Why toxic positivity is bad for you.

I just got off the phone with a close friend that is going through a difficult time when I got another call from a friend that tends to be a “cup half full” type of guy. On a normal day, I can be like that too, but I also have days when I just don’t want to talk to anyone. So, when he asked me how I am, instead of being my usual upbeat self I started to share the story of a friend that is struggling, I guess I wanted to offload. Then I waited for his response but what followed was an uncomfortable silence and then he asked me again “But how are you, Anna?”

At first, I thought maybe he hadn’t heard what I said or maybe he decided to ignore it because it wasn’t what he expected to hear and I’m sure it is implied that you’re not great if you are concerned about someone close to you. So, after a few moments, I replied, “How do you think I’d feel after what I have just shared with you?”

I sometimes feel that people that lean towards positivity can struggle to show empathy when they are faced with anything slightly negative. They can’t easily access the right words to say or find a way to comfort someone that might be feeling a little down. I’ve even caught myself about to tell someone that is sharing something rather sensitive to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and get on with it because that’s what we think is the right thing to do. Whilst it’s good to encourage others to pick themselves up, often we try to do that before we are ready. Maybe we need to give ourselves time to gain the strength we need to get back up. Toxic positivity is like a forced recovery or even worse a pretense that can have a detrimental long-term effect.

What is Toxic Positivity?

The Oxford dictionary defines positivity as “the practice of being positive in your attitude and focusing on what is good in a situation” Whilst this is of course a useful way to see some situations it becomes toxic when the belief is that however bad or difficult the situation, we should keep a positive mindset.

This topic often comes up in my Mindfulness groups, especially when working with people living with Cancer. Over and over people say how bad they feel about themselves because however hard they try they can’t be positive about their situation. And this is made worse when others tell them to “be positive”. I mean come on how does anyone turn the diagnosis of cancer into a positive? It’s not useful to be told to look at something like cancer from a positive point of view. It might be more helpful to let that person express their fear, anger, and sadness instead. It may even be better to let them cry, shout and tell the world that it’s not fair!

How Toxic Positivity affects mental health

In Buddhism, we talk about the suffering caused by wanting to escape suffering. And in her book “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole”, Susan Cain writes:

“If we could honor our sadness a little more, maybe we could see it – rather than enforce smiles and righteous outrage”

She adds

“The bittersweet is also the recognition that light and dark, birth and death, bitter and sweet, are forever paired”

These powerful words highlight the importance of not only knowing how to be happy but also how to be sad. Now more than ever we need to be able to sift through all the hyped-up positivity and turn to face our struggles because life is both “bitter and sweet” and to be truly happy we must know how to be with both.

A word about “gaslighting”

Gaslighting is when a person psychologically manipulates you and over time this causes you to question the validity of your own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories. It is most typical in romantic relationships but can also happen in other relationships. It’s a type of mental abuse that can be difficult to see, especially since it can be quite subtle.

If you are in a relationship with someone that suffers from toxic positivity it can make you feel that your feelings are not valid. This leads to a loss of confidence and you might begin to question your own sanity. That is why in Mindfulness we encourage deep listening without the need to provide our view about what someone shared.

We don’t need to fix or be fixed just to be heard.

So maybe instead of trying to turn everything into a positive, we should learn to be authentic and express our true feelings. Maybe we can find the courage to say “I too am suffering” because in doing that not only do we heal, we help others to know they are not alone in their suffering and then we might help heal them too.