Toxic Positivity is just gaslighting and I have so done with gaslighting!

 

Toxic positivity had taken a grip everywhere and it is very damaging. 

If you have experienced severe trauma or are dealing with sadness and suffering due to an experience in life that has traumatised you, the outcome is that you will be feeling sadness, depression and grief. It is completely normal. In fact, it is helpful to allow yourself the time and space to go through the turbulent emotions that traumatic events cause. Trying not to feel them doesn’t make them go away. Keeping a mantra of positive quotes in your head won't make it go away. There is nothing wrong with feeling positive but if it detrimental to your healing, if it seems that your feelings are being denied by doing so and if you are hearing others deny them in this way, it is time to take action.

Other people may feel uncomfortable around you. This will happen. They may try to get you to move on with your life or tell you that you are wallowing in it. There are many ways that people will tell you how uncomfortable they are with normal, human emotions but none more so than ‘toxic positivity’ and people parroting positivity quotes at these times. They can’t stand to acknowledge either their own or others hardships. Whenever you even slightly mention that you are feeling down they will come up with a positive phrase to counteract what you are feeling. Yes but..

So strong is their aversion to feelings that they will attack you for not being positive. They are not even interested in your story or what you have gone through, they do not want to hear it. All they want to hear is that you are getting over it. That you are thinking positive even though you are dying inside. Yet all that people want who are going through a bad time is someone to listen to them and accept and witness their story.

We can all be guilty of toxic positivity in the way we think and speak to others. So let us uproot this cruel way of behaving, starting with ourselves. We should call it out when people are talking to us this way or at least just stop engaging with them if they can’t support us in our hardest times.Once we have experienced gaslighting we never want to hear it again.  Toxic positivity is gaslighting and I have so done with gaslighting!