Wow, Slayer Comma The, I'm really sorry you had to go through that! I'm glad the muggers were stopped, though.
I had some near-misses in jr. high. I was (still am, really) a tiny little thing -- the weak, skinny, crutches-bearing type that some of the general troublemaking types liked to bully. I remember a couple of incidents in which fights were narrowly avoided. I found that yelling and threatening right back usually tended to make the bullies back off, whereas cowering just egged them on. I figured this out quickly. The result was that, although we came close to serious physical confrontations a couple of times, no one ever beat me up. I remember getting really angry -- so angry that I'd shake -- and getting right up in the bullies' faces. Generally by that point, two groups of friends would step in for the bail-out, both sides pulling the other away. That stopped in high school when I pulled a teen movie and got all pretty and popular in the space of a weekend. lol That's another story unto itself.
I also had fights with my little sister (who was like twice my size by the time she was 10) and her best friend and my two best friends. These weren't real fights. They were just play fights, but I was able to take my sisters and my friends despite my size/health condition disadvantage. I think that's what gave me the confidence to stand up to the bullies, actually. The last time I ever fought anyone, it was my little sister. My mom wanted to see who would win now that my little sis was so much bigger, so she gave us permission to fight. Hehe. It was fun! We broke a lamp and everything, but we still didn't get into trouble! And I won, of course. No way was I gonna let my little sister kick my butt.
It was weird. I had this fierce, angry, sort-of-excited reaction to fights. It made me a better fighter than I really should have been given my physical condition. Also, I was no stranger to dealing with painful injuries, so I was less afraid of being injured in a fight than I was angry. I think that's why the bullies backed down. I was small, but when provoked, I had this weird confidence behind my threats that, apparently, convinced my would-be-opponents that I was serious. A bluff is a powerful thing. I probably couldn't have done much damage, but because no one ever called my bluff, I never really had to fight.