We make ourselves happy. Nothing happens for nothing. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Others have it worse than you. We attract the positive when we think positive. If you have experienced such a difficult affair, it is because you have attracted it. You had to live this. You had to learn a lesson from it. We must love ourselves for others to love us.
You have surely heard one of these phrases in your life or, more likely, you have read some of them on Facebook alongside a photo of a sunset. These phrases are described by many people as coming from positive thinking, which is considered the key to countering mental health problems such as depression or to attracting you to great success. What if I told you that, more often than not, these phrases are rather the expression of a toxic positivity and that they should, therefore, be used a lot less often than we think?
A little notion of biology: Grime’s triangular model makes it possible to theorize the strategies that plants put in place to survive disturbances and environmental stresses, some of which are caused by human activity. According to this model, we see that some species use the competitive strategy, others that of stress tolerance, while others are ruderal, that is, they grow and reproduce quickly, but live shorter time.
Although Grime’s triangular model (or CSR strategies) is suitable for plants, I see many similarities with human resilience. Most of us came into the world without a history of difficult trials: these come our way in the course of life. It seems obvious to me that there are as many possible ways of reacting to a difficult, even traumatic, event as there are individuals. Sometimes we react by avoiding the trauma while other people re-expose themselves to it. Some people will be able to recover, partially or completely, others will not. Many factors come into play: our privileges, our access to care, our financial means, our isolation or not, etc.
Except that we are sold the idea that the only way to manage the very difficult unforeseen events that sometimes come into our lives is to resort to positive thinking, a thought that seems to me extremely disabling and unfair. Let me explain.
While positive thinking can be appropriate in some situations, especially with children, for marginalized, mentally ill and traumatized people, it can have serious consequences. The pressure to present oneself as a positive and happy person is felt by many, which obviously leads to a feeling of failure. People try to avoid healthy emotions like anger and sadness.
However, we do not completely make our own happiness. Do you tick at least some of the following boxes: friends, family, couple, children, job? I’m not saying that these factors are necessary for happiness, which varies for each person, but isolated people, who have none of that, I often read about it on social networks. They feel the need to have a social circle, to start a family, to rely on their own, to break the years of celibacy and to be part of a professional team.
Would you tell a woman who just had a miscarriage that nothing happens for nothing? To a woman who survived an attempted femicide that it’s supposed to make her stronger, when she now fears almost all men? That a woman survivor of a rape attracted that (at the same time exonerating her aggressor)? That a young man with autism who is bullied at school has to go through this and learn a lesson (one that he has no right to be himself if he wants to be part of society) ? Would you say to this same young man that he must love himself if he wants to be loved, after he lost all self-esteem in those years of bullying, rejection and excluded?
Unfortunately, these are reactions that I have often read and heard after this kind of confidence has been made by other people. As we see in biology, organisms, animals or plants, must move mountains to survive adversity. Unfortunately, some species lose their fight by disappearing because, for example, the human species has imposed too difficult a test on them. The lack of emotional support and listening can have serious consequences. The news has shown us this in recent weeks.
Rather, I would like to invite people to empathize and accept what others are going through or have gone through. It is normal not to want to see how much injustice there can be in life or to not want to admit that there are bad people. But this avoidance comes with toxic positivity with many unfortunate consequences: the suffering people are reduced to silence and no longer dare to confide or to seek the help necessary for their distress because they think that they must do their happiness themselves. They are isolated and do not feel taken seriously. Moreover, this extreme positive vision can also allow some people to lose responsibility for their actions. For example, a sexual aggressor could validate his behavior by telling himself that the victim had to go through it.
On a more nuanced point, if some people can make their own happiness, I would like to invite them to become aware of their privileges. I am told that the most marginalized people in society face even more obstacles and have to become sometimes, like the plants, ruderal. So I would like people to educate themselves about the long-term effects of trauma and isolation.
In short, let’s be more empathetic towards each other. Let us advocate a welcoming, benevolent, validating and, above all, realistic positivity, rather than a denial which rarely does any good.