{"id":104,"date":"2022-11-19T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T04:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/?p=104"},"modified":"2025-10-11T17:54:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T22:54:06","slug":"toxic-positivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/2022\/11\/19\/toxic-positivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic Positivity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I have often railed against those who have tried to encourage me by telling me to \u201cthink happy thoughts\u201d or who tried to pump sunshine by telling me how wonderful life is.\u00a0 It was as though they thought I wasn\u2019t trying to heal, that I didn\u2019t know about trying to pull out of a depressed mood.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard this attitude called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.verywellmind.com\/what-is-toxic-positivity-5093958\">toxic positivity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><a><\/a>Toxic positivity is a name given to the attitude that everything is always just fine, and anyone who isn\u2019t happy has chosen to be miserable; or else, they deserved their misery.&nbsp; No matter what happens, feelings of anger, sadness, guilt, or any other unpleasant emotions are not to be allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem with this attitude is that negative and unpleasant emotions are a part of life.&nbsp; They happen to everyone.&nbsp; No matter how optimistic and upbeat a person tries to be, there will be times when he\u2019s sad, angry, or otherwise experiencing those forbidden feelings.&nbsp; Trying to deny this is dishonest.&nbsp; You have to stuff those \u201cbad\u201d feelings; and that\u2019s a bad idea.&nbsp; Denying your emotions doesn\u2019t make them go away.&nbsp; It causes them to become subversive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When toxic positivity is applied to other people it trivializes or invalidates their pain.&nbsp; It denies them the opportunity to express themselves, to have a compassionate listener with whom they can share their feelings.&nbsp; It may lead the sufferers to stop trying to share; it may cause them to feel guilty for feeling bad.&nbsp; It likely makes them feel more isolated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have long wondered why some people do this.&nbsp; The easy explanation, that these toxically positive people are assholes, wasn\u2019t an option.&nbsp; Many of them are good people, kind, gentle folks who genuinely want to help.&nbsp; How did they come to have this trait, then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It may be that these people fear the notion that bad things can happen to good people; that true suffering might happen to anyone, no matter how good or wholesome they try to be.&nbsp; If it\u2019s out of their control, maybe it could happen to them.&nbsp; It\u2019s the notion that life isn\u2019t fair, and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such a thought is frightening.&nbsp; It makes the world a scary place.&nbsp; Rather than live in such a world, some people prefer to believe they have some control over their fate.&nbsp; If only they think happy thoughts, they can avoid the misery that so many others experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This positivity is fine, until life hands you some painful experience.&nbsp; Then you either acknowledge that you\u2019re hurting, or you stuff those feelings and try to carry on.&nbsp; I suspect that this isn\u2019t sustainable.&nbsp; At some point, there\u2019s going to be a reckoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I had this insight, I found it less painful to hear someone try to pump sunshine.&nbsp; I understand that they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing, or why they\u2019re doing it.&nbsp; I can feel some sympathy for them.&nbsp; They don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about.&nbsp; They may learn some day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have often railed against those who have tried to encourage me by telling me to \u201cthink happy thoughts\u201d or who tried to pump sunshine by telling me how wonderful life is.\u00a0 It was as though they thought I wasn\u2019t &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/2022\/11\/19\/toxic-positivity\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}