Hi, readers!
As some of you may have witnessed, a very well known Malaysian eye-surgeon who is also a motivational speaker claimed in a live session that people who have anxiety should just throw out their medications and stop consulting with doctors; instead, we should just recite "auzubillah..." and tell ourselves that we're indeed, fine.
Well, her statement frustrated other medical practitioners as, first, it was out of her knowledge and secondly, are we really going to invalidate and tell people of how they should feel?
Toxic Positivity
So this case has reminded me of toxic positivity, a situation where you are facing difficulties or emotional pain, but you are told to just get over it and "stay positive".
[CAUTION] These keywords may harm you: "positive vibes" "look on the bright side" "it happened long ago, just forget about it already" "at least you're...", etc.
Well, aren't we all guilty of this. I used to think that that was the right thing to say when people told me their stories. Like I should motivate and be their personal Oprah or something. Boy, I wish I was more sensitive and knew better things to say, but it's never too late to learn something.
Toxic Positivity should be defied because it invalidates someone's feeling. Imagine, someone who doesn't really tell people their problem and once they did it *boom* they got lectured about not being positive enough.
When I was 11, I think, my aunt's husband passed away due to chronic illness. We're very close as we live nearby. It saddens me to remember most of people who visited her (she was in iddah) advised her to just stop crying, there's nothing left to cry about because he's already dead. Instead they advised her to just pray for him. Just let her grief for God's sake, she just lost her beloved husband.
Negative emotions are not necessarily bad. It's very humanly. Well guess what, negative emotions are also as crucial as positive emotions. Negative emotions also most likely aid in our survival. Bad feelings can be vital clues that a health issue, relationship or other important matter needs attention (Adler, 2013)
Avoiding or denying unpleasant emotions will only make them bigger. According to Dr Konstantin Lukin (2019) this is because when you avoid to feel hem, you tell yourself that you don’t need to pay attention to them. While you are trapped in this cycle, these emotions become bigger and more significant as they remain unprocessed.
In my own words, emotions are like a set of balloons. There's balloon 'Happy', 'Sad', 'Excitement', 'Melancholic', 'Calm', etc. Now imagine, for all these years, the Sad balloon has been filled with past traumas, shitty days, relapse moments, those random sad feelings. It grows bigger and bigger, you wanna let them go but you can't; because you know, you're so consumed that the only way to feel happy is to whisper yourself positive words. Then one day day it just bursts, and there's no way of going back.
As we all know, there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We can't expect for someone to just jump to acceptance without going through some crazy phases.
In case someone needs to hear this
In this pandemic we can see everyone is adjusting with this new norm. Some picked up new hobby, some lose the will to live. It's ok if you're the latter. It's definitely not a competition of who's the most productive, who uses time efficiently, we're in a pandemic. Things are not the same anymore.
If you have anxiety, it's a very normal response to a very abnormal situation. Take your medications, consult with your doctors. Seek help within your circles and external. Do small things that make you happy. Romanticize your life. Need more time to endure trauma? Yes gurl, go use it.
We are currently experiencing a shared trauma, it's not easy, but one thing for sure, we're not alone.
Be kinder, to your surrounding and most importantly to yourself.
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Experienced some toxic positivity that you can't get off of your mind? Leave in comment below!
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