I'm in the US, not sure if you are. I think I had a similar experience. Didn't get into programming until much later in life and kicked every wall once I realized I love it.
People wondering why you didn't just power through your doubts may be forgetting what the world was like not too long ago. 'Nerds' weren't cool. If you chose to be a nerd it meant _offering_ yourself up as the _loser_ in every sitcom, movie, or book. Playing video games was something you were supposed to grow out of. No one was throwing 80k at a graduate just because they could pronounce 'WWW'. Perhaps most importantly, _every_ school was pushing the race to no where. If you were thinking about a 'trade' it meant you had given up and would crack out fixing sinks for the rest of your life. At _best_ computers were taught as something you'd use at other careers. Not a career itself, really.
* Please note the last line is less an insult to plumbers and more a commentary on how the perception of success is hammered into you as a very white collar thing.