“THE UNIVERSE HAS A PLAN!” “LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!” “
which compared to dissociation, is an intentional choice to separate ourselves from our mental and emotional pain, denying our ability to truly process our experiences and circumstances.” “Experiencing some emotional shutdown and numbness is considered a natural response to significant distress and is protective in survival mode,” notes Downing. “However over time this response can be damaging to healing and unhelpful when we are not in survival mode.”
“Two opposing thoughts can be true,” says Downing. “For example, if after experiencing something distressing a person instead of thinking “I can never think about this again, I must remain positive,” they can reframe their thought to “This is really difficult and I am grateful to have made it through the situation,” or “It’s okay to acknowledge both my strength and difficulties with this situation, it’s okay to be sad it happened.” This provides the opportunity to acknowledge both pain and resilience.” Elizabeth Campbell, a writer who lost her brother, initially coped by telling herself, “At least I had time with him at all!”—a textbook toxic positivity reflex. But burying her grief led to PTSD. “I was kidding myself,” she says. “Pretending I was okay made everything worse. I was so, so beyond sad. I wish I had just let myself feel that. Instead I tried to move on from him and look optimistically forward, which in retrospect is kind of messed up—like I feel I was trying too hard to
HOW TO DO BETTER
Let’s be so clear here: The antidote is not pessimism.
The antidote is not pessimism!
Instead look to tragic optimism, a term coined by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, an effort to find meaning alongside suffering, not instead of it.
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