Like the most devious of dangers, it doesn’t happen all at once. Most of us start happy to have found some comfort. Maybe we have just come from a very uncomfortable place or out of  an impossible situation. Maybe happiness is the feeling of finding what we thought we’d been looking for: love, money, safety, ect. As happiness fades, comfort and familiarity replaces it so carefully it is easy to let the switch go unnoticed. It must have started the same way for my mom.

I never saw her happy. I assume this was before I was born. She used to tell stories about being glad to have gained independence from her older sister and finally finding a husband. I guess these were things she thought she wanted. I hope at some point she was happy, but, like I said, I didn’t see it. When I met her she was comfortable. 

Actually, the word is starting to sound wrong because there were many uncomfortable things about her life. Constantly walking on thin ice around my dad; her look of regret as my sister and I became older and more bitter. Rape and beatings are not normally a part of a comfortable life either. Maybe it would be better to say familiar? Still, it would be right to say that leaving would have been uncomfortable. 

There is an old saying about how-to-boil-a-lobster. If you try to put a lobster into already boiling water, it will do everything in its might to crawl out. On the other hand, if you put the lobster into the cool water and then increase it to a boil, the lobster will stay put. Even when the water begins to burn and the lobster begins to die, it will not move because it does not notice the water temperature increasing. My mom taught me that story. 

So many times, I asked my mom why she stayed with him and her answers always went back to the same question, what would she do if she left? I could imagine a whole world of possibilities. I imagined a small apartment bought with minimum wage earnings. I pictured slow advancement of earnings until we could afford a name brand item or find enough spare change for a fast-food meal. What would make this worth it is that all of it would be experienced without the fear of my dad’s hunting us down to destroy us. Still, she stayed put. Comfortable. 

Many times over, I’ve seen other people choose to stick with what they know rather than make a change that could result in their happiness. I have often understood depression to result from the need to make a change that the person is unwilling or unable to make. Most of the time, we are not unable to make the change we need, but we let the situations in our life convince us otherwise. That’s when I think about the lobster. 

I don’t think a lobster in a pot of water that his preparing to boil does not notice the water temperature increasing. I think that it lacks the belief that it is just the water, not the whole world, that is becoming hot enough to kill. Once someone is convinced that they will be unhappy anywhere, what is the point of leaving? Isn’t it easier to just be comfortable?

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence and seeking help, please visit the Domestic Violence National Hotline.

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