“MANIFEST A MILLION DOLLARS!” “GOOD VIBES ONLY!”
THING HAPPENS FOR A REASON!” “STAY POSITIVE!” “SMILE.” Realistically, if a person has experienced pain that has debilitated them, they may want to avoid this from happening again.”
For Kara, toxic positivity didn’t just invalidate her grief, it isolated her. “I stopped talking to people who couldn’t ‘handle me’— which turned out to be most people,” she says. “I thought it would be easier or safer—or something!—just to be alone. Alone felt better than to feel erased.” The cancer patient we spoke to puts it even more bluntly: “If someone calls me a ‘fighter’ at my funeral, I’ll haunt the f— out of them.” As Downing puts it, “If we have experienced trauma for instance, one of the responses may be ‘fawning,’ which refers to appeasing and pleasing in order to survive a situation.” “This in turn may influence denying one’s true mental, emotional, and physiological response to pain,” she says. “If this experience continues in excess, dissociation may occur. Dissociation is a process where, due to trauma and crisis, our minds and bodies naturally separate from harmful and hurtful thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. We may also begin to disassociate ,
But this avoidance comes at a cost. When we prioritize positivity over authenticity, we create a culture where people feel ashamed of their emotions. We teach them that their pain is a burden, their sadness is a failure, and their vulnerability is a liability.
THE DARK SIDE OF “GOOD VIBES ONLY”
Toxic positivity isn’t just annoying. It’s a form of emotional gaslighting—a cultural sleight of hand that convinces us our pain isn’t real. Take social media: We curate highlight reels of vacations, promotions, and #blessings, scrubbing away anything messy or sad. The result? A collective delusion that life should be a nonstop victory lap. Meanwhile, grief, anger, or frustration get labeled as “toxic” emotions— problems to fix, not feelings to process.
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