Toxic Positivity

Before learning what validation was, I always thought that I was just a very pessimistic person. I felt angry, irritated, and confused every time someone told me to “just be positive” or to “be happy” or to see the cup as “half full” instead of “half empty.” It hurt me because I knew I couldn’t do any of those things. No matter how hard I tried, “positive thoughts” didn’t make me happy. In fact, they did the opposite; as they tried to come in, my brain fought off each one with a negative thought 10x the size and power. Then, I would notice feelings of despair and anguish because I was disappointed with myself for not allowing the positive thoughts make me happy. I often wondered, “What is wrong with me?!”

Around 8th grade, when I was 13 or so, I went to counseling and learned what validation was. I’ll get more into it later (because I could probably write a whole blog post or more on the influence and power of validation). It finally made sense to me why the forcing of “positive thoughts” did nothing but cause me pain. With an imbalance of chemicals, it is useless to force upon happiness and positivity when there simply is not enough dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and norepinephrine (also known as endorphins).

Here are some articles that are really good at explaining the chemicals behind happiness and depression:

4 Brain Chemicals That Make You Happy

Happy or Sad: The Chemistry Behind Depression

For example, dopamine is the chemical that pushes us to do better: “ [dopamine] more directly impacts the neurons that underlie motivation and habit formation” (Garcia-Arocena).

Once it is understood that depression is not a choice and is an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, then it can be explained that forced positivity, or toxic positivity is not helpful and can be harmful.

Toxic positivity is invalidating, and this is why it is harmful.

Invalidation: the process of denying, rejecting or dismissing someone’s feelings. Invalidation sends the message that a person’s subjective emotional experience is inaccurate, insignificant, and/or unacceptable.

Some of those phrases above are pretty cringeworthy, and I wouldn’t actually use some of them in a real situation. The phrase offering to do something with them that they enjoy is pretty good though! I’d use that one. 😉

The key is to validate and to love and to support.

My least favorite phrase to hear is, “be happy” or “just be happy.” My first thought in response to that is, “don’t you think I would if I could?!” I obviously don’t say that out loud, but I wish people would understand that happiness is not a choice for those with imbalanced chemicals. It is like telling someone with cancer to get rid of their tumor or telling someone with diabetes to make more insulin. They don’t have a choice in those things!!! This is the same with those that have MDD (major depressive disorder) or an imbalance of chemicals. People can also suffer with situational depression, and validating them is important too.

Honestly, VALIDATION IS ALWAYS IMPORTANT. You will have healthier relationships with everyone around you if you learn how to support and validate and if they learn to do the same.

Another topic I want to bring up is that there is trauma and experiences in our life that affect and change the way we see the world. Certain things in our life that make us associate one thing with another. I’ll explain this further on a different blog post too. 😉

I know all of this is a lot, but it’s important. It’s relationship changing. It’s life changing. If all of this is just too much to understand right now, take one thing at a time. Next time someone comes to you in need of some help, be there for them. Don’t force toxic positivity on them. Listen. Support them. Validate them. Most importantly, love them.