* clickyhugs *
You've shown strength just by surviving!

Like everyone's said, you're just stuck in a small town with a small town mentality. Once you move on and have more control of your life, you'll move elsewhere and find people to be a lot less judgemental.

Have you considered taking up a martial art? Not as a means of developing the skills to take revenge, but as means of building confidence and venting frustration in a positive and controlled manner? If worried about being bullied in the martial arts class itself, go to a class with an instructor that successfully enforces discipline in class (you can tell if the instructor does not enforce discipline if everyone else is messing around in the class).

And finally, remember the QOTW motto: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 14 May 2009, 0:22, Reply)