Toxic positivity is now the premier coping mechanism touted for dealing with chronic pain. Doctors have decided that pain is all in the attitude, and if someone is in pain, they’re not being optimistic enough. This has horrifying results for people in pain whose doctors are blaming them for their own suffering, and telling them to deny any negative emotions they may have about their condition. There’s no being sad, discouraged, or acknowledgment of physical agony, and this takes a toll.
What is toxic positivity?
According to Medical News Today, toxic positivity is:
Sometimes this toxic positivity can be self-imposed, but often it has external sources. Today we’re talking about those external sources.
Toxic Positivity puts limits on the experience of pain, and pain doesn’t have limits. Pain is undefinable. Many have tried it, and many have failed. Click To TweetIn my experience, Toxic Positivity tries to define chronic pain and limit emotions
Today, a random day in September, I’m taking a moment to be sad. After all, I went to a funeral.
I started my day off sad about death and wasted life, and tonight I’m sad about the wasted life of chronic pain. The pain I felt this morning was emotional, but the pain I feel every single day is physical. They are not even remotely the same thing, and yet they circle around and through each other like the cat’s cradle we used to make as kids. Only there’s no magic key to undoing the tangled web.
Pain is undefinable. Many have tried it, and many have failed. When you’re in emotional and physical pain that defies description, definitions don’t help and they feel like a cage. Toxic positivity feels like limits put on the experience of pain, and pain doesn’t have limits. For who knows of all the different types of suffering in the world? No one.
And yet toxic positivity seeks to quantify, label, and package up chronic pain in a nice parcel labeled with a calligraphy tag and tied with a beautiful pink bow. Pain doesn’t agree to be tied up. It cannot be contained in a parcel, and it will not go away just because it’s locked up behind a good attitude.
Toxic positivity seeks to quantify, label, and package chronic pain in a parcel tied with a bow. Pain doesn’t agree to be tied up. It can't be contained, and it will not go away just because it’s locked up behind a good attitude. Click To Tweet
Related posts: Positivity is a coping mechanism, not a cure
What is chronic pain and why is the definition changing?
The shocking truth about life with untreated chronic pain
Pain is pain, no matter what my attitude is
Pain is pain, and it can be crushing.
There have been many times in my life that despite my good attitude, I felt crushed by pain. I’m lucky that so far it’s been physical pain, and mostly not emotional. And yet the physical pain is still crushing. It breaks down every part of me that makes me, ME. Who am I after all without physical pain? I don’t know anymore.
I’ll never know again what it’s like to be without physical pain. Although my physical pain has a physical cure, because of the politics of pain, I can’t have it. Meanwhile, physical pain breaks me down piece by piece over the years until I’m eventually crushed under the unrelenting burden of suffering. And as I’m being ground into dust, the physical pain and emotional pain will join together to erase me and the person I once was.
I can feel both types of pain in my heart now. I carry the heaviness of legs that don’t work, and the heaviness of knowing that treatment is just so close, but not quite in my grasp. I keep reaching for it, but will I catch it?
Stop gaslighting people in pain with toxic positivity
I look in the mirror now, and I see pain. Pain is who I am. I am no longer Shelley a pain patient, I’m just pain. And yet so many doctors, psychologists, and researchers who know nothing about living with chronic pain tell me otherwise. They tell me my pain doesn’t really exist, that it happens because I’m not happy enough. They won’t listen when I tell them I have a great life and I am happy, outside my pain.
The toxic positivity over chronic pain is everywhere, I see it daily on social media. Yesterday I was researching TMJ and Fibromyalgia and I ran across this page which casualty mentions:
Managing pain is the biggest challenge when treating fibromyalgia patients. Remedies that have found success in the past may include meditation, restorative yoga, and even just having a positive outlook on life.
No need for pain treatment anymore, just have a positive outlook on life and you will be cured! Bullshit. Having a positive outlook will not cure your chronic pain, that’s toxic positivity. At best, it will help you to survive your pain, at worst it will put you into denial about your situation and keep you from getting appropriate treatment.
