Life Lessons

What makes people think that when treating someone consistently a certain way that they do not like  to be treated they'll never grow resentful or reach breaking point and snap back?

Probably the story of my life: always letting people walk all over me, laugh at me, treat me disrespectfully. I've taken a lot of that, which is my own fault, really. But every time I get to the point where I will not allow it any more, suddenly I'm the horrible one. 

This is the way that some people like to take advantage of others they see as weak - I've felt small and scared in many situations, letting people dictate my actions or bully me - it dates all the way back from primary school, through secondary and even my high school years. 

It finally stopped in university but it wasn't for good: at one of my first jobs here in the UK I was also bullied by a colleague around 7 years younger than me. And I let them carry on with it, so it got progressively worse until I got falsely accused of something very serious at work, which is when I decided it was time to report their abuse and make it stop. 

That's what I've learned over the years: I have allowed things like that to happen out of fear of speaking up. I've always been "a good girl" that just does what she's told, afraid of what could happen if I don't, when everyone else gets away with pretty much anything you can think of - even the things I get wrongly accused of doing.

One of my general "rules" in life is to treat people the way they treat me, it's what I've done since I can remember. How I treat people I get along with (family, friends, classmates, co-workers, etc) is what I believe to be a reflection of their treatment towards me. 

Granted, I never mentioned I was perfect, however if someone thinks I have turned into a despicable version of what I used to be, they should have a think about how they treated me in the past. They might realise that they prefer me weak, quiet and submissive so they can bring me down but they need to know that I am not condoning this type of behaviour anymore.