Toxic positivity is when we respond to situations that would naturally cause emotional distress with false reassurances and positive feelings.

Toxic positivity is dismissing of genuine human feelings that are deemed negative, displaying only positive feelings, despite the circumstances. This can be very harmful as dismissing negative feelings and only focusing on positive ones can mean that we are not in touch with our true selves, denying ourselves what it fundamentally means to be human.

People who display toxic positivity never get to fully appreciate distressful situations for what they are as they feel huge pressure to remain positive. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging negative feelings when things are not going well, or when faced with disappointment. And it’s healthier to be honest with true feelings if one is struggling than forge a positive attitude. Toxic positivity can occur on a subjective level, informed by core beliefs that we may have created around help-seeking, competency, and failure. It could be from another person who disqualifies someone’s experiences by telling them to focus on the positives – no matter how it hurts, “Chin up, positive vibes only.”

Harmfulness of toxic positivity

Toxic positivity can lead to depression and feelings of isolation, through never getting to fully appreciate, communicate, or share true feelings. The more we shut down, deny, or suppress our feelings, the more we distance ourselves from them, and feel disconnected from ourselves. We also end up feeling disconnected from others as we are not being our authentic selves.

If someone wants to share how they are feeling, and they are being told to concentrate on the positive, it can lead to shutting down and not sharing after all, which is harmful in the long term. This often happens when there is a loved one who is struggling or going through a difficult time, and we want to pick them up, “Come on, you can do it, stay positive!” While there is a good intention, when we only focus on the positives, we never get to appreciate situations and contexts for what they are. That also means we never get to reflect and learn from them.

When we suppress, dismiss, invalidate, or deny feelings, we are simply burying them. We internalise them and they are likely to manifest in uglier and unanticipated ways. This is true for anger, which when suppressed, can manifest as depression (anger turned inwardly) or aggression and rage that gets acted out. Toxic positivity can manifest in relationships – familial, romantic, friendships, and in workspaces. The body is intricately linked to the mind. When we bottle up emotions, they can manifest physiologically in the form of bodily aches and pains.

In his book, The body keeps the score, Van Der Kolk, a trauma expert writes about the link between the psyche and soma in relation to trauma. His work is based on empirical studies on how trauma reshapes the brain, and manifests physiologically, the body becomes the main platform where feelings related to a particular traumatic event is experienced.

Avoidance of negative emotions

The main reason why people engage in toxic positivity is because they want to avoid certain feelings and emotions that are deemed negative.  Toxic positivity is a defence against feelings that would make someone feel vulnerable. These feelings cause unpleasant physical sensations due to the physiological changes that take place in our bodies in response to them; this is why they are experienced as negative.

Humans are emotional beings. And our emotions make our lives colourful, rich, and meaningful. Every experience we have is coloured by emotions – that’s why when one remembers a memory, it  evokes feelings of  either sadness, happiness, joy, anxiety, anger, etc. Even in sleep, our emotional life is active, helping us process. Dreams are a rich part of our subconscious and are emotionally charged.

Without emotions, life would be a dark landscape, just like an empty, arid desert land with no rain, plants, and no life.

Despite emotions being a significant part of who we are, we live in a society where we make rules about certain feelings and emotions, which are deemed negative, bad, or intolerable. This is true of anger, rage, fear and sadness. Even love can be a negative feeling if we anticipate rejection, and if we love someone who does not love us and  there is no reciprocity. However, the reality is that there is no such thing as negative or bad emotions. Every emotion and feeling is valid and they happen for a reason. The only way to understand the validity of our feelings is to experience them, reflect on them, and understand the validity of their source. The quickest, albeit detrimental thing most people do in response to certain emotions, is to suppress, ignore, invalidate, or distract themselves from experiencing them. Toxic positivity is a tool for doing exactly that (“good vibes only”), and not giving ourselves the permission to really sit with how one truly feels.

One of the key reasons why some people end up self-medicating anxiety, sadness, worry, shame, and anger with alcohol, narcotics, and sometimes food is to regulate how they are feeling as certain feelings become unbearable. When we suppress feelings, we are denying ourselves who we are as humans. The macho attitude is a key element of toxic positivity.

Low self-esteem and anxiety

Low self-esteem plays a big part in toxic positivity as fundamentally one does not have the inherent trust in themselves to be able to cope with situations that are deemed risky, leaving them feeling vulnerable and powerless. Due to this deep-seated insecurity and fear of judgement, it’s easy to deny or invalidate a situation with positivity, than engage with how it truly leaves that person feeling.

