If it feels like you are being taken advantage of, you probably are.
If you don't stand up for yourself, no one else will.
If you don't think they will stand up for you in your absence, they probably won't.
If you don't take the credit, somebody else will.
Don't give away what you value most to somebody who doesn't recognize it for more than its innate value, who doesn't recognized what it meant for you to give it away.
If you are given what you deserve and then have it taken away at his/her/their discretion and convenience, it's effed-up and has nothing to do with you. But it's up to you to find a way to have what you deserve consistently.
If there has been a lesson that I have learned over and over and over again in the past three and a half years, it's trust yourself, trust yourself, trust yourself, trust yourself. I do now and I act on that trust (and sometimes question my sanity) but every once in a while remnants of the past surface and I find myself reviewing that lesson over again. This afternoon it was with tears streaming down my face. Lessons learned and book closed, I remind myself. Book closed.
