Fake positivity, or what is often called toxic positivity, is when encouraging statements and mantras are expected to minimize or eliminate pain or discomfort (physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual).
But who’s doing the expecting?
Here’s where I think there’s a difference between fake and toxic positivity. Fake positivity is when we “good vibes only” ourselves to get through a moment or the day knowing full well it’s an empty statement/vibe – a “fake it til you make it” practice. It’s a thing we do to ostrich a bit – a dose of (hopefully) temporary denial.
Toxic positivity, on the other hand, is usually done by other people. It’s a cultural, communal mindset, usually adopted by those who don’t live with mental illness. It’s a very dismissive and ableist practice, in my mind, and puts a lot of pressure on us to not feel, which can lead to things like internalizing shame and increased stress.
Also, we don’t need help numbing, thanks.
The rest of us know that no amount of “I’m such a badass” will help. If anything, it only makes it worse because it reminds us of just how not a badass we feel. I can say the same for mainstream self-love culture (“learn to love yourself” / “you just need to love yourself more” – thanks Karen).
What toxic positivity does is force us to mask – repression at its finest. We’re good at that, but it doesn’t help us. While it’s tempting to rail against the toxic positivists, we can’t do anything about them, so let’s focus on us.
This is one of those “wellness mantras” you see plastered over social media, but I don’t mean it in the performative “as long as it doesn’t inconvenience other people” way.
A couple days ago, I felt awful. It was one of those days where you start off in a funk and then get more depressed as the day goes on. And it doesn’t lift the next day either. But I didn’t fake positivity my way out of it.
I was glad to not have to pretend to be okay and happy around people. I’m okay with not being okay. It still stinks, don’t get me wrong, but nowadays I seldom internalize others’ comments, bad jokes or highlight reels as though they’re a reflection of who I am or my worth. Yeah, I feel terrible, but that doesn’t make me less than or tainted or someone to sneer at.
The difference between kindness towards yourself and fake positivity is that the latter is performative. It’s easy to perform when you’ve grown up a people-pleaser. It’s much harder to be kind to yourself.
You might not even know who you are anymore, or what makes you, you. You’re so used to being a squishy chameleon, squeezing into places not meant for you. You reflect what you think others want to see. There are so many layers to the self-deceipt, and so many that you’ve shed to be anyone but yourself.
If you want to start to heal and craft a you that you really want to be and know to the core (and like), then you need to grieve, forgive yourself, and ultimately, stop living for other people. Full disclosure, I am in the grieve/forgive myself part of the program, so am absolutely not casting stones here.
When we live for other people or behave in certain ways just to “keep the peace,” we disrespect ourselves, put ourselves last, and don’t enforce boundaries. That’s usually because we’re too exhausted or know the other person won’t change. By “keeping the peace” with someone else, we’re actually internalizing conflict. Who you feel forced to be in that situation is often in direct conflict with what you believe and how you want to behave or be treated.
There’s nothing wrong with silver linings and a positive mindset, but when fake positivity leads to delusion and you feel yourself stifling who you are, it’s time to reassess.
Listen, if a dose of fake positivity helps you for a moment or an hour or whatever other short time span you need, then go for it (not that you need my permission). Sometimes we need a little delusion to help us deal.
It’s only problematic when it becomes the way we live day in and day out. Pretending we’re hot shit does not make us actually believe we’re hot shit. Pretending we’re good people doesn’t actually make us believe we’re good people. We’re not kidding anyone, especially not ourselves.
In the aftermath of a traumatic event, we often internalize what was done to/around us, e.g. “I was raped therefore I am inherently bad” or “He/she/they abandoned me therefore I must not be worth sticking around for.”
One of the problems of fake positivity as a long term coping mechanism is that it doesn’t do a darn thing to acknowledge how we feel about ourselves. It certainly doesn’t even touch beginning to process our trauma. We live in denial and as hetero women (I can’t speak to anything else), we often attract, and are attracted to, manipulative men. They reinforce what we already believe about ourselves. They’re familiar.
To rewire our brains, we need to do the unfamiliar and take our minds off autopilot.
I saved an Instagram post years ago that read:
“If you have to force it, leave it. Relationships, yoga poses, perfect ponytails, let that shit go.”
I’m finally starting to actually believe in this mantra to my core. Does doing that activity with those people not feel right? Okay, then it’s not for me. Is that person a friend on the surface or someone I can rely on? If the first, I won’t expect them to be around when the going gets tough. That’s ok, they’re still great for other things, but I won’t force them to play a role they don’t want to play. Want to check in on me 2 or 3 times a year instead of every other week? Okay, I won’t force you to have a different relationship with me – but I will change my expectations of you accordingly.
I’m just not willing to hold on so tightly anymore to people and things that don’t want to go on this ride with me (or who do but I feel misaligned with). I won’t bend over backwards to do things that either feel unnatural or don’t serve me in any way. I’m saying goodbye to people and things that cost more than they give.
That is not the same thing as not willing to put in effort or hard work where it matters.
My energy and effort are limited, finite resources and I want to be efficient in how I apply them. Just like all rivers flow to the ocean, so too should our efforts flow back into ourselves. **
By redirecting much of the energy we spend trying to satisfy others, on both an individual and societal level, back into ourselves, we will no longer need things like fake positivity to get us through. We can learn to not only be okay with who we are, but actually like ourselves, which has the added benefit of avoiding walking black holes that drain you of energy you already don’t have.
I had to change my entire life situation to get to a place where I can begin to heal. You may not need to make as drastic a change, but something does have to change, and it’s very difficult to heal in the same environment that hurt you.
Graham Reynolds, PhD says it perfectly:
"The goal is not necessarily to feel better (as in, achieving a state of happiness or bliss with no negative vibes whatsoever), but to FEEL better – feel the entire range of emotions in a healthier way."
If fake positivity or gallow’s humor gets you through the workday on a Monday, I get it. Just be careful of deluding yourself because it only sets you back in the long run.
If you will it, a change is gonna come.
** Not in a selfish way that excludes others, mind you, but in a way that always fills our own cups before filling others’.
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