Stop limiting the emotions of people with chronic pain by insisting on toxic positivity
You make so many great points here! I see the “positives” with positivity, but as some with chronic pain and who doesn’t have a “positive” attitude naturally these days, I find it toxic more often than not. I like how you’ve noted the issue on gaslighting, too. That’s really important, especially when we start to question ourselves (are we being too negative, are we moaning too much, maybe everyone else has it worse than us, maybe we need to suck it up and be grateful?). Toxic positivity can be frustrating at best, and devastating at worst. It belittles the chronic pain experience and it’s not helpful.
Fab post! xx
Well this hit me in the gut hard today. As a chronic pain patient who was referred to part of their Integrated Pain Management team in February, my life has become a nightmare. Little did I know that they had one agenda and that was to discontinue all pain medications as fast as possible. I spent 3 months trying to quit shaking and 3 months of gaslighting by a doctor that insisted I was taking pain medication for anxiety. I admit, anxiety is a part of my life, but after 40 years of therapy and the right medication, and SO many coping skills, I really have that one under control.
But detox is HARD. Did I go a bit mental, you bet. I insisted my pain was not to anxiety, but she was beginning to bring some on me big time. And I began to feel guilty about having chronic pain.
After the 3 months, I begged, yes begged for something. She put me on a very low dose Butrans patch that caused burning and blisters. And in order to get it, I had to see a psychiatrist for All my anxiety. I did, he thought I coped well with it.
When I called and asked for the patch to be replaced with another I had tolerated “ very low dose” fentanyl because of the burning and blistering, she said she would increase the Butrans but not give me the other because it was “too strong” for me. Now why in the world do I want continue Butrans when it is blistering and burning my skin..? I sent her pictures of what the patch was doing to me. I asked for any option. This was her reply. “We have a wonderful Pain psychologist starting, I would like for you to see her. Debi she can really help you look at pain differently. 😱
Okay, I have heard about this positivity route. Next they would want me to go into a pain group to talk about my feelings. AND, she suggested I just take the patch off.
So done with this woman, this group. I decided to take that patch off, cancel all further appts and try to get through life best I know how.
Gaslighting is real. Trying to convince you your pain is manageable with positive thinking is wrong. They cannot see it, but we live in it daily. I am not quite sure how to get through this, my medical coverage is an integrated system so all pain requests would go through her.
I am off all pain medication. And I am away from a team of professionals who did nothing but cause me more pain and distress and now I am dealing with the anger and depression of it all.
My pain has just gotten worse, especially at night.
I am over talking about it to the doctors who keep passing me off. I don’t mind therapy, I rather like it, but not when they are trying to tell me it’s not pain, I get so angry. I am so done,
I cannot show them, or tell then how bad the suffering is. But it is mentally now taking a toll on me.
I am heartbroken that this is happening. I hear from so many others also suffering, especially at night when you try to lie still and your whole body is screaming for pain relief and there is Nothing to help. It affects every aspect of your life.
Pain can be carefully managed so easily, yet the professionals are all running scared. I am afraid suicide will be what they see happening next when they figure out that adjusting our attitudes will not help. No one should have to suffer. Yet millions are.
I’m scared quite frankly. I cannot sleep, my days are spent not overworking my body. I’m older and just don’t have the endurance I was did. It is so hard.
When my husband was in the hospital and said his pain was a six, they gave him a fentanyl drip. I tell them I run a constant 8 and they think I’m crazy. Don’t get it. No answers. Hang on everyone, it’s gonna be a rough ride. But do not let your doctors bully you. I would rather be in this pain, than begging for crumbs, being blackmailed to see psychiatrists for a little pain relief, and I will not be made to feel as if it’s all in my head or that a good attitude will suddenly make it easier to cope. I am in pain. Plain simple strait forward.
All you doctors reading this, learn some empathy, listen, and get back to treating pain accordingly and safely. I no longer will cry, sob or beg. I’m done! I will deal one day at a time until I can no longer.
