Toxic positivity leads to gaslighting

When we only want to see things in a positive light no matter what, it very easily can lead to both denying our own feelings as well as other people’s very real difficulties in life.

The relentless chase for happiness, while shaming others for their so called ‘negative emotions’ is also called toxic positivity.

It’s those people walking through life with only with their ‘pink glasses’ on or, who float on cloud Nr. 9 with an eternal smile on their face, while looking down disdainfully on everyone, who isn’t up there with them.

Blissed out in eternal, pink happiness land, devoid of problems…

Deep down, I think I always have been sceptical of people behaving overly friendly with this fake smile plastered on their face.

I recall an experience years ago in Portugal, where my initial curiosity led me to a community near Evora. There was a couple showing me and my boyfriend at the time everything. Both were so unbearably sweet, that the little devil inside of me just wanted to find out whether they could be annoyed…

It felt too unreal. Maybe it could be compared to a dessert, that’s just too sweet and therefore not enjoyable anymore.

There’s sort of an uncomfortable stickiness to it; a level of fake you can’t shake afterwards.

Interestingly enough, I have also met people, who’s exalted positivity feels already aggressive.

I know that sounds weird, but it’s been my experience with someone close to me.

If this person doesn’t want to talk about anything, which might be slightly more challenging, I already can hear it in the hyped greeting, which feels like a slap in the face.

‘HI, HOW ARE YOU?’

If I would, as an actress need to add subtext, the words which haven’t been said, but were transported, it would be this:

‘You better don't really say how you really feel. It's not welcomed, no now, not ever. Just tell me you’re fine. More is unacceptable.’

The need for everyone and everything to be happy to the exclusion of the whole emotional spectrum we as humans feel, is toxic positivity. It doesn’t allow for any kind of realness whatsoever.

We are not talking about having just a positive outlook in life!

Toxic positivity can present itself as a defence mechanism against any kind of suffering or pain. If we don’t see it, if we don’t feel it, maybe it doesn’t exist after all. Not our own pain, nor anyone else’s pain.  We can pretend everything is fine.

Some of us get dragged too much into some of the New Age narratives, like the law of attraction and try our best to just vibrate on a high level and avoid so called negative people. And at times we maybe indulge a bit too much into magical thinking.

I would like to point out, that I’m all for developing resilience through little practices of joy in order to be able to deal with the more difficult aspects of our lives. Going on a walk and appreciating everything we see for example. Or being grateful for what we have.

But when we lose the capacity to be with our own more difficult feelings as well as others, we get on dangerous territory. Maybe we start telling other people, they don’t have a problem and are just overly negative. Or we might even talk to ourselves like that.

This is what I mean by toxic positivity leading to gaslighting. We start denying our own as well as other people’s very real experiences. As a result we lose the capacity to both advocate for ourselves as well as others. Nothing is taken seriously anymore, issues simply don’t exist.

Maybe there’s this creeping feeling of loneliness and then you just push it back down:

"Oh no, you're not supposed to feel like that."

You just gaslighted yourself, bingo!

Maybe someone else comes to someone:

"I've been just to the doctor and they diagnosed dry eyes"

The other person responds:

"But dry eyes, that's no problem."

Really? How do they know, they are not having the issue!

Of course we can keep on walking around, pretending everything is fine, fake smiling our way through life with the ‘pink glasses’ on. But deep down, all these unwelcome feelings are still there, eating away at us. Even a cloud Nr. 9 isn’t enough protection from that.

Sometimes, these unexpressed feelings bubble up in passive - aggressive acts. Giving someone the silent treatment as punishment. Implying things, but never saying what’s really going on etc.

So, that's the better way then, right, to do this?

Gaslighting other people, denying their experience is never okay. In fact, it’s a form of emotional abuse.  Of course it’s not good, gaslighting ourselves either.

Life is complex! We have joy, we have beautiful moments, and we have really tough moments. As I often have said before, it's this and that. We can be sad and be grateful at the same time. Most of the time, there's a whole concoction of things going on. The good, the bad and the ugly.

We can learn to acknowledge it all. Toxic positivity robs us from genuine connection as well as emotional wellbeing. So, let’s not gaslight on another, but strive to learn to be with our, as well as other people’s more difficult situations.

I would love to hear from you whether you had some experiences with toxic positivity that led to gaslighting and how you dealt with it.