Then and Now: Early Childhood

When I was younger, before I started school and up to when I was maybe seven or eight years old, my best friend was a cousin of mine of the same age. We were together a lot, mainly because we were cousins. We were always at each others houses and we did dancing classes together for a few years. I thought she was great. We always got on well, it seemed. However I was shy as a child and unfortunately, she was more dominant than me. She might not have had confidence but she tried to gain confidence by picking on me. After a while, I realised I didn't like her very much. She could make me feel like dirt on her shoe with just one harsh comment, even at an age as young as three or four. I was naive enough to think that it was my fault that she made me feel like this. I have a personality type where I naturally want to please people. I thought that I should just put up with her verbal abuse. I didn't want to make my parents mad at her. So, I never told my parents.. until my mother noticed that I wasn't myself when I was with her. She saw how condescending my cousin was to me.
She talked to me about it and I realised that my cousin was very polite and nice to me at times when we hadn't seen each other for a while. When we saw each other a lot, she probably took me for granted and that is why she picked on me. The phrase ''Only in small doses'' is fitting here.
We were in the same class in school but we soon got mixed up into different classes, so we began to see less and less of each other. She also gave up dance class so that was one less occasion at which we were together.
Since she is my cousin, I'm still in contact with her. However her actions meant that I was always shy, and this lead to different people bullying me in later years. When I went to a different school at the age of twelve, my confidence began to grow again.
I now get on just fine with my cousin. I know that I will never let her put me down again. She won't walk all over me again. I think she knows this too. However I would still be wary about seeing to much of her. Like I said, ''only in small doses''.