I sat in my therapist’s office and said the words out loud for the first time:

“That lightning isn’t there.”

I was talking about Vanessa. About how when she touched me there was this comfort and calm I hadn’t felt before. It lingered. It confused the hell out of me.

Every relationship before her? Lightning. That activated, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep, my-stomach-is-in-knots feeling. The kind of intensity that made me feel alive. The kind I thought was proof we were meant to be.

But with Vanessa? Just... calm. Safe. Present.

And I couldn’t figure out if that meant something was missing, or if I was finally experiencing something I’d never had before.

My therapist looked at me and said something that cracked me open:

“Maybe the lightning you felt—which you compare all your relationships to—was actually dysfunction.”

I sat with that for weeks.

Because here’s what I’d been doing my whole life: confusing danger with desire. Mistaking chaos for chemistry. Calling trauma “the spark.”

And I’m not the only one.

I got a question this week that sounded exactly like what I told my therapist:

“How do I know if this is just a slow burn relationship or if it’s time to let go? There’s no spark, but everyone says give it time.”

Here’s what nobody tells you: Your nervous system may have........

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