I was bullied both verbally and physically throughout high school by a gang of older boys. At one point one of them beat me up breaking my nose. But when he was asked why he did it, he said I called him a name. (I should have been so bold!) So I got blamed for it. At one point I even went to the school principal because I was so distraught. But he just told me I should take a look at myself and he walked away. My parents knew what was going on. But I guess they didn't think enough of it to care either. It may be too strong to say all of this destroyed my life. (I've been pretty good at accomplishing that myself.) But it certainly didn't help.