Let me be sad, goddamnit!

on toxic positivity and emotional space

Shortly after Sherry died, when my son was still reeling from the loss of the woman he considered his grandmother, I said something painfully trite: It’s better to loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

He glared at me, lip quivering, and I instantly knew I’d screwed up. Instead of sitting with him in grief, I was already spinning her loss into a Life Lesson™. I hated seeing him in pain and instinctively reached for a moral. I wanted to tie a pretty red bow around it, as if that would make the grief go away.

I was doing what some might call “glossing,” trying to smooth over his sorrow with positivity. It was a minor parenting fail. I recovered quickly, but I still remember the violated look in his eyes, still moist with tears. It said: Let me be sad, goddamnit!

Maybe you’ve heard the term “toxic positivity.” It refers to the excessive or insincere insistence on positivity, even when anger, sadness, or a simple “that sucks” would be more appropriate. Most people view positivity as a good thing, and usually it is. But when it’s used to deny or minimize emotions, it becomes toxic. It’s like slapping a smiley-face sticker on a bad wound and treating it as healed.

Toxic positivity is often smuggled in warm platitudes, like: Everything happens for a reason! Look on the bright side! GOOD VIBES ONLY! Yes, there’s a time and place for those sentiments. But when they come too quickly, before someone’s even processed their emotions, they’re off-putting. Like when your friend loses their job and is still in shock, they probably don’t want to hear about how “one door closes and another one opens.” They want to hear: That sucks. I’m sorry. They want commiseration, not a pep talk.

I first heard the term toxic positivity secondhand, from my college-age niece who’s fluent in Gen Z pop psychology. My sister told me how her daughter had called her out for toxic positivity during an argument. I rolled my eyes, saying something like, Kids these days and their special names for everything. But as my sister and I unpacked the moment, we both realized her daughter had a point.

For the first time, I saw how positivity could be misused. I added toxic positivity to other pop psychology terms I had learned from Zoomers, along with "trauma dumping” and “anxious attachment.” What can I say? I love that stuff.

Almost immediately, I started noticing toxic positivity everywhere. I saw it in friends who rushed to reframe crises as “blessings in disguise.” I saw it in bland LinkedIn posts and ESPN stories, where every setback became a “growth opportunity.” I saw it on bumper stickers and Instagram captions advertising nonstop happiness, as if anything less than constant cheerfulness was a personal failure. I began to see my own family patterns in a new light too — how certain emotions were never given room to breathe, and anger became the release valve.

Most notably, I saw it in myself. And it wasn’t just the way I tried to spin things or fix them, which I did. It was also the way I avoided the swampy emotional landscapes of others altogether. Instead of sitting with people I cared about when they were going through dark periods, I steered away. I told myself I was giving them space, but really, I was avoiding my own discomfort. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to help.

The irony is, I’d been somewhat trained to sit with emotions. Years ago, during my executive coach training and woo-woo phase, I learned a technique called “process coaching.” The goal was simply to help someone feel what they are feeling. For example, I once worked with a military veteran who lay on the ground as he recounted trauma from Iraq. I asked simple questions: Where in your body do you feel it? What does it feel like? That’s all we did for thirty minutes. At the end, he thanked me profusely, stating “I didn’t realize how much I needed that.” So I intellectually understood the value of emotional processing, but it still felt kind of icky to me. (This is part of why I never went all-in on executive coaching. I like fixing, building, and analyzing things more than holding emotional space.)

For those of us raised in families where there wasn’t much room for big emotions, sitting with someone in grief or pain can feel awkward and uncomfortable. My instinct is to rush through emotions, offer the bare minimum, and get out. But I know it’s better to do the opposite: to chill, slow down, and allow emotions to breathe.

There’s a gendered element here too. Like many men, I was raised to fix, not nurture. I’m more comfortable offering advice or doing something practical than sitting in silence with someone who’s hurting. There’s the classic trope of the married couple: the woman vents, the man jumps in with a solution, and she finally says, I just want you to listen! That impulse to fix that’s so common among men is a close cousin of toxic positivity. One tries to spin pain into something positive. The other tries to eliminate or solve it. Neither makes space to actually feel it.

And while this is a gross generalization, it seems true that women tend to be better at holding space for emotion. They check in. They go on power walks. They cry with their friends. Men, on the other hand, often deal with grief or heartbreak by isolating, numbing, or pretending everything is fine.

In some sense, men are often the greatest victims of our own toxic positivity. We don’t just gloss over others’ pain; we gloss over our own. Thus the suicide rate for men is nearly four times that of women. The overdose rate is more than double. I’m not saying we need to express emotion the way women do, but our lack of emotional space — our rush to spin, solve, or avoid this stuff — does have a death count.

Honestly, I still wrestle with all of this. I obviously believe in emotional space and validation, but I also wonder when that tips into indulgence. Some days I think we have too much therapy culture; other days not enough.

Also, I’m not sure how exactly to draw the line between toxic and productive positivity. I know I erred when I made that comment to my son like two days after Sherry died. But what if I had said it six months later? When is it okay to help someone move forward? When is it helpful to give the bright side or to urge someone to buck up? What are the cultural costs and benefits of keeping a stiff upper lip?

It’s also context-driven. One of my friends recently lost his twenty-two-year-old son, just weeks before his college graduation. There’s no positive spin for that and never will be. It’s just gut-wrenching, and I don’t know how to support him.

Another friend was recently dumped by his Brazilian husband, who apparently married him for immigration reasons. Now he’s depressed, heartbroken, and losing too much weight. Maybe someday I’ll be able to help him move forward, but not now. Right now I just need to commiserate and let him vent.

Terrible things happen in life. And in a culture obsessed with good vibes and quick fixes, sitting with someone through their darkest emotions can feel awkward. Some may even perceive as unmanly. But I think the bravest thing we can do in these moments is not to fix, avoid, or spin but to simply say: I see you. I’m really sorry. Or maybe just: Let’s go for a walk.

I am coming to realize that toxic positivity is just a form of fear. Fear of helplessness. Fear of big feelings. Fear of sitting with someone in the dark. I see this fear in myself.

After I made that dumb comment to my son, I caught myself. I then hugged him. I am trying to give him space to grieve. We talk about how much we miss Sherry and how different this summer will be without her.

I am trying NOT to always look for bright sides and life lessons. I am learning there’s value in walking with people through the dark, one step at a time.

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