How can I stop being afraid to defend myself when I really need to?

[NightHawkBuzz]

In middle school and high school there were plenty of situations where I needed to get into fights with people because they were being completely disrespectful to me and sometimes putting their hands on me. There were situations where people spit on me, put their hands on me and constantly disrespected me and I didn't fight back. These were situations where I needed to fight people and didn't because of that things got even worse.

When I would tell the administration about the situations there was nothing they would do about it. I was afraid to get into fights with people and put my hands on them. I didn't grow up fighting with people and was nervous about getting into one. I was scared of the consequences as well like being suspended, expelled or written up. Since I didn't get into all of the fights I needed to with people they thought it was alright to disrespect me the way they did. How can I stop being afraid to fight when I need to and not be afraid of the consequences?

[Meditationdude]

@NightHawkBuzz experience. Go to a boxing gym and start throwing hands. Get so familiar with throwing a punch that it becomes natural. So natural that you just start punching random people in the streets who look at you funny. Just fight as much as you can and you’ll be safe then ??
 

But in all seriousness, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you are not a fighter. It would however be a problem if you let people disrespect you and you don’t enforce your boundaries (verbally). Sometimes that means getting your ass kicked but at least you stood up for yourself. Taking a punch is much harder skill then throwing one. 

[JonasVE12]

I had some physical confrontations as well when I grew up. I was very clueless and powerless in those situations. Lots of fear inside my body. I would always shake and freeze up. That's why I started no-gi grappling. this includes jiu jitsu (nogi), wrestling, takedowns, some muay thai and MMA. You can work towards the point that you become competent at grappling and then start competing. If you can have +500 fights in a competition context, you will notice that you can handle a lot more tension in physical confrontations. Grappling competitions are also pretty safe. It is not the same as MMA or striking. It's submission grappling. It simulates a high tension environment as good as a real fight. 

Your body desensitizes to fear as you become more experienced in grappling. If you can get to a really high level of grappling, a high level of wrestling that includes takedowns, as well as a moderate level of striking, you can win most fights. You just take the fight to the ground and dominate the other person. Look at khabib nurmagomedov for example. He is a classical example of what grappling mastery looks like. 

[MuadDib]

"If you die, I didn't kill you, you drowned"