Being able to talk about our feelings in context, expressing them, and acknowledging them for what they are is essential to our personal growth and improving our self-worth. People who adopt toxic positivity tend to be anxious individuals; people who may ‘follow the crowd’ due to a lack of self-belief. By not confronting the issue at hand and turning it into a positive, it deflects anxiety. They are likely to view the world in all-or-nothing terms, and overgeneralise without considering the meticulous and real issues at hand.

Emotions and their meaning

Feelings and emotions are simply feelings and emotions. No feelings or emotions are negative or positive. Our defence-related feelings – anger, fear, anxiety, sadness – are related to the primitive (evolutionary) part of us which seeks survival. These feelings provoke unpleasant physiological responses because the alert us of impending danger, and prepare us to deal with it. This is why they become unbearable; its not because they are meaningless or menacing. On the contrary, pleasure-related feelings – happiness, joy, euphoria – are considered more tolerable, we want to repeat things that bring us pleasure.

There is no such thing as having emotional problems. Not being able to handle emotions is not because of being weak or a character flaw; it happens because emotions work in powerful but subtle ways, demanding expression and attention. When we deny or suppress them, it is usually something we have learnt to do from a young age. But these feelings may find ways to ‘leak out’, and we may struggle with regulating them appropriately so they do not cause discomfort.

Emotions and feelings guide us to what’s important to us. Here is what key feelings may mean to us.

Anger

Anger is a normal feeling. When we feel angry, we should pay attention to it rather than suppress it. We feel angry because there is a sense that an injustice has been made, and one has been treated unfairly. Anger helps us understand more deeply what one is passionate about, what you care about, where your boundaries are, and what you believe should be done accordingly. Anger only becomes detrimental when we either suppress it, hold on to it, or deny it.

Sadness

Sadness is a normal feeling we experience which helps us understand the depth of our care for others and what matters to us. The reason we feel sad is because we care about the person or situation. If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t feel sad about it not being what we wanted it to be.

Guilt

The reason we feel guilt is that there is a sense that we violated our moral standards, and we want to do better. It’s the part of us that hold conscience that fuels the guilt feelings. Guilt feelings can help us recalibrate our moral compass and learn to do better in the future.

Anxiety

Anxiety means you are alert, and you want to remain safe and in control. Anxiety is normal, it is our evolutionary tool that has kept us alive though a millennial. Anxiety only becomes problematic when its excessive, chronic , and  life limiting. Reminding oneself that you are safe, and normalising anxiety is is a key aspect of managing anxiety.  The reason why it causes discomfort if because it provokes unpleasant physiological responses which at times lead  to anxiety related disorders- panic disorder, generalised anxiety, OCD, agoraphobia, health anxiety, social anxiety and PTSD.

Combating toxic positivity

There are some potential ways to combat toxic positivity, such as:

• Being able to accept that we cannot get things right all the time and that things can go wrong is a key part of combating toxic positivity and is primary to personal growth.
• Understanding the language of our emotions is key – there is no such thing as negative emotions. Feeling sad, angry, and scared at times is normal. What’s crucial is that it is expressed appropriately; not supressed.
• Developing emotional vocabulary by tuning to and leaning into emotions that you tend to avoid, identifying their source. By understanding them, you can give these feelings a meaning, and they become less scary.
• Learning to share how you truly feel with people you trust when things are not working out and when you are feeling sad, angry, overwhelmed, angry, etc. By stating happiness and optimism in situations that evoke sadness, anger, or anxiety is undermining yourself as human.
• Journaling your true feelings, even if you feel you need to keep a positive attitude in front of others. By journaling, you are able to learn more about your feelings and understand their source.
• Starting to give yourself the permission, freedom, autonomy, and power to make choices about your life. Failure is not the end of the world, its OK to be sad if you fail or if things don’t go your way.
• Surrounding yourself with people you can be vulnerable with and you feel safe to be around.
• Building your self-esteem by taking risks – do something that feels unnatural. Allow yourself to be imperfect and learn from the mistakes.

The only way you learn and grow is through failure. It gives you an opportunity to reflect and figure out the areas you needs to work on. A big part of why we don’t try is because of the core beliefs that we hold about ourselves around failure ,“I am not good enough; I am not entitled to be successful”. These are ancient notions and they should not have so much power over you.

Lastly, there is nothing wrong  with a good old cry if you are feeling down & dejected. Crying is cathartic; by crying you are simply being human.

