Positivity can be toxic if it used as a vehicle to ignore problems, allowing them to fester and get worse. For example, being told to always look on the bright-side and being shamed for raising negative points regarding a situation, can lead to a person not ever learning how to deal with and resolve any issues, opting instead always for the “grin and bear it” attitude. This issue of “toxic positivity” promotes a system that sets people up for failure; if someone is made to feel bad or dismissed for voicing their worries or concerns about something, this person may learn to repress their feelings, and the problem itself does not get sorted out. Toxic positivity is like asking someone who is going through a difficult time to lighten up if they mention feeling sad. Repressing feelings can result in feeling isolated, sad and misunderstood, which in turn can lead to long-term mental health problems. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/the-man-cave/201908/toxic-positivity-dont-always-look-the-bright-side https://thepsychologygroup.com/toxic-positivity/

Toxic positivity is a real phenomenon which relies on invalidating people's real pain and raw emotions with platitudes and dismissal. It is often a projection of someone's own discomfort with another's hurt so they try to make it go away in order to console themselves while ignoring the other person and making it worse. It can be heard in phrases like "man up" or "big boys don't cry" for example which is proof that exposure to this way of thinking can influence an entire group of people to dismiss any emotions of theirs that are deemed unacceptable. People often feel pressure to do something and take action to prevent someone from feeling pain, when really to simply be there and extend your support is more meaningful than offering empty and cold phrases which encourage the sufferer to shrug off their feelings or turn them off like a switch. This can lead to burn out and is helpful to no-one at all. Feelings are okay no matter what they are and should be validated, it is how we respond to them that matters.

**Forced positivity is not healthy. But generalising anything as 'toxic' takes away from its nuance.** - 'Toxic' is a real buzzword, especially on internet platforms. It was even Oxford Dictionaries' [word of the year] (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/arts/toxic-oxford-word-of-the-year-2018.html) in 2018. [MW's definition] (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toxic) of it is that which is 'extremely harsh, malicious or harmful'. [Psychologists] (https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/entertainment/article/3132441/what-toxic-positivity-why-pretending-be-happy-can-be) describe 'toxic positivity' as 'the need to always be happy at any cost, even in adversity'. - Yes - [the consensus] (https://time.com/5163576/ignoring-your-emotions-bad-for-your-health/) is that denying any emotional range and putting up a front of dauntless positivity is a bad thing. Negative emotions build up if they are not faced. However - labelling any expression of this phenomenon as 'toxic' is harmful itself. It skates over the nuances of the individual scenario. - If someone is unable/unwilling to face the reality of a situation and instead reverts to a mask of positivity, there are complexities at work. [Labels] (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/alternative-truths/201005/why-its-dangerous-label-people) like 'toxic' sometimes make it easy to dismiss things rather than facing the reality - that every situation we face consists of many elements that transcend the simplicity of [the language] (https://medium.com/@say2sparsh/the-limited-world-of-language-f6ab94c54d04) we apply to them. - For example - it's easy to say 'Oh, I'm forcing positivity rather than dealing with my feelings - that's toxic. So I'll [google] (https://www.talkspace.com/blog/symptom-checker-dangerous-mental-health/) toxic positivity and find lots of cliches and generalised advice on how to deal with it'. It's always easier to assimilate our experiences through generalising terms than it is to deal with the messiness of our unique situation.