Why were the kids so scared of this girl?

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When I was in high school there was a girl in my class who hated me because I had AS/ADHD, and she constantly made sure I was unhappy by emotionally bullying me. The other girls in the class were afraid to be nice to me because they seemed scared of her and so wanted to keep her happy.

What I don't get is that this girl was nothing to be afraid of. She wasn't even that popular at all, or socially skilled much. She was insecure but she wasn't threatening or capable of physical bullying.
I could tell the other girls were scared of her though, although I wasn't. I just couldn't win against her because nobody wanted to back me up due to their fear of upsetting her.
But one day, when I was about 12, she left me out of a team during a PE lesson, and I got so annoyed with her smugness, that I pushed her. Of course she ran to the teacher and told on me, and I was the one that got into trouble.
But for the rest of the day all the other girls praised me up for standing up to her, and some even told me that I'm their friend. So that obviously implies that they didn't really like her.
But things started to slip back to the way they were, with everyone kissing her arse again and leaving me out.

I just could never understand how this girl managed to emotionally dictate a whole gang of girls like that, when she was a crap "leader". She wasn't even the alpha female. There was only ONE of her, so if all the girls in the class got together and openly liked me and told her to f**k off, she wouldn't have had a leg to stand on and there would be nothing she could do, as she didn't really have any friends outside of our class and she wasn't at all 'tough'. Quite the opposite really.

I just know that if this brat never existed then my social life at high school might have been a lot better. Anyone know what I mean?

I find this just as baffling as you.

I was the same way: not scared of the person everyone else seemed afraid to defy and completely confused by it all. They'd finally push me over the edge, I'd act on my anger, I'd get in trouble and they'd get off unscathed. Situations like this still piss me off.

Allegedly in female groups there are different roles that are played by different members. There's a queen bee, central figure which is the glue that holds the group together, the group assembles around her tastes - fashion, movies, music etc. She usually picks the venue for everyone to get together, the rest of the group looks towards her for advice of all kinds. She also tends to coordinate everyone's ensembles to make sure the group is looking its best. There's usually a best friend within the group, the closest and most trusted confidant of the queen, she gets the most face time with Ms. Queen Bee. There's also typically a goof or comedic relief figure. Then there is sometimes the enforcer, the one who is kind of mean. She's usually on good terms with the queen bee but not anyone else outside the group. She also tends to lash out inside the group as well. There are other auxiliary roles that are played if it's a fairly large group. This is not necessarily fact, but I remember reading this and thinking, ah yes. Sounds accurate.

So it sounds like this girl was an enforcer. I can relate to this more in middle school than high school. Less someone picking on me, just being out-cliqued. But I also really legitimately did not care about the vast majority of the girls in my grade. They just weren't remotely interesting in any way I would measure a person as interesting. Wanted to be homeschooled. Made my closer friends through sports. School just felt like an uncomfortable waste of time. Pattern repeats itself in my life now; my general attitude toward work is identical to my middle school self's attitude towards school.

This girl was emotionally bullying you, the other girls saw that, and were naturally afraid of becoming targets, too. It can be a little easier to defend yourself from a physical bully--unless they ambush you--but an emotional bully can strike at any time, with or without words, in front of you or behind your back. Perhaps standing up to her en masse might have helped in the short term, but a skilled bully can still take people down like a sniper does, one at a time. Few kids have the armor and endurance to defend against that, and these girls knew they didn't, either.

Did she have a group of friends or just kind of a lone wolf? If she didn't have any friends and was just generally mean to everyone, she probably had some issues she was dealing with.

^Question for OP Joe90

I'd never seen her hanging around with or even talking to any girls outside our class. The thing is, she had some socially awkward traits (but not on the spectrum), and she was one of the unpopular girls of the class, even among the boys. So she wasn't very loud and she wasn't very stylish. Usually you can tell a lot about a person by the way they wear their school uniform; the neater they wear their uniform (and every day), the less popular they are and the more nerdy they can be. The less smartly you wear your uniform the more popular you are, so if you want to be more noticed then you undo your top button, shorten your tie and untuck your shirt. She wore her uniform smartly every day, and didn't wear much makeup. A lot of the other girls were more untidy and wore makeup. She was in a swimming team but was the only girl from our class who participated in that and she didn't seem to make friends with other girls from the swimming team. So I just don't see why everyone was so scared of her.

But I think she did have some issues that she hid. She knew that she was rather low in the social pecking order but didn't want to be on my level (which was probably lowest), so she picked on me to hide her issues. I could have picked on someone else to hide my issues but I was too kind and didn't like hurting people's feelings, so that's why I didn't do it (and I'm supposed to lack empathy???)
This is another reason why I wish I didn't get diagnosed with AS so early in life. She was one of the kids who were told that I had AS so she used my diagnosis as a way to make sure I was as far down in the social pecking order as possible. Before I had the diagnosis, she was basically my best friend, as little kids.

But all the other girls in the class weren't like her. If they ganged up on her and excluded her, or told her to leave me alone, she wouldn't be able to have the power to emotionally control them even through bullying, because she'd be on her own. In school, if you're going to bully someone in any shape or form, it will only work if you (the bully) has back up. One person on their own cannot possibly bully a whole group. Well, they can, but it'll be a bit pointless, and usually that would make the bully get bullied.

It sounds like she was being socially excluded passively seeing as she did not have any friends. And then she was taking that out on you as the only friend she had. Sometimes bullies are actually just hoping the person they are bullying stands up to them. I know it's weird, but sometimes a bully is picking on a person because that person is exhibiting a kind of weakness that they themselves hate about themselves and they are basically trying to break the weakness from that person because they really hate it about themselves too. You probably would have benefitted from being homeschooled. I think what's helpful for me is to try to stay in a growth mindset and to try to look for ways of growing out of the behavior I learned as a middle schooler that shaped my general attitude and anticipations for socialization. It's so formative that I'm not sure it can really be changed but what I learned from middle school is women are nasty when you are outside the range of what the collective has deemed normal. So it's in your best interest to find a collective or form a collective of women where everyone is reasonably within the same range to each other. Similar intelligence levels, similar attractiveness levels, similar avocations, career paths, net worths. The more similarity the better.

Well, from about the age of 11 onwards, we weren't exactly friends any more. More like enemies. She spoke to me the least and made me feel worthless.

I'm sorry this person had such a huge impact on your life in such a negative way.
I don't mean this in an insensitive way, but have you tried forgiving her in your mind?
Just to give yourself some peace. What if you could rewrite the narrative, that she was a pitiful person who preyed on someone to make her feel better about herself. That she doesn't have any power over you now, and is still probably now like she was then, a very sad, lonely, angry person.

No idea. You’d have to ask them, not us.

I don't know them any more.