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PM_SHORT_STORY_IDEAS t1_it4ycuj wrote

Reply to comment by spider-bro in [Image] "Toxic Positivity is Forced..." - Susan David by true90sstory

TLDR: Looking on the bright side =/= 1984 forced happiness.

Obviously grieving someone's death or mourning a loss is a process that needs to be gone through, you're taking a generality and extrapolating it into an absolute truth.

Should you grieve your mother's death? Yes, that's horrible. Should anyone else tell you how to feel about that? No, they should f*** off.

Should you continue to be sad and grieve for years on end? Past a certain point... If you can help it, no. Seeing the positive and being thankful for the good in things will make you a happier and better person overall.

Someday my mom will die, and it will wreck me. Hope not painfully, I hope she doesn't suffer, but it's going to suck a lot. And it will suck after. But I hope that I will remember her for the positive moments after some time has passed.

The post asserts that trying to look on the brightside is actually wrong if you're not feeling good in actuality. It completely misses the point that sometimes changing your mind is a good thing, and you can often be a buoying force in someone else's life

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_tsuujin t1_it643hf wrote

My dad recently died from cancer. It was a long, painful death and I sat at his side the whole time. Watching him suffer and die broke me emotionally and I still struggle with it every single day.

If I didn’t have people around me doing their best to help me find balance I genuinely do not know how I would make it day to day. Sometimes I need to just be sad, but if I did that all the time I don’t think I could function.

Most of the time I need people to help me remember that my world is broader that my grief, and sometimes that means I need people telling me to look on the bright side when I can’t shake off being sad.

The original post is what I view as toxic here. Making an assumption that someone reaching out to remind you that your attitude is largely within your control, even when you think it isn’t, can’t just be a blanket evil, selfish act. That kind of thinking does nothing for anyone and is actively harmful to those of us currently suffering.

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Yes_Thats__My_Name t1_it7wcns wrote

Yeah I’ve been through some shit in life. Lost my mum at 12 and had no dad around and then it was a cascade of one thing after another until I got to around 27/28 and if it wasn’t for people around me helping me to see the positive in life I for sure would not be here today. I had to see the positive otherwise I would have literally just curled up died and would not be enjoying the life I have now.

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