never really happy I was simply just smiling to keep up appearances, and to fit in, which convinced people. My mother tells me that she misses the younger happier me. asking me were it went? But the reality is that it was never really there, I have merely just, as I convinced others that I has happy, I have also done the same to my memories of my younger years, I have managed to trick even myself into thinking that my life was at some point good, which I used to trick myself into believing was still achievable, and that through hard work I could return to that, that I could once again be happy, which I never really was.
I have found that the only thing that changed from my supposed happier younger years, was that I have stopped putting on a fake smile and caring about what others think of me, it's some what freeing, but all it did was free me from my motivation to continue my old miserable life.