Girl, Get Depressed: How Toxic Positivity Ruins Your Life

ChOoSe HaPpY isn’t self-help or therapy — it’s a marketing ploy. Toxic Positivity can derail your goals and put your health at risk.

The power of positive thinking has been a foundational aspect of self-help for generations. Daily routines that involve mindful positivity are often cited as ways to improve your mood and fight depression. But going overboard into the Hyper Positivity movement can be just damaging as feeding depressive ideas and behaviors.

The idea of taking control of one’s own destiny while being connected to a sense of spirituality has appealed to people disenfranchised from many major religions. In 1902, James Allen published “As a Man Thinketh”, which was based on the premise that “a man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” It became a foundational work for positive thinking movements for generations to come.

In 1936, Dale Carnegie added to the positivity fire with his influential work “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. The book was, ironically, the result of Carnegie’s failure in several different careers which prompted his interest in the power of self-confidence. This book also went on to become something like gospel in the positivity community and effectively saved Carnedie’s floundering career and turned him into a…