Text graphic that reads: "Conflict is not the enemy of connection, avoidance is.

The Fragile Structure of Happiness

I’ve been sitting with a word that has always troubled me, a state of “being” that feels out of reach: happiness. There seems to be so little capacity out there to make space for those of us whose life experiences haven’t exactly been a gifted accumulation of things that make you say, yeah, this is good, I want to keep doing it. Perhaps the hardest truth to accept is that my upbringing never provided the raw materials or the architecture required to build or even envision a lasting happiness.

The Problem with Toxic Positivity

Interesting how frustrated or put out people can get when they run into what they view as unhappy “negative energy” that they cannot relate to, correct or ignore. The toxic positivity crowd seems fragile, openly displeased when things are not exactly their way. Looking closely, it feels like happiness isn’t an organic state of being. A construct built on top of an essential foundation of peace and security. It demands safety and structure to exist at all. Or perhaps the blessed state resilience of a careferee disposition. Expecting happiness to materialize out of nowhere after a foundation has been fractured by neglect and abuse is like demanding a roof when there are no walls.

Unhappiness, by that same token, is just the weight of things that tear at that security.

Why I Am Wired for Joy

And yet, somehow, I am wired for joy.

I delight easily. But joy and delight don’t care about a curated stack of ease or good fortunes. They live entirely in the immediate moment of being present and vulnerable. Happiness feels like it requires a whole history and a guaranteed future, but joy requires only the now, a sudden, fertile space which presents itself in the middle of whatever reality actually is. Happiness relies on a world that goes right, while joy only requires the willingness to stay open enough to notice a single, fleeting second of presence, belonging entirely to the moment, independent of a foundation beneath it which may be whole or broken.

The Requirement of Happiness

I recently learned that in the Mennonite tradition, there is a core insistence that suffering must never be done alone. It stopped me in my tracks.

It made me wonder: what is the word for the exact opposite of that? Because the relationships that shaped me and then chosen out of habit—the ones that faithfully mirror my family of origin—operate on a completely different framework. In that world, the unwritten rule is that suffering doesn’t exist for the right kind of peopler. If it does, it must be masked, suppressed, blamed, and cast away– if you can’t manage it as prescribed. It’s an energy that says suffering is for losers, an energy that promises, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

The Autocracy of the Untroubled

Growing up, happiness seemed a strict requirement. Yet, there was zero consideration for the lower levels of security—no foundational, protective caretaking that could flow into actual happiness. Instead, my sensitivities/struggles were used as evidence against me in a sort of autocratic system. Those who are not troubled or taxed with more than they can handle believe their peace is a birthright they earned and shall not be troubled by anyone lesser. By that same insulting logic, they identify most anyone hit by things consistently they cannot get back up from as deserving of the fall.

Looking back, I wonder how my “care givers” believed it possible for me to be happy when I was chronically overwhelmed, without a steady support or floor beneath me.

Sitting in Darkness: Ten Minutes a Day

I listened to a podcast recently with Kate Bowler, a survivor of stage four cancer at a surprisingly young age. She talked about how many people really just do not want to know the truth of a difficult reality. In the season in which she thought she was months away from death, parting her from aloving family, husband and young son, a co-worker asked how she was doing, and she gave a brilliantly genuine answer: “I’m doing mostly okay, except for about ten minutes every day.”

He didn’t say, “Well, at least it’s only ten minutes”. He didn’t offer a dismissive holow reassurance or pivot away from discomfort.

Instead, he looked her in the eyes and said, “Will you tell me about those ten minutes?”

It was a glaring, beautiful contrast to the standard script. No toxic positivity, no rushing to fix or minimize it, no turning away. Genuine inquiry – a quiet, compassionate presence willing to sit in the dark with someone else’s ten minutes.

Kate wrote a piece in one of her books that captures that rare posture perfectly:

Blessing for the Ones Who Stay

Blessed are you who stay.

Who sit beside pain that cannot be fixed.

Who choose presence over platitudes,

and silence over shallow comfort.

Blessed are you who ask hard questions without rushing toward answers.