Our world is fast changing, more so as we live in a digital age. Language is evolving; new words are appearing in our vocabulary, and some are formally recognised in our dictionaries. Traditional and conventional ways of being and relating are now at par with alternative and unconventional conducts that never existed a decade ago.

The “Woke culture” is central to this paradigm shift; pop psychology is here and it’s here to stay. It is truly a privilege to live through these changes and be a part of it. Despite the positive aspects of this paradigm shift, we are also living in a world where pop psychology is leading, buzzwords are getting thrown around, and people are diagnosing themselves with all kinds of diagnoses.

Social media perpetuates this problem, and so does access to the internet where a plethora of information exists, most of it unverified and unreliable. Therefore there is a real need to engage in a dialogue between real psychology and pop psychology, so these two worlds can be bedfellows.

Many clients come to therapy having diagnosed themselves with all kinds of mental disorders – ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety etc. after watching TikTok videos or Instagram posts. Most of the social influencers who are diagnosing people and giving advice are not qualified to make the diagnosis or give clinical/professional advice. They are typically people who are good at speaking, editing videos and have made huge investments in social media as a paid source of income.

Mental health becomes an easy target to raise one’s profile as most people want quick fixes. This is harmful, not only due to potential misdiagnosis, but it also undermines real human experiences. Normal reactions are seen as “pathologies”. Some mental health professionals are equally caught up in the game of diagnosing people injudiciously.

The recent BBC Panorama documentary highlighted the poor standards in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients perceived to have ADHD, in some private clinics in the UK. The standards of these clinics fall short and the reason why this was happening in the first place is due to the long waiting lists for assessment and diagnosis for ADHD patients in the NHS. This leaves many people vulnerable to seeking quick fixes, diagnosing themselves through social media.

A big part of who we are is in response to our environment. Our environment is constantly in interaction with our internal world, the space in between these worlds is where we create meaning. When we deny our feelings or try to view normal human feelings and behaviours in response to our environment as pathologies, it invalidates our existence as humans. This is problematic.

We live in a society where we make rules about certain feelings, emotions and behaviours. Some words or concepts that get adopted in pop psychology perpetuate the medical model which tends to view our human experience in response to trauma, loss, adversity, and suffering, as a cluster of symptoms that can be used as empirical evidence to diagnose and treat with medication for one’s health to be restored to normal. This model also views normality and abnormality as binaries, and there is no in-between.

There is no consideration of external events and the environment and how they may be impacting or influencing one’s mental health. This is where therapy becomes significant. While formal diagnosing can be helpful in validating and meaning-making for some people, overreliance on it also means we deny the essence of who we are as humans and focus on a diagnosis, not the individual.

Our emotions are a significant part of who we are; they guide us to what’s important to us. If we validate them and interrogate their source, we enrich our lives and grow.

Words used in pop psychology and how to reframe them

Here are some of the words that are used in pop psychology and here are ways to reframe them:

Depression

Feeling sad is not depression. Not everyone who is feeling sad or low is depressed. Depression is a condition that can only be diagnosed by a medical practitioner. For you to have a clinical diagnosis of depression, you need to meet a certain threshold of symptoms and experience them for at least six weeks period of time.

Sadness is perfectly normal, and so is dejection and hopelessness if things are not going well or didn’t go well. Depression tends to focus on the past – regret, shame, and rumination. Sadness shows you the depth of your feelings; the depth of how much you care for others and yourself. That’s why you feel sad when you lose someone or something you love. You feel sad because you cared for that person or that thing.

Co-dependency

Having needs and seeking to have them met by your partner is not co-dependency. Being in a loving, caring, synergetic relationship does not mean you are co-dependent. Having a partner that you trust and turn to is not co-dependency.

Co-dependency is when there is an over-reliance on the other person emotionally, however having an emotional connection with someone and seeking closeness and emotional intimacy is not co-dependency. Many people are deterred from opening themselves emotionally, to develop more intimate connections with their partners or friends, for fear of being seen as “co-dependent”. This is harmful to one’s personal growth.

Trauma

Not every unpleasant event in life is trauma. In psychology, trauma is a word which is used very loosely to define the adverse experience one experienced in their course of life.

The overuse of this word invalidates real trauma which has a lasting impact on the individual. For example, being late to school is not a trauma, however, being repeatedly shamed for being late to school can be considered a trauma. Trauma has an impact on the subject – it could be a one-off event, repeated events or even non-events deficits.

Narcissist

Not every individual you have negative feelings towards is a narcissist and not every ex-partner who you hate, or dislike is a narcissist. It’s very easy to use the word narcissist as a label to demonstrate how one feels about the other person. This word can be dehumanising and used to deny the individual of their other qualities, other than them being seen as a narcissist.

