A Quick Fix For Toxic Positivity
What to tell someone in pain, other than positivity rubbish
When things go bad and someone we know is in pain, we often feel awkward and inadequate. We don’t know what to say, therefore, we either ghost them or try to say something helpful. The helpful isn’t that helpful, however, when you ask someone who just lost a parent — “How are you?”. Or when you tell a woman suffering after a miscarriage — “You’ll soon forget about it, you’ll see.”. Or when you tell a friend who broke a leg — “It could have been worse, you know?!”.
We all know these words of “encouragement” — like: you’re strong, you can do this, it will pass, be grateful for what you have, it’s not as bad as it looks, it could be worse.
We’ve all heard them or used them, with others, or with ourselves. Out of the best intentions, of course. But it’s only when others tell them to you that you may realize their futility.
The scope is well-intentioned, yet the means are wrong. When you use positive affirmations and try to minimize someone’s sufferance, you’re not making that person feel better.
When And Why Positive Affirmations Are Toxic
Positivity isn’t a bad thing in itself. Generally speaking, it’s good to have a positive attitude towards life. To be prepared for the worse though hope for the better. To keep an uplifting mood, as much as possible.
Positivity is bad when it aims to numb someone’s pain. Used this way, it’s like hiding the trash under the carpet. It doesn’t heal but only conceals. The person who is already sad and in pain may need something different.
If he’s not saying anything, he must be trying to contain the pain. If he turns to you for consolation, he needs to be seen and heard, to feel less alone. Not to feel guilty for feeling bad.
When you respond with positive affirmations to someone complaining about his life, you are:
- diminishing his sufferance;
- adding guilt to the said sufferance;
- causing frustration to the person who doesn’t manage to feel better;
- causing shame for feeling the wrong things.
Just imagine that you’re very upset about something and a friend gives you the talk. How would you answer?
Oh, come one, it could have been worse!
- Really? So, am I complaining for nothing? I should be grateful for the “smaller” sufferance I’m dealing with?
You’re strong!
- I don’t get it, how is this supposed to help me? I don’t feel strong right now. What gives?
It will pass!
- No shit, Sherlock! But what do I do until it passes?
Others are going through worse!
- So you’re calling me ungrateful? And how is other people’s sufferance supposed to make me feel better?
I know, I’ve been in your shoes, but you know what I did?
- Dude, I didn’t ask for this! We were talking about me, not you!
Be grateful for what you have!
- What do I have, a friend who’s killing me with toxic positivity?
Why Do We Keep Doing It?
I can assume it’s because we all hate pain. And we’re all doing our best to run from it. Naively, we assume that if we say it doesn’t hurt, it actually doesn’t. We don’t like negative emotions. We’re not comfortable navigating through it.
We teach our boys not to cry like a girl. We tell our girls to be good girls and stop crying. Even as adults, we keep pushing positivity for anything and everything. There’s a lot of misunderstood self-help advice out there that plays the card of positive thinking.
I am a parent and I often find myself trying to encourage my son not to feel bad. I’d do anything for him not to feel bad. Just like you’d do anything for your friend in pain not to suffer anymore. Still, I’m aware he doesn’t need that from me.
Perhaps we all need to learn that the only way out of sufferance is through suffering. In any case, the solution can’t be to close our eyes and pretend we’re not suffering, when we’re actually drowning in it.
What Should We Tell Someone In Pain?
More often than not, people in pain who come to complain to you don’t need actual solutions. They need someone to talk to. They need to share their burden with another person because it feels too much or too difficult to keep it to themselves. And because healing requires making the pain visible and known.
As long as the pain is hidden, and not shared, it can’t be healed. This is where friendships come in, to create a safe space where pain can be laid out, and the one who exposed it will find the security to navigate through it and start feeling it as less of a pain.
So, unless you are being asked for help specifically, don’t assume you need to say anything more than:
I know.
It’s normal to feel this way.
How can I help?
Can I give you a hug?
I can only imagine how hard it must be for you. I’m sorry you’re having such a difficult time.
Or you could choose not to say anything, you know? Sometimes it’s better to just be there than to say stupid things that will make the other person feel like complaining about nothing.
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