Who bear witness to the kind of grief that rearranges the world.

You who try.

Try to imagine.

Try to listen.

Try to love in the absence of tidy outcomes.

May your staying be its own kind of balm.

Because it says: your pain matters. You matter.

And may you feel, even now,

that this, too, is holy.

To stay.

To try.

To say yes to life in all of its complexity.

And to love each other all the way through.

The Courage to Stay

It takes courage—and intentional humility—to stay present with someone whose reality is grim.

Why is that so rare?

Entitled people often behave as though the suffering are the fragile ones. But couldn’t fragility be more accurately defined as the inability to acknowledge, engage with, or endure difficulty?

I am many things, but I am not fucking fragile.

Those who judge me most harshly would crumble after a mile in my shoes. And then, with absolute conviction, they’d insist that if I were a better person, I’d have better shoes.

What’s interesting is how comfortable—if not confident—these folks seem with speaking and doing harm while banking on their target being too ashamed to acknowledge the harm done. It’s a kind of meritocracy bullshit: if you’re suffering, you must have earned it; if you’re struggling, it must be a character flaw. That belief conveniently absolves them of any responsibility for the damage they cause.

A reflection on conditional belonging, self-worth, anxiety, and growing up with unmet emotional needs.

The Difference Between Unworthy and Unmet

Needs That Didn’t Fit

When I was young, I experienced needs, feelings, fears, and sensitivities that did not seem to be commonly shared, openly discussed, or well supported.

I seemed to be more affected by things than many of the people around me. I had reactions, worries, questions, and needs that did not appear to have a place within the common experience.

I did not question the environment. I questioned myself.

When Feelings Became Dangerous

What I recall vividly is not the feelings themselves but what followed

If I was hurt, afraid, overwhelmed, hungry, lonely, or needed something that fell outside what was expected or understood, there seemed to be an unspoken cost.

I couldn’t make sense of it at the time, but I learned to associate having a need with danger.

As if the original feeling was not trouble enough. The response to it was the kicker.

I wasn’t just sad. I was afraid and ashamed of my sadness.

I wasn’t just hungry. I was fearful of being hungry.

I wasn’t just anxious. I was anxious about being anxious.

Somewhere along the way, those experiences fused together.

The feeling and the consequence. The vulnerability and the diminidhing and banishing response.

What I Made It Mean

For years, I thought my personality depression and anxiety were the problem.

What I recognize now is that much of my anxiety and despair may have flowed from anticipating what would happen when I had a need, a feeling, a preference, a limit, or a reaction for which there seemd no allowance within the environment around me.

What I was taught to beleive was that there was something wrong with me.

That I was the problem. My existence. Who and how I was.

That I was less deserving of care, understanding, protection, patience, or support than others.

Not because anyone sat me down and said so.

Because it seemed to be the conclusion supported by the evidence available to me.

A Consensus I Could Not Escape

I did not arrive at that conclusion alone. It seemed to fit the rules of the world around me.

Care, belonging, protection, support felt conditional.

And when those things remained absent, the most obvious explanation was that I had somehow failed to qualify for them.

It still feels as though the only thing my family and I agreed on was my lack of value. And once I stopped agreeing to that, the system collapsed and I was said to have opted out.

That structure and experience shaped the way I understood myself, the way I understood relationships. And what I came to expect from other people.

Searching for an Exit

The problem was that I could not stop being myself.

I could not stop feeling what I felt.

I could not stop experiencing the world through the nervous system and sensitivities unique to me.

I attempted EVERY means of escape.

Food. Sex. Alcohol. Drugs.

They solved nothing. They offered interruption.

A way to step away from the exhausting experience of being conscious inside a life built entirely on fear, pain, and loss, which seem to know no end.

Being blacked out, distracted, consumed, or off the grid felt preferable to being fully present.

What If I Wasn’t the Problem?

For most of my life, I assumed the missing piece was worthiness.

I believed that care, understanding, protection, and support existed, and that my task was to become deserving enough to receive them.

What never occurred to me was the possibility that these things might not have been available in the ways I needed them. The possibility that the absence of nourishing care and safety was not evidence of my lack of value.

