platitudes like “good vibes only” and “everything happens for a reason”—phrases so empty they’d make a fortune cookie blush. But forced positivity isn’t resilience. It’s emotional repression. wheels. It’s the reason we’re drowning in IF TOXIC positivity had a mascot, it would be a glitter-covered bulldozer—crushing grief, anger, and nuance under its rhinestone
Kara’s story isn’t unique. A woman with terminal metastatic breast cancer recounted strangers telling her to “just stay positive!”—as if her attitude, not her disease, dictated her survival. “It’s so condescending,” she says. “They would act like I’m not already fighting for my life, or like I’m the one affecting the outcome by how outwardly bubbly I am.” These aren’t comfort tactics. They’re emotional silencing.
WHEN POSITIVITY BECOMES VIOLENCE
Kara’s world shattered in 2024. Eight months pregnant, she went to the hospital after not feeling her baby move. The news was unthinkable: her son was gone. In the weeks that followed, Kara’s grief was met with a barrage of toxic positivity. “At least you have another child!” one person said. “Everything happens for a reason,” offered another. Even her first trip out of the house ended in disaster when an acquaintance chirped, “Two kids is so much work, anyway! You should keep it the way it is!” “It felt like they were erasing my son’s very existence,” Kara recalls. “I taught myself to stop sharing my grief because their responses made me feel embarrassed or like “too much” for feeling it at all. It was easier for my friends if I just smiled and pretended to move on, but it was so painful for me to have to pretend.”
WHY WE DO IT
So why do we default to toxic positivity? According to Ardenna Downing, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor at Callery Counseling PLLC, it’s often about avoiding discomfort. “A function of toxic positivity is to minimize, deny, and ignore pain as a means to survive circumstances,” she says. “It is also an adaptive response to a lack of support and understanding from others, along with the human body and psyche’s desire under some circumstances to avoid further pain. 16
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