What is toxic positivity and what are some examples of it?
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Toxic positivity is when reality starts breaking down and delusions start setting in.
For example, patting yourself on the shoulder for doing something deplorable. Or encouraging toxic behavior that will only lead to worse outcomes.
It’s ok to admit when something is not going well or something is bad or wrong. It’s not negative to call something like it is. True positivity is in looking for better outcomes towards the future. Not blind meaningless positivity that lacks reason or a coherent perspective
An example of toxic positivity is the Progress Narrative. An example: my daughter is severely disabled. When folks learn this they will typically say “oh medicine/science has come so far… my friend had a kid with Xyz and he ended up being able to Abc in life.” It’s an outlook that diminishes reality and inhibits our ability to witness another’s situation and just see them. It’s the “things will get better” mentality that denies steady state existence. No, my girl doesn’t need to gain any additional skills or abilities. She may or may not get “better.” Better than what? we are happy. she is who she is and we love her. We have found joy and meaning and fulfillment right here, the way things are today. I think toxic positivity can deny the hard things we all deal with with this mentality that you cannot acknowledge any struggles. It intersects somewhere with the Prosperity Gospel which perpetuates Hustle Culture. But that’s just one example I’m sure there will be better answers here that I’ll upvote.
Toxic positivity is when the insistence on only “seeing the good” in things escalates to the point where it becomes unacceptable to acknowledge or recognize anything that is not within a narrowly defined range of positive. This often manifests in online fandoms as prohibitions against any kind of criticism or contrary opinion of the fandom or its accepted tenets. It also comes up in discussion around disabilities and body image as well. For example, toxic positivity around disabilities leads to referring to the community as “differently abled”, which in turn can diminish the very real struggle people face to accomplish every day tasks and also can decrease awareness and support for necessary accommodation of these disabilities.
Toxic positivity is when you are sooo positive, that you cannot admit the crappy parts of a situation.
Sometimes this is pretty harmless, like when my friend says she’s hosting “playshops” instead of “workshops.”
Other times its really hurtful, like when no one had words for my spouse’s drug addiction. We said positive things, like “thank you for taking care of your body today” and “I’m grateful you made it home safe last night” even if they weren’t totally true.
We believed that if we said negative things, they would be attracted to us, and that meant we had caused our own misery, brought it on ourselves.
We believed that if we said positive thigs, then positive things would come true. And then we would take full responsibility for our own happiness and success.
This was really toxic in a few ways. Firstly, because it prevented making any real changes in our lives. It prevented us from understanding how change actually happens: through actions. We thought it was 100% mindset/attitude/perspective. Turns out that acknowledging all the crappy things really helps us know what changes need to be made, and helps us figure out how to make them.
Secondly, it was toxic because we put responsibility for happiness and sadness wholly on the person feeling them. So if someone felt angry about racist discrimination, it was their own fault for feeling angry, not the racist who was doing the actual crappy thing. Or if I got a great new job, I might think it was all my own doing, by attracting it, instead of all the people who helped me get ready for the interview. Putting responsibility in the wrong spot meant that no one could be helped, and nothing needed to change in our laws, culture, or relationships.
We believed the only thing we could change was our own attitudes and it meant we told people to stay in harmful situations.
It’s something people do when they are uncomfortable with your negative feelings.
For example,
your dog dies and your coworkers tell you he lived a good long life and to try to cheer up and asks if you want to go get ice cream to forget about it
Or you are sad because you are over weight and your mom tells you to look on the bright side, there’s more to love, and says to put a smile on your face and asks if you want to watch a comedy together to cheer you up.
This might seem kind, but you also need people in your life to say “that really sucks” or “i would feel bad too” or “tell me about how you feel, I’m here”
Sometimes hearing an opposite example is helpful to understand toxic positivity.
i.e. when you hear a sad song on the radio and it mentions certains sad feelings you are having- that is not toxic positivity. It is beneficial negativity. Bizarrely paradoxical but that is why music can be such great therapy for individuals experiencing emotional distress.
When people insist you listen to music that only talks about positive emotions -and it makes you feel awful and misunderstood deep inside- this is toxic positivity
Smile!
If you’ve ever been feeling down and been told to just “Smile!”, you’ve experienced a simple everyday example of toxic positivity: The other person does not want to see any negativity, so they tried to get you to pretend to be happy for their sake — and had the audacity of claiming they were doing you a favour by “helping” you to cheer up.
If you have depression you should just clean up your room, go be in nature and just smile.
Think positive!
Toxic positivity is kind of a quasi religious mindset when a person believes that everyone (including themselves) should always behave and communicate positively (like smiling, cheering, saying how happy you are etc) regardless of the situation.
It’s an over generalization and misinterpretation of the fact that in general being positive is good and denies the natural need of negative human feelings such as sadness or exhaustion.
Toxic positive people are often behaving in a passive agresssive or rejective way towards those who show negative emotions, claiming that others negativity cancels their positivity. They either demand to maintain a positive facade (“always smile when I’m here”) or reject those in need (“come back when you stopped crying”).
The toxic part is exactly this kind of message: “you are only welcome if you have good times (or pretend to have), but I don’t care about you when you have bad times and need help”. They also suppress their own negative emotions that are healthy and needed for example in mourning.
Just to add to the explanations; if you want to see a nice example of toxic positivity, try watching Pixar’s [Inside Out](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/?ref_=tt_sims_tt_t_8).
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