:'(

I am currently a sixteen years old girl, about to begin my junior year of high school.
In the beginning of my freshman year, my group of friends became known as “the popular group” I guess, because a lot of upperclassmen knew us and would invite us to parties. I definetly was not the most popular or the prettiest of my friends, but I would not consider my self ugly by any stretch. Some of my friends were also close with the boys in our grade, but I was never invited to parties/hangouts with them, only to parties with the older boys. When my sophomore year came around, my friends and the boys in our grade started hanging out more frequently. Soon there was a group chat made with my girl friends and the boys in our grade, and I was put into the chat. So now, I was included in all of the plans and I started to know the guys in my grade more. In December of my sophmore year, one of the boys had a Christmas Party (alcohol involved) and the boys were not treating me very nicely, but I played it off as a joke because it was the first time this had really happened. Later that night, one of the boys was literally trying to “RKO” me, and later punched me in the face, and got it on video. When I woke up the next morning (with a bruise on my cheek), and for a few weeks following the incident, I tried not to think about what happened, and I did not let it get to me. The boys began to talk and laugh about what had happened that night and made a meaningless nickname for me (which I am not going to share). The next few months, I grew increasingly upset over the event and was never diagnosed, but worried that I had been depressed. I had convinced myself that I was ugly, worthless, and that nothing good will ever happen to me.
During our lunch period one day at the end of my sophmore year, a few of them were texting in the group chat, and the same guy who punched me sent a text that referred to me as the nickname and made fun of me for a very personal insecurity about my life, and then continued to make fun of me for other stupid things. That day was the first day I had ever cried at school. After holding on my tears at lunch, I cried for over half a period in the bathroom, thankfully with a friend at my side. After school I gathered all my remaining strength and constructed a long text to the guy who punched and texted me and I sent it. . The bullying died down for a while after that, but by the time summer began, they were back in full swing, making me feel bad about myself every possible chance. You are probably wondering why I still hangout with them, and I guess it’s because although they can be mean to me, I enjoy hanging out with all of them because I have really great (girl) friends and I am hoping that one day it will end. Also, a lot of times it is hard to for others to recognize that someone is bullying me, but their words to me make me feel degraded as a person and lower my self esteem.

I was able to handle all this, and I am still able to handle all this until today in the group chat (which I rarely text in to avoid the degradation I feel when they acknowledge me), one of the boys asked me a question and called me by my last name, which he misspelled. Apparently everyone thought his misspell was so funny and they all kept spelling my last name in ridiculous variations even though the spelling is quite simple. One of them then copy and pasted a text that I had sent about a week ago, making fun of a perfectly normal, two word text that I sent. I then responsed with “:'(” meaning a crying face, because that guy had used the same “:,(” a few minutes ago. Another one of the boys (not the one who punched me) then asked in the group chat “is the apostrophe supposed to be a mole on your face”. This is the first time that anyone had directly made fun of my appearance, and although much worse things have been said, this was somewhat of the last straw.

I don’t know if I am doing something wrong. I don’t know how to stand up for myself. I don’t know what to do.