To think “toxic positivity” is just as damaging as negativity, maybe worse?

[CandidGreySeal]

Being forced to smile through hardship or “look on the bright side” all the time can feel suffocating. AIBU to think toxic positivity can be as harmful as negativity itself?

I agree. I have a chronic illness and my dad cannot cope with the fact that when I have had a flare I’m not ‘all better now’. I just don’t bother talking to him about it now.

Yip, it's almost impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone now, where you highlight a difficulty or problem only to have it glibly minimised. I even know a psychotherapist who does it. I often wonder what his clients make of it.

I reckon it’s a personality thing maybe because I’d hate the negative energy, that said when people are overly smiley about something bad it’s just irritating.

Yeah I hate talking to people who just minimise when I want to reflect and learn from something. It makes it impossible to have a deeper relationship with those people. Pretending everything is fine when its not is just living in denial and making people emotionally stunted and unable to change or grow but in a new and different way with lots of green tea, pastel memes and mantras.

Yanbu. I’ve often been told that the abuse I experienced as a child “made me into the person I am today”. No it didn’t, it ruined my childhood and I am the person I am in spite of the abuse, not because of it.