Unworthy or Unmet?

I don’t have conclusions.

Only questions.

What if I spent years trying to solve the wrong problem?

What if I mistook the absence of something for evidence of my worth?

What if the story was not that I was unworthy?

What if the story was that I was unmet? And I had been baptized in the waters of being unmet by people who would not meet me- and came to think that- was truth, connection, love, and home.

And what if those are not the same thing at all?

I Thought I Was the Lucky One: Love Bombing, Illusion, and the Spell I Mistook for Love

A year ago I ended a relationship that I had initially believed was the love of my life. I still kind of feel that way, even though being love bombed is technically not love. It is still my only experience of consistently feeling deeply known, completely seen, and ALSO safe and chosen.

At long last, a glimpse of a life I wanted to live.

I enjoyed more easy laughter, beautiful meals made FOR me — with full-on consideration for my likes and dislikes — more adventure and love and intimacy and actual joy in my year with that man than with anyone across all of my years.

The Beginning of the Spell

And this was a man I almost didn’t meet.

We connected on a dating app and right out of the gate I told him I didn’t think we were a fit. Too short. An overall look I did not care for. Different politics. Born again Baptist preacher. Deeep South Georgia accent. No. No. No.

He laughed a deep beautiful laugh at my very direct and repeated NO.

Saying, what’s it going to hurt to just meet? If you don’t like me, no big deal.

And he showed up in attire I didn’t love and a weird necklace and a gun in the back of his pants — and somehow I DID NOT CARE.

Like fuck it. Be a short, necklace-wearing, gun-packing, Southern Baptist Trumper. Who even cares?! I feel like a million dollars in your presence. Free, beautiful, spoiled, protected, chosen.

Because he spoke words and carried energy that dissolved me into something completely intoxicating.

It was a spell.

What It Felt Like to Be Chosen

I remember telling him once, you are like a mega-dose of penicillin for me.

Like some magical dose of medicine healing wounds that had been hurting for a lifetime.

And he laughed and said, I don’t want to be penicillin. I want to be cocaine.

Hysterical. Right? Wrong.

Fully addicted to and reliant on him for THAT feeling that I literally could not imagine or want life without it.

I see now — he wasn’t joking.

To marvel was all I could do- at his gift for reading people. His natural attunement. Ease. Agility. Grace.

With me, he tracked things no one had ever tracked. He noticed my sensitivities without me explaining them. He sheltered me from things that would overwhelm me or drain me, without needing credit or announcing it. He paid attention to my nervous system in a way nobody ever had. And since being sensitive and reactive is the thing I have paid most dearly for, to exist in a space where not only was that not the standard, I never worried about it. About being A Lot.

And that felt like heaven. I never had to ask for consideration OR anything.

I certainly did not have to ask twice.

And it wasn’t just me.

People lit up around him. Doors opened. Light followed him.

But looking back now, it wasn’t light exactly.

Maybe more like some kind of radioactive glow.

Beautiful.

Radiant.

Compelling.

Something people moved toward.

Though leaving subtle but fatal erosion in its wake.

The Pattern I Didn’t See Yet

I knew of two other women who had been affected by his spell casting because he told me about them… in a very strategic way. Well selected clips of messages. Fragments. Probably how reality TV editing creates scenarios that never actually happened.

He shared things in a way that made me feel fiercely protective. Assuming: They had mistaken his kindness for more and were problematic. Disruptive. He provided just enough incomplete truths and lack of context for me to draw the conclusion that the problem lay in that these women were deranged and unreasonable.

Speaking unfavorably of anyone or anything is a thing he simply did not do. He appeared to be above that. Only an angel……

To say that I was moved by how he spoke of them with compassion while sharing things that made them seem terrifying, would be an understatement.

Just enough for me to build “my own” conclusions.

I remember thinking, what a good man. Steady. Calm. Curious. Benevolent beyond measure. Not of this world.

Because the stretches of time we spent together, how present he was, I couldn’t have imagined he had time or energy to create so much trouble elsewhere.

