The Dark Side of Bright Siding

Toxic Positivity is Negative

Amanda Stern
August 16, 2023

The Dark Side of Bright Siding

You’re relatively anxious, so it’s often hard to shrug off the small things. Today, you are in a terrible mood. Just viciously agitated. Your tolerance level for the small things is below any discernible measure.

Why doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except that everyone should steer clear of you and leave you the F alone, which is hard when you must leave your house and enter the world.

Inevitably, you will encounter someone who tries to make you feel better using a tactic that does the opposite.

“No bad days!” Some cheerful person tells you.

“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” a jovial stranger bellows, not knowing your beliefs.

“Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow’s another day!” A peppy jogger as she sprints by.

“It could be worse. You could have cancer.” Your breezy co-worker.

“Good vibes only!” The chipper barista.

Mind Journal

This approach is known as Toxic Positivity, a coping mechanism for people who struggle to feel negative emotions. Toxic positivity rejects all difficult emotions in favor of a cheerful and often falsely optimistic facade. It takes positive thinking to an overgeneralized extreme. While stressing positivity, it also denies human emotions.

People who practice Toxic Positivity falsely believe negative emotions are wrong because they feel bad.

Instead of feeling what they feel, they opt out, cultivating positivity by looking at the bright side. Worse, they expect others to follow suit. They don’t just dislike their negative feelings; they don’t like anyone’s, so they wind up “bright siding” (“Look on the bright side!) those pulling them down.

The truth is that negative emotions aren’t bad. They’re essential and often valuable.

People who demand you suppress your negative feelings don’t understand emotions. After all, we cannot numb a single emotion. That’s not how it works. If it did, do you think I’d be anxious? Hell no.

So, how DOES it work?

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