Debi I don’t normally comment on line but your post made me cry. My heart really aches for you. I came off at least 10 medications a few years ago and it took 2 years but I’ve spent the last two years trying to come off my last 2 pain meds and I’m really struggling. I reduce it and try to be strong but I keep sending myself into flare ups. Thankfully my GP can see my determination in coming off my other meds and he understands that these ones are really difficult. I don’t know what I’d do if he forced me off them. I really admire you and want to send you a hug x
Debi, I am so sorry they did this to you. It sounds like they dropped you way too quickly without offering any actual support. I got to where you did, I couldn’t take all the gaslighting, telling me that I wasn’t happy enough about being in pain. It’s unconscionable that they’re pretending like pain is controlled by attitude, not by there being something wrong in your body. I’m with you on the therapy, it’s a great resource, but it doesn’t make pain disappear. I hope that someday you can find a decent doctor who will actually listen and treat you.
Hug accepted! Thank you so much…☺️ I actually had to pour all my pain meds down the toilet! I too had spent over a year coming off high doses. I thought I had done so well. But they made me feel bad about the last ones. Flushing them was the only way I knew how to get through it. I detoxed hard. I do not recommend it. If you have an understanding GP, do it at your pace. We who suffer chronic pain need to have some pain control options. It’s just terrible that any human in this day has to accept being in such pain. It’s the chronic part of it that makes it near impossible to deal with. It’s exhausting! Wishing you a much better path than mine took.
Excellent post, Shelley.
I have just written this week about myself and my lack of positivity recently. My pain got to me. It almost broke me and I have struggled mentally. I normally try to have a positive attitude because it can help me to cope. (It is definitely not a cure!) But sometimes pain just gets the upper hand and I was unable to find a single ounce of positivity. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for a time, I felt guilty, as though I was letting myself down. I realise now that I wasn’t letting myself down. Had I just carried on acting positive, it would have been just that – an act. We need to be true to ourselves.
Thank you for writing what so many of us are thinking! This is an amazing post. I’m so tired of being told if my attitude was better, if I looked at the things I can still do instead of what I can’t, it’s all about how I train my mind”. It’s such bs! Thank you again!
I think part of the problem is that intervention from a positive thinking standpoint is presented as though we aren’t already doing it. THose of us who have lived with chronic pain for decades know better. We know the” positive” techniques we’ve applied, still apply daily, and help us to get through, and we know those techniques that don’t make a blind bit of difference or actively do damage.
But I am so sick of the assumption that I am somehow too stupid to have tried a million and one coping techniques some of which help and some of which don’t. I am still in chronic and debilitating pain. It’s not “my fault”, it’s a consequence of multiple surgeries and untreated bacterial infections which have done permanent damage. The assumption, on the part of medical professionals, that I’m not “doing it right” if pain still intereferes with my life just does my head in.
If you want me to reduce my stress then stop gaslighting me about the experience of pain. Stop the toxic positivity, blaming, and undermining. Start by asking how I’m doing and see medication as part of a total tool kit with which I am very familiar and which I hope you never have to need.. There is such a power imbalance in toxic positivity. It goes like this, 1) I, the doctor, psychologist, know more than you do about your condition, 2) you, the patient, are clearly to stupid to manage pain, and if you pain gets worse it’s because you are not “doing it right”, 3) I, the doctor, will undermine your sense of self sufficiently so that I can brainwash you into my way of thinking, 4) I, the doctor will guilt you into not speaking the truth of your pain, because speaking the truth of it by definition means admitting you are to stupid to think positively enough, and I will make you do that a in public, pain management course.
It leaves the paitient with two choices a) hide your pain or b) admit your stupidity and failure to think positive. Either way the doctor looks good. Both options look like success because it removes the patients actual experience from the end narrateive. An example of how toxic positivity does damage can be found in the David Tuller examination of the PACE trial, corruption at its best! https://www.virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/