Why toxic positivity can be triggering to trauma survivors.

Toxic positivity is almost always annoying. But for trauma survivors, it might actually be triggering. 

What is “toxic positivity?” You know— all the “good vibes only” stuff you see on the internet. 

Toxic positivity is a form of emotional and/or spiritual “bypassing”— a psychologically defensive tactic some (well, many) people use to avoid accepting or processing the pain or trauma of a situation. 

Instead of acknowledging how difficult certain situations are, people welding toxic positivity continually seek to reframe events in some “empowering” way— often as a “learning experience” or “growth opportunity” or “spiritual test.” 

Of course, many difficult situations do present opportunities for learning, or growth, or even spiritual development— but toxic positivity isn’t so much about embracing the “empowering” parts of a difficult situation, as it is about denying the painful or negative parts. 

As it turns out, we can’t actually take advantage of any “growth” opportunities a situation allows us, if we’re simultaneously deep in denial about the pain or loss involved. 

People who engage in toxic positivity are most often less interested in seeking out the positive in a situation, than they are scared or overwhelmed by the pain of a situation. 

I’m pretty sure everybody reading this can think of a person or organization that perfectly exemplifies what I’m describing here. 

Why can toxic positivity be triggering to trauma survivors? 

Many survivors are used to what we’ve been through and/or our symptoms overwhelming the people around us. 

Often the people around us, or even the people close to us, don’t know what to make of our stories or our symptoms. 

Honestly, we get it: we survivors very often also don’t know what to make of our stories or symptoms. We know what it’s like to be overwhelmed by them; we’ve had to live with what we’re experiencing 24/7 for years. 

In the best case scenario, the people around us or close to us respond to this overwhelm by using their own coping skills, listening to and believing what we tell them about what it’s like to be us, and being real with us and themselves about if and how they can be there for us. 

However, a subset of people can only seem to deal with overwhelming stories and symptoms like ours by trying to bypass the feelings and reactions they’re experiencing. They go right for the toxic positivity, in other words. 

They skip past the pain, and go right for the “lesson.” 

They skip past the loss, and go right for the “opportunities.” 

Is there anything wrong with looking for “lessons” and “opportunities” in the midst of trauma? Your mileage may vary, but no, I don’t think so. 

There is, however, a problem in doing so at the expense of acknowledging the pain and loss involved. 

When someone leans into toxic positivity in response to our story and symptoms, it communicates to us that or pain— which we live with every minute of every day— isn’t welcome in this relationship. 

It communicates to us that, if we want this person in our experience, we’re going to have to hide or minimize that painful part of our experience— just as we’ve had to hide so many parts of or experience from so many people over the years. 

When somebody leans into toxic positivity with us, it subtly (or not so subtly) communicates to us that, if we don’t see the “opportunities” and “silver linings” in our trauma experience, it’s because of our “attitude”— maybe that we’re not being “grateful” enough. 

Toxic positivity can be triggering to trauma survivors, in other words, because it tends to reinforce many victim shaming tropes that saturate our culture already— and which make trauma recovery far more fraught and effortful than it needs to be for many survivors. 

We already struggle to let people in. We very often struggle to be real about and accepting of our own stories and struggles. 

We don’t need toxic positivity adding to our burden. 

We don’t need to feel like “the problem” because we can’t leap nimbly to the “lesson” or embrace the “opportunity” inherent in our trauma. 

Many of us struggle with mere “acceptance” on a good day. 

Maybe meet us there instead.