I was made fun of a lot in middle school, but I was never really physically bullied. My little brother though, he has red hair and freckles and had to wear these thick glasses from when he started school, so he was bullied all of the time. When he was in 2nd grade, he stood up to a big 3rd grader that kept tripping him, and the kid punched him in the face and broke his glasses. My little sister (I was in middle school at the time) who was in 5th grade and has always been super tough, saw what happened, so she picked the kid up over her head and threw him in the big green dumpster next to the school. Instead of being embarrassed about having his sister defending him, my brother told everyone the story and it was a few years before he started getting bullied again. He's one of the toughest dudes I know now, so I guess he came out of all of those bullying experiences for the better. This same sister beat me in an arm wrestle in front of the whole school at recess a couple of years earlier, and got carried around the school on two 6th graders shoulders.