I couldn’t make the math work.

One of the women had worked with him years before-whom he had removed. The other had received pastoral care for and support from him for addiction and related issues.

There was enough context around them that if they ever spoke out against him(and that they did-relentlessly), he had pre-empted that with calculated actions which rendered them not credible, unreliable narrators, problematic.

How he engaged difficult situations was breathtaking with so much ease and grace. No indication of feeling threatened or defensive. I experienced him as INcredible while recognizing them as clearly non-credible.

From communication from them which he elected to share with me, I knew their full names and more. I was his lucky confidante.

One day when he was behaving questionably on the heels of being taken to court, I optimized the power of Google, which with only a name and a city provided a cell phone number for the one, and boldly reached out.

We spoke.

The First Break in Reality

I led with that I thought maybe we had similar wounds and experiences with (I provided only his initials). That we had each been made to doubt ourselves and our reality.

She knew nothing of me while I had been strategically fed information about her unwellness, despair, addiction, suicide attempt, and repeated stints in treatment.

Sensitive to her despair, I assured her she was younger and prettier than me, that I meant no harm, and that I would be stepping away for good. I genuinely believed I was being generous and helpful. Like, you are not alone. I’m not sure it had that effect.

She shared texts and emails between them. And reported that the night before she had given him a large sum of money.

Um ok.

After hearing that, I didn’t tell him what I knew or pursue him for explanations. I didn’t allow for the opportunity for him to speak his beautifully crafted words.

The End I Couldn’t Process Yet

I blocked him and thought I might die from my utterly shattered heart…and withdrawal from the drug of my choice. HIM!

Last night, restless and unable to sleep, I googled both women again.

The first results were mugshots.

And then one—

the one I had engaged with—her obituary from December.

Forty-five years old.

Young children.

Gone.

And one of my first thoughts—unbelievably—was whether I had somehow contributed by reaching out to her.

Typical:

I am responsible for anything painful, difficult, or unfortunate.

He probably hasn’t lost sleep over it.

I would regularly say to him, shit, what if I am really no different from these women? I must in some way be similar.

He assured me: You’re not like them. I pursued you.

I never wanted this with them. They pursued me.

The Meaning I’m Still Wrestling With

I really did think I was the lucky one.

And I suppose I was.

Just not for the reasons I thought.

Like I have not been dead or arrested. Yay me.

Quote by C.S. Lewis: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Reflecting on subtle harm, slow deception, and the unnoticed dangers of gradual choices.

A Year Later: Reflections on Pain and Resilience

A year ago, this moment would have been unimaginable. I could not sit, stand, lie down, walk, or lift anything without intense pain. Picking up a jar from the fridge seared my lower back. Even a purse on my shoulder was too much. Any vertical pressure on my spine felt unbearable.

One moment lingers vividly: my younger son, calm and measured, said, “Your struggles really are the result of the choices you make.” It wasn’t anger, just observation — yet it struck me deeply. Not just the words, but the certainty in how he had learned to see and speak to
me.

Today feels radically different. Earlier, I went down the stairs quickly, unassisted, to get something off the stove — moving without fear and with only manageable pain. The space between then and now is vast.

A year ago, I was just beginning to confront the nature of my relationships. Staying would have been no less painful than leaving. The person I could rely on most was not healthy for me. But conditioned by fear and expectation, I kept “taking what I could get”.

I realized that “taking what I could get” was diminishing my life — my vitality, my grounding. So I stopped. I refused it.

I feel less afraid now. I am grateful for the progress I’ve made. Many of the contributors to my pain — medication mismanagement, frequent hospitalizations, toxic relationships with people who believed themselves infallible — are, for now, behind me.

The journey continues. And in this moment, I see the difference a year has made. I recognize my resilience and growing agency. I no longer accept proximity to those who place their peace above my own (or anyone’s). In this way, the earth feels lonely, but less heartbreaking.

I am grateful for the rare presence of someone who would go to bat for me without compromise — someone whose loyalty requires no calculation, no convenience, no tyranny. This steadiness reminds me that I am not alone.