I had a mildly negative but pretty typical experience. 100% not a star, plenty of negative feedback in my reviews, e.g. "be more efficient" or "be clearer and more on-point in meetings." I also made the mistake of not going out of my way to get specific feedback in real time.
On the other hand, I'm generally pleasant with a good attitude. I do ruminate a lot but I am working on controlling what I can control and taking charge of my own development.
I don‘t really have a mentor on a day-to-day basis and find it pretty hard to reach out for help or get my questions answered, since my group is so large and people feel very transient between matters.
Not being a star made the amount of work bearable because I wasn't anyone's go-to. I still have large skill gaps relative to most people in my class. I also think there’s one partner that actively disliked me for no apparent reason and turned every innocuous interaction negative. I only learned much later that this partner has damaged my reputation a lot, despite the other people in our large cross-office group generally enjoying working with me.
I didn't develop anxiety because I learned to self-regulate and also mostly by chance; I'm simply fortunate enough to keep my mental health intact. I also learned to mentally distance myself from unpleasant people. I tend to think anybody that's giving me a hard time is just showing that they are having a miserable time themselves.
I'm immensely grateful for what I have in my life: I spend a lot of time with my family, including almost every weekend and evenings (even when I was working), and I have a lot of money saved and invested. I almost never go on vacations that would require me to be out of pocket, because I'm naturally a homebody and I hate airports. I also like covering for others during vacations and holidays, since I'm rarely away from my desk. I'm also lucky to have no debt, no dependents, and no serious family obligations.