Amusingly, I was severely bullied as a youth. Martial arts classes were my salvation in a sense - when bullies approached I'd turn to one of the other misfits around me (I was very much a misfit) and offer them an impromptu self defense lesson. 'Grab my wrist' I'd say, and then I'd go on to 'give a little show' about ways to get out of a wrist grab, and 'levels' of kindness and meanness in doing so, with lots of eye contact, mostly aggressive eye contact at appropriate moments in my 'patter', with the watching bullies. 'If it was someone you liked who grabbed you, maybe your Dad got drunk or something, you don't want to hurt him he doesn't know what he's doing but he's your dad... here, do it this way, no pain, no issues, you're just free. That didn't hurt, did it? Good. Lock both hands onto my wrist, hold me, tight as you can, I'm not going to hurt you this time either, but I am going to get free no matter what you do to stop me.
There, see? That didn't hurt, right? And yeah, I am free. Now, if you want to hurt someone a bit, you can do this... don't grab -too- tight yet, you're about to want to let go really bad. I'm going to stop the pain the moment you ease your grip. Soon as I can escape, I will. Right, so you felt that. Would you like to lock your grip now? See how this could force you to release me, even if you intended to hold on? It wouldn't injure you, but you will hurt for a few hours. No?'
Turn to the watchers, 'Would anyone else like to see if they can hold me?' Turn immediately to the worst of the bullies. 'You, maybe? You're really tough. Want to bet you can hold my wrist and I actually -can't- make you let me go?'
I got a weird reputation, but I already had a weird reputation before then. Only the harassment got a lot quieter, a lot less physical, and I was given a lot of space. Martial arts in a sense fixed some of the broken things in my life.