I am the girl who doesn't stand up for herself. I am not sure why this is, I can attribute it to several things. First, I hate being mad. No matter how angry I am at a person, I will probably just let whatever it is go, because I know if I say something, it will only draw out the problem. Which means that deep pit in my stomach will take longer to go away.

So to prevent the feeling of wanting to put something through a wall, I walk away. I let myself calm down until I can forget why I was mad in the first place.

I can trace this habit back to middle school when this girl was bullying me and I did almost nothing on my own to stop her. I just let her talk down to me, make fun of me and I went home at the end of the day completely upset.

Even though I have a long history of avoiding confrontation, I know how crappy it is for my own mental health.

When someone treats me poorly and I don't say anything to stop them, it only gives them the impression that I don't mind or that they can get away with it. But neither of those things are true. Those things stick with me. But, I also did nothing to stop these negative encounters from happening again, I did nothing to find a solution to my problems.

When I am faced with a possible confrontation situation, I panic.

But in recent months, when I have been dealing with constantly being talked down too by specific people in my life, the people I am closest with have encouraged me to stop taking this treatment as a given and to take a stand.

Although this is not something that just happens overnight. I can't just develop a killer confidence just because I want to, I want to make a change starting now because I shouldn't have to accept what other's think of me as what is true.

I am in charge of who I am and how people are going to perceive me.