The two words do not really sound like they should go together. Positive is seen as a good thing, the definition describes it as someone who tends to have an optimistic outlook. Someone who tends to, which does not mean that they always do have an optimistic outlook. I would say I am a positive person. Some may even say too positive, but I do not see the world in rainbows and unicorns. But what if I am too positive for some people and what does it mean for them?
Toxic on the other hand is defined as something that is poisonous or harmful.
I am going to look at two aspects of toxic positivity, firstly for the positive individual and secondly for other people that it may impact.
Last summer, my motto was ‘living my best life’, a phrase that is overused now and becoming something more negative. I had taken it as mine, as I was going through a breakup and it was a reminder to myself that I need to live my own life. For others, it is a catchy Instagram hashtag that shows how amazing your life is. Now some may have thought that about my posts if they had seen them, who knows. The toxic thing about Instagram and other social media platforms is that they are not real; they are the unicorn glittered version of what is real. Now do not get me wrong, social media is a great way of staying connected with other people, amongst other things, but as a society, it is becoming a bigger part of us than it should.
Being positive towards yourself is a good thing but it can get too much. It can be a way of masking your true feelings and emotions. Belittling how you are feeling and expecting yourself to not feel a certain way. Pressuring yourself into being okay because ‘society’ said you should be! This is going to take its toll on you as an individual, feeling the feelings you are feeling but not being fully true to yourself. It is easier this way as others are more encouraging when you are ‘getting on’ with whatever life has thrown at you. There is also a part of denial that comes into this, if you imagine yourself like a bottle every time you deny a real emotion and mask it over with positivity, you will get to a point where the bottle overfills. All the emotions will spill out, potentially when you do not want them to and, in a way, you don’t want it to. Now, the reason for me giving my example above of ‘living my best life’ is, I was working through the negative and positive emotions I was feeling at the time, so I was not being toxic towards myself. It is a fine line, so important to recognise the difference. An example of being toxic to yourself, belittling how you are feeling about your job and afraid to say anything because you are lucky to have a job and because you have a job you put up with and doing everything that is given to you because ‘you are lucky to have a job’ when others do not. It is denying yourself to have negative emotions about something and putting pressure on yourself to ‘just be positive’.
Ways to recognise you are being positive toxic towards yourself;
- You know deep down what you are saying and showing others is not how you are feeling
- It is making you feel drained and exhausted
- You do not want to be alone as it is easier to keep this face of positivity going with other people around
- You do not want others to know what you are really thinking and feeling
- You involve yourself more with helping others or events
- You do not want to talk or listen when someone raises a concern with you
- You are very defensive if others question you about how you are truly feeling
- You put a lot of effort into showing others how amazing everything is, but you know it is not true
- You become overwhelmed by suppressing your negative feelings and you notice that not expressing your true emotions is bringing more negative thoughts towards yourself.
Then onto the impact of other people’s toxic positivity. More so now than ever, there is a lot of people putting their toxic positivity on others and most do not even realise they are doing it. These are the people posting every day on social media about how to be positive and everything will be okay just like them, or it is not that bad. We don’t know what a person is going through and we are not in their shoes, so how can we justify telling them it is all going to be alright? It is telling them what they are thinking and feeling is not valid and that they should potentially not be thinking this way, which can lead to greater incidents of depression and anxiety.
When you look at someone who is anxious, most of their anxious thoughts tend to have come from not knowing what may or may not happen, which is why a lot more people (myself included) are having more anxious thoughts and feelings at present. One thing about anxiety is that it is not logical. I understand anxiety and how to lessen the impact of it, but your mind does not always do what you know it should do. Someone telling you, not to worry it will all be fine, builds on anxious thoughts as you do not have proof to know that it will all be fine. So, although some people feel like they are helping, they are making matters worse.
When it comes to others being toxic positive, a person can potentially see the other person as having it all together and that they always have it all together which can make you feel that there is something wrong with you. On the other hand, then, the person who is always positive even if it is toxic believes that they must always be this way as others expect this from them.
Toxic positivity is difficult as you will not always realise you are doing it, or someone is doing it to you. We all want the world to know that we are okay, but why, to feel good emotions we need to feel all the other emotions also so we know how to recognise our own feelings and to know when to do something about the emotions you are feeling. What 2020 has allowed us all to see is that people cope differently when put under the same restrictions, money, status and power do not matter the way we thought they did and some people coped with learning and doing new things differently, while others coped with watching television and all ways are perfectly okay.
Now, I am not saying being positive and optimistic is a bad thing but take note of how much you use it on others and yourself. It is okay to feel and express more than one emotion at the same time. It is important to understand other people and restrict yourself from using terms like ‘it will all be fine’ as we do not know how this will impact others. And for yourself finding a balance and not letting the toxic positive take over. It is not healthy to be positive all the time. If you have watched the movie Inside Out (one of my favourite movies, especially for explaining the importance of all emotions), you know how important all emotions are and to feel any emotion truly, you need to feel each and every one of them.
