> I was never bothered by physical bullies, but the verbal ones tried to get me. I found, though, that I didn't care what they said about me. I suppose you could say I was mildly harassed in school sometimes-- among other things, a group of boys in middle school decided to make fun of my unshaven legs when I passed them, and I found a derogatory note from them in my locker once-- but I didn't feel harassed. I ignored whatever they said, and I threw the note away as soon as I found it and promptly forgot about it. I suppose it's just lucky that no one ever tried to hit me. It wouldn't have been possible to ignore that.
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> As for how it's affected my adult life... it hasn't. I doubt that I'll ever see those same people again, and I never think of them. I don't even remember what they look like.

I had some bad verbal and emotional bullying at school, most notably from a particular boy for two years when I was 11 and 12, and then from a different boy when I was maybe 14-15 or thereabouts. I wasn't as lucky as Maryam in being unaffected by it, though. I found it very difficult, well into adult life, to believe that I *wasn't* as ugly and stupid and worthless as these people told me. It has no effect on my life now, but it took many years and some bad results in my life to see that and overcome it.

Looking back, the greatest negative effect bullying had on me was that it made me waste half my life worrying about what other people would think, to the extent that I was afraid to try anything new in case I turned out to be bad at it -- or worse, too good at it.

I regret all the wasted time and opportunities from my school years, but at least I finally learned something from it and moved on. It takes a lot of courage to be yourself when you're 11. I didn't have it in those days, but I do now. Once you stop trying to base your life on what other people might say about you, things just get better and better.