Forced(Toxic) positivity and Depression

In this twenty first century we as a society have come a long way when it comes to mental health. More than ever we are focusing on mental health and mental wellbeing. But we still seemed to have a negative reaction toward negative emotions. In this modern age we always seemed to push for positivity and start villainizing being sad and not being ok. This excessive amount of positivity is also known as forced positivity.

Forced(Toxic) positivity is the push of a mental state in which we only experience and show “POSITIVE” emotions. it is in our nature to show positivity toward someone who is suffering or struggling [1]. We tend to use words like, "Just be positive”, “Stop being so negative”, “see the good in everything”, “You have it better than others” ,”Good vibes only”. We tend to act like if we just stay positive everything in our life will be positive ,Which is not true. Regardless of how one perceives their emotions has little to no effect on how the world is going to treat them. We tend to act as if we just keep a straight face and a smile, all our worries and all our sadness is going to go away. We seem to create this illusion that positivity attracts positivity, if we are just positive all the negative from our life will just disappear.

We tend to have this idea that there are good and bad emotions. In reality there is no such this as good or bad emotions. All emotions have a purpose in our life. Typically we tend to think that anger, sadness, jealousy and frustrations are bad emotions so they must be removed from our life. Where we think of happiness, joy and love as good emotions and we should fill our life with these emotions so that we have a positive life. In reality emotions are just information carriers, it is how one reacts to these emotions is what makes it good or bad. We feel angry because we know we wanted something or we were done wrong, we feel sadness cause something bad has happened to us, we feel jealousy cause we wanted something that we couldn’t get and we feel frustration cause we knew we could have done better. All these so-called “bad” emotions have purpose in our life and serves a purpose in our life. If we keep avoiding or dismissing this emotion we are not just losing information we are not truly acknowledging our true selves. And anything emotional kept unacknowledged for a long period of time is detrimental. It is like a bubble eventually it will burst and if not handled properly it will cause harm.

There is this research done by Harvard Medical School professor and psychologist Susan David [1] that shows that if we push back our emotions they tend to come back magnified. She gave the example of a smoker trying to quit smoking by not thinking about cigarette. What happened was the person started having a dream about smoking. This phenomenon is called “leakage”. The idea is that the more you try not to think about something, it tends to come back to your mind amplified. And she also found in her search that people who tend to try to be more happy and try only focusing on the “good” emotions tend to be less happy at the end of the day. From childhood we were brought up with ideas that share your happiness and keep your sadness to yourself. Show your success but never show your failure. So in this day and age of social media we all tend to share all our happy moments and our success. We all tend to live this ideal life, a life full of success and happiness. And we tend to only focus on those happiness and success too. What it does is it creates a ripple effect of toxic positivity. We all start to have this idea of an ideal state of happiness and success that can be achieved by being in this all time positive mental attitude. When in reality not facing our “bad” emotions we are actually making ourselves weaker.

In the same book Susan David talks about this idea of “emotional agility”. Where the idea is that by facing our emotions head fast we can make ourselves emotionally agile. It is in fact true that facing our emotions makes us stronger and gives us the idea of how to properly deal with them. If we keep this persona of all positive emotions only, when a sad thing happens we would not know how to deal with it properly. Which will result in even more pain and more suffering. So only by facing our emotions and recognizing them properly we can become stronger and become more healthier mentally.

Now before we try and link Forced positivity and depression. We first have to understand the difference between feeling depressed and having depression. Feeling depressed is feeling sad or down momentarily. We all feel depressed from time to time but when the circumstance changes we tend to feel better [2]. But having depression is a medical condition and it is not something that just goes away. According to PSA, Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. There are many different symptoms of depression. Like feeling sad, losing interest or pleasure from activity once pleasurable, losing appetite, either sleeping too much or too little, feeling of worthlessness or guilt, difficulty thinking, concentrating and making decisions and in some cases thoughts of death or suicide. If someone has more than five of these symptoms they are qualified to get a diagnosis of depression. Depression is not just a mental condition it has physical effects too. Depression causes imbalance in neurotransmitters like serotonin, Norepinephrine and Dopamine. Researchers are yet to find out what really causes depression since it has to do with a complex interaction between genes and environments. According to the National institute of mental health it takes an average person ten years to seek help for depression.

