TE

This single line has been stuck in my head for days. I’m currently on a train to Birmingham, and there’s nothing spectacular about the view, just grey skies, wet windows, and that familiar British gloom. Yet all I can think about is the phrase: “when pain becomes happiness.”

Have you ever experienced a kind of pain so intense it shifts something in your brain? The type that rearranges your wiring in the strangest, quietest way, not breaking you, but bending you into someone slightly different than before?

Sometimes we experience a life‑altering kind of pain, and I’m not talking about the dramatic heartbreaks or betrayals. I mean the small, everyday aches. The silent treatment from people we love, the lack of consideration we’ve somehow accepted as normal. These tiny cuts add up. They shift something in our brain chemistry, and before we realise it, a subtle conviction settles in. The one that whispers, “Maybe this is just how it’s meant to be.” The part of you that lets it in, absorbs it, and starts calling it reality. Maybe it’s fear. The fear that if we question it, we won’t be strong enough to handle whatever comes after. So we lie to ourselves. We smooth it over. We swallow it whole. We say, “No worries — I’m fine,” even when we’re anything but.

When pain becomes happiness, it changes you. It blurs the edges of who you were before the hurt. You start to forget what life felt like without the heaviness. You start to doubt your own authenticity. You catch yourself wondering, What exactly am I trying so hard to protect? Somehow society has romanticised this idea of “pain as a drive,” as if suffering is a prerequisite for ambition. But why must something gut‑wrenching be the thing that pushes us forward? Why does someone’s lack of care or consideration have to become a motivating factor? I have so many questions and none of them come with easy answers.

When pain becomes happiness, it leaves a sour taste on the tip of your tongue like something is stuck in your throat. You know you need help, but you can’t ask, because the lump feels too uncomfortable to touch and you don’t want to open your mouth anyway, because you’re scared whatever comes out might stink. So you swallow it. Again and again. You drink warm water, maybe add lemon and ginger because someone once said it soothes. You numb the ache, hoping it dissolves on its own. Suddenly, a day comes when you can’t put it off anymore. It hurts deeply and embarrassingly. It hurts so much that even you start to feel disgusted by the stench of everything you’ve been holding in.

When pain becomes happiness, you start convincing yourself that the world will change, that people will change, that there’s some invisible prize waiting at the end applauding you for being the patient one. The one who endured. The one who stuck it out. But why keep tending to something that was meant to be uprooted in the first place? Sometimes pain looks like a loved one crossing boundaries you never agreed to. And you tell yourself over and over again that it’s okay. You whisper, “It’s just one of those things we do for love.”
But no, it’s not. Your nervous system is simply exhausted, stretched thin, and there you are calling it devotion.

When pain becomes happiness, in my opinion starts with forgiving yourself for not knowing better. It’s admitting your wrongs, taking responsibility where it’s yours to take, and releasing whatever has been sitting heavy on your chest. It’s accepting that you are not responsible for managing other people’s feelings simply because you finally chose to stand up for yourself. People will always feel with or without your permission, with or without your intention. But the one thing you do have control over is how you respond to the pain. How you choose to move through it. How you decide to reclaim yourself on the other side. And maybe that’s the quiet lesson in all of this. Happiness isn’t the absence of pain, it’s the moment you stop letting it define you. The moment you choose yourself, even if your voice shakes. The moment you realise that healing isn’t about being all sunshine and ice-cream. Rather, it is about being unafraid to touch the parts of you that hurt.

Now I’m people‑watching, and something I’ve realised about myself is I don’t actually like being in places I’m not familiar with. There’s this subtle anxiety that creeps in whenever I travel alone. The quiet fear that I might get lost, that I won’t know what to do if I miss my train at the next change, that I’ll somehow misplace myself. However, watching people move through their day gives me peace. It reminds me that I’m not stagnant. That life is still happening, and I’m still part of it. A gentle nudge to keep moving too. I keep telling myself I should start acting my age in unfamiliar spaces, but honestly? You’ll always find me by the door in every room because at the slightest hint of discomfort, I’m already halfway out the exit.

I tried my hardest to give y’all four posts this month, but the past two weeks had me fighting for my life literally. I’m still not feeling my best, but in celebration of hitting a thousand views on this space, I’m sending this out with all my love and gratitude. Remember my darlings, when pain becomes happiness, try not to wear it as your identity. 

See you in Feb x 🙂