¶ … positive way: Learning to stand up for myself
When I was growing up, I was normally a pretty level-headed kid. However, around the time when I was six, I was befriended by an eight-year-old girl named Tammy. Tammy lived several doors down from my house and we'd often ride bikes together, throw basketballs around, or play Clue and Scrabble. Tammy always won, and because of her age, I looked up to her, and felt privileged that she was my friend.
At first, Tammy was very nice to me and treated me much as she did her younger siblings. However, some people, when they get any kind of power get a little bit drunk on the sensation, and Tammy was one of them. Soon, Tammy began to change the games we played. I 'had' to let her take extra turns when we played games because those were the 'rules.' I had to ask permission to touch any...
In school, I wasn't allowed to speak to her, and she made me follow several steps behind her group of friends, when we were on the playground together. I was terrified to assert myself, for fear of losing her friendship, but finally I forced myself to say something when she was over my house. On my turf, I felt a bit more secure.
"I don't want to play Clue, I want to play Scrabble," I said. "We played Clue last time." I braced myself for her resistance.
"Okay, if you won't play, then you can't see the puppy," said Tammy. I hesitated.
"What puppy?"
"The puppy I just got."
So Tammy had some new leverage against me. It went on for several days -- Tammy pressured me into doing more and more outrageous things (giving her my Halloween…