And in this day and age where we villainize feeling bad or feeling down. It can be very hard for a person who is actually dealing with depression to cope up to this standard of society. It can make them feel guilty for feeling sad or feeling down and feeling lonely. It can make them feel like they are the one to be blamed for feeling down or having depression which will ultimately lead to them not seeking help and suffering even more and it will spiral down to causing self harm.

To this day we stigmatize mental illness. We seemed to have this idea that we can will through it. If we just keep our head up and be happy all our illness will just go away. In reality we are just neglecting emotions that need immediate attention. By saying, “get over it”. We are forcing someone not to feel certain emotions. By saying, “you have it better”. We are making people feel guilty for feeling the way they did. By saying, “just be happy”. We are denying people from feeling a certain way. By saying, “Good vibes only”. We are excluding some because they felt a certain way. The biggest mistake we seemed to make is comparing situations. We try to help them by telling them how we dealt with the situation. Where in reality we are making them feel guilty because they could not get over the situation as quickly. It makes them feel worthless that they are unable to get over the situation. In reality it is not truly their fault at all. Depression is not a personality trait, it is an actual clinical condition as same as diabetes, where given proper treatment it can be minimized. When we say just will through it the same as saying someone who has a broken leg to just walk in off. Without proper medication and treatment it will never go away.

It is not being said that do not try to help people who need help. Help them by listening to them which has been proven effective. It has been proven that openly talking about suicide can minimize the chance of committing suicide[2]. You can help them by taking the first step for them or with them. Look for a therapist or a physiatrist for them. Because for a person who is dealing with depression taking these steps are very hard. Try to not just give solutions but to listen, sometimes all they want is to be heard. By reinforcing them that you care and their feelings are valid you can help someone who is dealing with depression a long way. As more people seek help the better the treatment will get. The more we talk about the matter the less stigmatized the topic will be and the more true we can be to ourselves and become the best version ourselves.

Being positive is not bad. It is a good idea to have a positive outlook on life. And it is refreshing to see the world from a different angle. There is a saying, “fake it till you make it”. And sometimes having a positive outlook can work. But anything excessive is bad. As previously mentioned, toxic phrases that people use to keep themselves happy and others happy. We can replace them with validation and support, instead of saying, “just be positive” we can say, “It’s never great to feel like that. Is there something we can do today that you’d enjoy?”. Instead of, “stop being so negative” we can say, “It’s pretty normal to be angry in these situations. I’m here for you.”. Instead of saying, “see the good in everything” we can say, “I don’t even know what to say right now, I’m just so glad you told me.” instead of ‘“you’ll get over it ” we can say .”this is hard. You’ve done hard things before and I believe in you ”[4]. Our words have power whether we like it or not. Our one word can save someone or push them toward self harm. So by being more understanding and being more accepting we can ultimately make all of our lives better.

Reference:
1)Neda Semnani(September 23, 2016)A Harvard psychologist explains why forcing positive thinking won’t make you happy ,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspiredlife/wp/2016/09/23/forcing-positive-thinking-wont-make-you-happy-says-this-harvard-psychologist/
2) Helen M. Farrell( Dec 15, 2015)- What is depression?,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-IR48Mb3W0
3)Konstantin Lukin(Sep 12, 2019),Toxic Positivity: Don’t Always Look on the Bright Side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaNSGqbYbac&t=174s
4)Mahmoud Khedr(Nov 22, 2019),How Toxic Positivity Leads to More Suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOj2Z7hw5w

5) José Luis. https://www.instagram.com/joseluis.photographer/