We are bound to like and dislike some people in life, and that’s perfectly normal. However, not everyone we dislike is a narcist. Not everyone who has hurt us is a narcissist. Calling others narcissists is an act of projection, “It’s that persona’s fault and l have nothing to do with it”. This also means we never get to reflect on the role we played in the dynamic and learn from it.

Gaslighting

Having a disagreement with someone and having them question your view on things is not gaslighting. The notion of being gaslighted is behind why some people struggle with resolving conflict, exploring difficult subjects, and negotiating. Communication is a two-way process where there are individuals who are listening and requiring at the same time.

Some people experience being questioned as gaslighting because they have been told that someone challenging their view is gaslighting. This creates communication breakdown, and we never get to grow.

Being triggered

Taking offence when something does not sit well with you is perfectly normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are being triggered. It’s normal to have a response to things, our brain functions by making connections. When there are things that remind us of an event, situation, person, or place we have a reaction, not just a memory but a feeling as well. This is part of our sophistication as humans.

Being triggered is a more extreme form of reaction which occurs when there is an “emotional allergy”. By this l mean there is an experience in the past which has provoked powerful, familiar, uncomfortable feelings.

The reason why these feelings are triggering is that they are associated with certain anxiety/trauma-related physiological changes in the body which we do not readily register, however uncomfortable. These may be muscle tension, heart palpitations, chest tightness, sweaty palms shortness of breath etc. The body is reacting in a way that it is primed for survival.

Love bombing

Showing interest and pursuing someone you desire is not necessarily love bombing. Neuroscience postulates that falling in love can feel like a form of madness – that’s why even Romeo’s words to Juliet conveyed how madly in love he was with her.

Falling in love is not just an emotional and physical experience, it creates a “crisis” in the brain. It produces physical and emotional responses: racing heart, sweaty palms, flushed cheeks, feelings of passion and anxiety. Stress hormone cortisol levels increase to help the body cope with “crisis”. As cortisol levels rise, the neurotransmitter serotonin becomes depleted. Low levels of serotonin bring on intrusive, maddeningly preoccupying thoughts, hopes, and terrors of early love: obsessive-compulsive behaviours of infatuation. High levels of dopamine activate the reward circuit, helping to generate euphoria similar to the use of cocaine or alcohol – this is why, in the initial stages, one ends up feeling the mad rush, and the need to pursue a love interest.

These reactions are perfectly normal, however, can lead to obsessive behaviours which can be interpreted as love bombing. This is problematic in dating, especially where taking a slower pace can be considered disinterest while being more robust can be seen as love bombing. Love bombing is normal, it’s our primitive brain that seeks connection at work.

Boundaries

Being rude, rigid, difficult, and aggressive is not the same as having boundaries. Boundaries is knowing what you want, what you value, and being able to communicate it in a mature and respectful way. Equally, being reasonable, accommodating and kind, does not translate to a lack of boundaries. You can be all that with boundaries in place.

Boundaries have a lot to do with being a sound human being who has an awareness of their needs and can advocate for themselves while mindful of others having their unique experiences, and minds of their own. Many people are so eager to create boundaries, however, their lack of understanding of what they mean and how they can set them, leaves them very isolated as they push other people away in the process.

ADHD

Finding it hard to have a routine, being disorganised, and struggling to feel settled does not mean you have ADHD. Some people may have some ADHD traits, without necessarily having ADHD perse. Poor organisational skills, lacking discipline, and chronic stress can create symptoms that mimic ADHD symptoms. Our bodies need sufficient time to recover, reset, and replenish themselves. Just like any machine we use, we need time to switch it off, clean it, oil it, service it and repair it. Without doing so, it breaks down.

Our environment also needs to be conducive to whatever we do. We live in a world where we are constantly on the go. This can be problematic as stress can lead to burnout and other physiological symptoms such as fatigue, brain fogginess, difficulties organising oneself, and chaotic behaviours.

Depression, anxiety and ADHD-type symptoms can be secondary to chronic stress. Before you consider having ADHD, try and improve your self-care and give yourself some time to rest and recuperate. A healthy sleep pattern is key as well as a healthy diet, exercise, work-life balance and boundaries around work and rest. Furthermore, try and make sure you create structure in your environment and reflect on whether your environment is good enough for you to grow in it.

Note from Counselling Directory: If you’re keen to move away from pop psychology and closer to psychology, working with a professional who has training is key. Contact Dr Joyline to learn more or use our search tool to find a therapist.