> I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground. It didn't make me feel much better when they broke my ribs, but I've never punched someone in my life.

I really really heavily blame adults here. It is adults who prefer silence and own comfort that teach kids to be passive and just take it. This is not in kids interest at all. And I don't even mean that you should have beat them up back.

Adults should have work with both aggressor and victim. They should have teach the victim healthy assertively and how to set boundaries before bullying gets that bad. And they should have taught the bullies to stop being bullies. And when aggressors are uncontrolable and relationships impossible to navigate for victim, when it escalated to the level of broken ribs, adults are responsible for stopping it all.