Shame
How Toxic Positivity Leads to Shame
Someone may never learn to safely express pain and feel pressure to be perfect.
Posted February 5, 2024 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- Expressing gratitude is an act of love and kindness that's vital in a healthy relationship.
- Yet many children are taught that they must be constantly positive, constantly grateful.
- What can develop is termed "toxic positivity,'' which could be a trait of "perfectly hidden depression."
- The answer lies in being grateful and allowing yourself to grieve, feel sadness, and feel fear.
Gratitude gives you perspective. It offers humility if you remind yourself to feel it.
Oprah started talking about it long ago, or that's when I remember hearing it for the first time. She had couples keeping gratitude lists—things they were grateful for about each other. It was a good idea. We often forget to say thank you to each other.
But there's often pushback, "Am I supposed to thank him every time he unloads the dishwasher?" Or "Just because she picks up the dry cleaning, am I supposed to be grateful for that? I go to work every day."
That's all-or-nothing thinking, for one thing. And childish, demanding your due, instead of growing up and realizing a little graciousness, or selflessness feels good from time to time.
But can gratitude backfire? You bet it can—when it turns into toxic positivity.
What Is Toxic Positivity?
Toxic positivity occurs when someone ignores or rejects negative emotions and insists on "positive thinking" instead. They may deny their own emotions, other people's, or both.
The problem with toxic positivity goes deeper than merely encouraging "good vibes." Even more lethal poison begins to spread when painful emotions are banned altogether—when someone is led or guided, manipulated, or even exploited enough to believe there's shame in revealing struggle or fear.
It's one thing—and can be helpful if said at the right time—to gently remind someone that their pain has meaning, that there's something to be learned from every human experience. It's another to infer or state openly that a person is weak or wrong or "not grateful enough" because they're feeling the pain of a situation or a loss more deeply. That kind of shame can do more damage than whatever the hurt or pain is itself.
As a therapist, I've seen and heard that damage for years. I see it when someone looks down and mumbles something about feeling silly about what they're about to say. Or they look out of the window rather than at me, and say, "It's stupid that I'm holding on to this." It's shame they feel. It's shame they have to fight off to allow their true feelings to emerge.
Recovering From Toxic Positivity Shame
The goal is to eventually get to a place where you can rediscover gratitude. But that comes after grieving has happened, after you've been heard, comforted, and understood. Then you can get your bearings and move ahead. Rediscovering gratitude can be a sign of healing from grief.
But what if you're caged in by the toxicity of positivity? What if you can't see a way out of that cage? That's what can happen when you're imprisoned by needing to seem "perfectly fine" at all times and in all circumstances.
And you're not. Not really. You're human just like the rest of us. And your inner life is far from perfect.
I argue that toxic positivity can be a trait of perfectly hidden depression (PHD), when you create a protective façade of everything going very well in your life so that no one will ask or know about what you believe is vital to hide.
For these people, showing gratitude is "what they do." Good, nice, upstanding, moral people are grateful people.
Perhaps you give every one of your kids' teachers special gifts. You remember the guy who delivers your paper with a special holiday present. You make sure everyone knows about getting together for the barbecue and no one is left out—and of course, the barbecue is at your house.
Not that all of that isn't lovely; it is. But when it has an intense, driven, being-on-a-treadmill quality, with the speed and the incline slowly being turned up and up—it can be tremendously self-destructive.
It's not that this gratitude is insincere. Often, it's very real. But you're in pain that you aren't talking about, and showing gratitude becomes another expected and required performance that protects you and keeps the focus on others instead of you.
The Power of "And"
So what can you do? You can be grateful and be aware of emotional pain. You can count your blessings and understand that each one of them has an underbelly, a darker or harder component to them. You can grieve and know your gratitude exists all the while.