So yeah you always hear of bullying in school and how it can create a lot of emotional baggage.  Now I know you want everyone to respect you as a human being.  Or that if they do hurt you they should get punished.  Sorry that doesn't happen most of the time.

Now people say get help or let it roll off your back.   Sometimes it works but I know how it is it still hurts.
So you might be asking what does work to stop these attacks on my emotions.
Well they won't stop till you show it has NO effect on you.  If it's behind your back and friends ask if you are ok just say you can't hear it so what ever!  If it's in your face just shrug and walk away.  Funny to watch what happens next~  They look so dumb with everyone watching!  I have found making them embarrassed of what they did works much better than telling on them.  Also making sure they know you can't understand them leaves them nothing to fight you with lol!  The more they try and fail the more they ruin their reputation and become nothing.

Hope this has helped some people going through bullying.  It's helped me and currently helping me in a situation now. 

Good advice. Though to be honest, sometimes it's your "friends" who pick on you, and they don't care if you react or not; they just need to constantly put other people down.

If that's the case, find other friends! Just hang out with other people, and when your "bad" friends want to hang out, just say you're busy or something, and show them very little care. Don't be mean or rude, be polite but clear that you don't really care about what they think of you.

Hum, unless you have some friends with you, such a passive attitude is unlikely to work as I've tried it. And yet I was the (mental) punching bag from K-6. Of course, my physically hitting back didn't help...

If your life is not in serious danger, I would rather suggest confronting them directly with what they say. I do that a lot on forums when people make grand, baseless declarations. Just ask the questions that kills: "Why?" That's usually enough.

Or, when it comes to economics for example, I just push their argument to their logical conclusion. When they find out I'm right, they stutter or simply walk away.

Just saying that when I walk around in my old neighborhood, I still get anxious, even though I am more likely to get stabbed and shot where I now live. Yet here I walk around like a king, with no care in the world. Says something, I suppose.

Brigand : I know how you feel I am more confident in places that no one knows me than in my home town area.  Though I rarely got picked on I still get this awful feeling people are going to judge me in my home town area.

That is a pretty funny and effective way to react to someone bullying you. I always just ignored the bully or just tried to stay away from them as much as possible. Once you make it out of school, then you don't have to see them again, YAY!

I used to get bullied all the time through my school life. Why? Possibly because I was very tall during school, they thought I was an easy target,
it didn't help that I wasn't that nice at times either but that was because of the way I was treated.

This may not help but I always stood up towards the bullies, I never showed weakness when possible or just tried to avoid them altogether and walk away making them realize they don't bother me.

To anyone reading this, if you feel stuck, in a corner and want to tell your friends or family about the bullies but you don't want the bullies to find out and pick on you even more or for people to call you a coward, it is alright to get help, you don't have to deal with it on your own even having moral support from your loved ones can boost your spirits to help you though the day, knowing that even though it's a dark tunnel you're going into, they're is a big, warm light at the end of it.