Please Stop! I Don't Need Toxic Positivity On Social Media

One morning you wake up, scroll through your phone, and all you see are ostentatious positive posts and stories, it is overwhelming and becomes nauseating. You feel like saying stop, we don't need these extreme un-relatable positivity lectures which force us to set unrealistic goals and simultaneously suppress our true feelings. Have you also felt this way off late? Especially at this time of the year when new year's resolutions are screeching on our timelines?

More than validating one's vulnerable position, people will suggest you look at the brighter side. Question, why should I do that? I am freakishly scared of getting married within six months, for which anxieties have also been kicking in. When I speak about such things, people usually say- 'But finally you are getting married, so it's okay', 'This is the best thing happening to you', 'look at the brighter side you are getting a spouse'.

Toxic Positivity On Instagram

Forget marriage, one might have come across self-help and motivational quotes in all decorated aesthetics. On Instagram, people are told to stay positive, no matter what that person dealing with. The person could be disabled, someone suffering from cancer, a woman who suffered violence, a queer person whose family is not accepting their identity, someone who lost a spouse and so on. You will find someone telling don't complain, to work hard, stay positive. I am often told to stop cribbing about my work frustrations and take good out of it. Can someone please say it's okay to feel frustrated? I want to listen to that and not irritating positive lectures. 

Asking a person to stay positive in difficult times won't change anything. Only it would make the person feel ashamed about her own emotions and make sure she feels scared to speak her mind, and it will only further stigmatise seeking mental health treatment.

What Is Toxic positivity? 

Toxic positivity implies that you shouldn't feel negative emotions, be optimistic about everything, and enforce motivation. Being positive can be helpful but not a solution to every problem, and it forces people to have a positive mindset and takes everything good out of bad situations. This forced positivity is toxic, and it asks you to reject emotions and be dismissive. It is precisely the opposite of therapy. Therapy asks you to talk, feel the suppressed emotion, and release or it could be traumatic in later future.

Whitney Goodman, a psychotherapist, brought 'Toxic positivity' in the limelight by introducing her book Toxic Positivity. She talks about keeping Real in a world obsessed with being happy. Goodman points out that toxic positivity invalidates feelings and instead asks you to be satisfied. The term also implies that you need a good enough reason to be sad and shame yourself for not meeting that criteria. Goodman is not the first one to talk about Toxic positivity. The iconic feminist bell hooks have been critical of the relentless pursuit of happiness. hooks wrote about body positivity and uncovered its toxic positivity. She pressed that body positivity enforces one to consider oneself beautiful to feel worthy, further fostering entrenched societal norms which are again toxic.

How Toxic Is Body Positivity?

Let's talk about new year's resolutions, and people are setting new goals, feeding them to people, making them sick about themselves and unrealistic. Most of these posts talk about positivity, motivation, and moving forward. For Instance, actor Hritik Roshan posted a photo of himself flaunting his abs with the caption- Alright. Let's go, 2023. Why?Not everyone can do that? So, many youngsters can get influenced and shift to a strict diet. I know a friend who had to be rushed to a hospital for overdosing on protein, and his body could not adapt to it. Toxic positivity and over-motivation have become a trend. Overcoming grief, staying motivated after failure, or posing body positivity has become part of toxic positivity and motivation. There is no breathing space left. A person is not allowed to acknowledge these feelings but is only expected to pass them. One needs to understand this can impact adversely also.

In the age of the internet, people are expected to side hustle to be successful, earn money quickly, and take early retirement. People need to catch up on work-life balance in search of quick success. Toxic positivity promotes failure is not an option. Please! Stop for a second, take a lesson and then move on. Not accepting these phases of life is more threatening than being advantageous. People advocating 'everything happens for a reason' is insensitive regarding traumatic experiences. It's okay to feel bad. Heal, and work on those things.

Am I At Fault Too?

It's not just people doing it. We are also people in someone's life, preaching these toxic positive enunciations and dismissing other people's problems. This is because we don't know how to be empathetic or comfort people. In the first place, we are uncomfortable with difficult feelings. Positive assertions are more or less a defence mechanism. We don't have acceptance of grey, and we like putting things in black and white. There is always this pressure on an individual to perform her existence instead of giving acceptance to herself.

It is time to show little compassion for each other. Take time to process your feelings, identify where they hurt, and then plan to resolve them. Suppressing these feelings is another form of societal pressure that thrives in the patriarchal world. Listen to what a person has to say and not fall for such positivity; be empathetic rather than quick to fix it. 

The views expressed are the author's own.

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