A green light for negativity
Exploring toxic positivity in recovery spaces and finding meaningful support
Hello! This week we’re talking about toxic positivity.
I spent most of my life burying my negative emotions, keeping them beneath the surface where I hoped they wouldn’t bother anyone else. But negative feelings are a natural part of a healthy emotional system. When we banish negative feelings we become imbalanced and vulnerable to disorder.
In my eating disorder, toxic positivity felt safe while receiving meaningful support felt dangerous. I didn’t know it then, but I now see I had it the wrong way around.
To recover, I had to make space for the negative parts of myself, even though they were terrifying to me. I needed meaningful support in order to experience negativity—I couldn’t do it alone. So I sought out people who weren’t chained to toxic positivity and didn’t feel as scared as I did when my negativity showed up.
Have you ever shared a complex problem you’re facing only to have someone tell you that you just need to think positive? Just look on the bright side, they say. Just decide to get better and you will! Just eat/don’t binge/don’t purge/stop exercising. Just don’t be anxious, stop being sad, get out and meet people.
It’s so common, and so painful because it seems like we should feel better and stronger after people say those things to us. But in fact we feel worse. We often feel like there’s something wrong with us for not moving faster and more efficiently towards positivity. We might think it should be easy and maybe there’s something wrong with us. Oof. That’s toxic positivity at work.
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