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Unfortunately, it sounds like you fell in the same trap that I was in for a number of years after school.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but in your case, the bullies have won.

> For whatever that brief moment. It looked like the bully's face had dried, gone cold and the expression on his face looked like a greater defeat had been handed over to him.

Years later, you still care enough that hurting the bully made you feel good (and in a serious way: by making him feel that he's a failure in life. Uppercut!) That's not a victory, my friend, that's defeat. Victory is when you're free of the long-term influence and side-effects of the bullying.

I strongly encourage you to examine your life and find which parts of it and of your character have been affected by this bullying, and set to work actually undoing the influence that this has had on you. As long as you let the bullying define who you are, you've not won. That's perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of bullying - the long-term overshadowing of all the things you do in your later life.

I get the broad idea.

Actually I never went to the re union with those memories at all. But when I saw the person, I just recalled everything that happened back then.

>>Years later, you still care enough that hurting the bully made you feel good

Sorry but I never did anything to the bully, but he did it to himself. Instead of spending his time studying or making good use of the time in some meaningful way, his plan of action was pull down others.

That can work once or twice, with some helpless people. But life itself is a bigger problem, and you can't bully life. The fact that most bullies end up in prison or with permanent problems with anger and people issues. And then land up in life long economic misery, is a self infliction.

I some how get a feeling that most bullies realize the futility of physical power in a world where power and money hold the key to success. And then also realize its the innocent looking nerds who are likely to win big. There fore try to pre-screw/pre-revenge them for the likely outcome they will face in the future: "Ending up doing small time jobs for nerds themselves".

You touch upon an important point: so often teachers are simply complicit.

In my school, a PE teacher allowed other kids to bully the same guy over and over again, walking out the room when they pointed a fire-hose at him because he wouldn't shower after class (for medical reasons I found out much later). I also remember him smiling in agreement when kids laughed at the smallest kid who was a little stalled in his development and had small private parts. What a guy!

Years later I told him off at a reunion, in public, what a horrible man and disgrace to education he truly was. He left the event. Good riddens.

That's the worst thing you can possibly do. Damn near any other course of action is better than just sitting there and taking it.

The first line of defense against bullying is to fight back. More often than not, this will suffice; even if you don't win the fights, most bullies will leave you alone once it's clear picking on you is more trouble than it's worth.

But if that's not viable - if the power imbalance is too extreme, or if the level of violence is life-threatening - then you need to either get backup (parents, teachers, senior management, police, as applicable) or leave the situation, permanently. Yes, that means dropping out of school or quitting your job is the right thing to do if no other countermeasure is available.

I would definitely advice getting help in case of violence. And the bully must be dealt with real consequences which punishes them in harshly, in order to mend their ways.

>>Damn near any other course of action is better than just sitting there and taking it.

I am saying the same. Don't take it. Don't take it at all.

Just like the best way to stop trolls is to 'not feed the trolls'. Just don't take them seriously at all. At workplaces I've used this technique and found bullies to grind their teeth in frustration.

Ignoring me never worked. It would actually encourage and motivate me to keep going and upping my verbal attacks until I got a reaction from you.

I do not suggest to anyone to just simply ignore their bully.

As a bullying victim, I concur that ignoring the bullies does not work.

In my case I switched schools (bullying continued, probably because of my personality), and things didn't improve until my last year of school, when I switched schools again.

This might work in some cases where the bully is a pathological outlier but if you're in a culture that systematically supports bullying (e.g. Because of race or class), it won't.

Sometimes bullies are the odd one out, but often they simply representing an aspect of the culture that is actually condoned by those around them.