Toxic Positivity Is Hurting Mental Health in 2025
Why Is Everyone Smiling While Burned Out?
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We’re not okay. Most of us are barely hanging on with iced coffee and memes. We’re anxious, overstimulated, and emotionally maxed out. But instead of being honest about it, we’re told to slap on a smile, breathe deeply, and “trust the process.” Spoiler alert: the process sucks.
This isn't emotional growth—it's emotional denial wrapped in a pastel gradient. And it's not just annoying. It's dangerous. Because what’s happening now is deeper than fake smiles and self-help spam. Toxic positivity is hurting mental health in 2025 by turning pain into performance, convincing us that any expression of discomfort makes us “negative,” “ungrateful,” or just not spiritually evolved enough.
The worst part? We’ve started believing it. We've started gaslighting ourselves—forcing a silver lining onto every crack in our lives until we forget it’s okay to simply fall apart sometimes.
What Exactly Is Toxic Positivity—and Why Should You Care?
Toxic positivity is that chirpy little voice—internal or external—that says, “Just be grateful,” when what you really need is a nap, a hug, and maybe a therapist with a last-minute cancellation. It’s the pressure to be emotionally "aesthetic" rather than emotionally honest. It’s mental health theatre.
And it’s not just cringe—it’s harmful. A 2024 Pew Research survey found that 69% of Millennials and Gen Z feel pressured to appear “emotionally resilient” even when they’re on the verge of burnout. That’s not resilience. That’s emotional cosplay. We’re not thriving—we’re faking it because the algorithm doesn’t reward vulnerability unless it’s polished, branded, and followed by a discount code for matcha supplements.
Real-world case? Your friend loses their job and posts about it. Within minutes:
✨ “Everything happens for a reason!”
✨ “This is the universe redirecting you!”
✨ “Sending good vibes 💫”
No. Just... no. This isn’t support—it’s spiritual gaslighting dressed up in Pinterest fonts. It doesn’t validate pain; it erases it with a glitter filter and calls it growth.
Toxic positivity sounds harmless until you realize it’s stopping people from asking for help, from being honest with themselves, and from actually healing. And the scary part? Half the time, we’re doing it to ourselves.
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Is the Workplace Addicted to ‘Good Vibes Only’?
Absolutely. If burnout had a brand team, they’d be the ones writing your company’s internal newsletters. Offices in 2025 aren’t just toxic—they’re toxically positive. Forget restructuring workloads or addressing chronic burnout—just slap on a motivational quote, rename your panic attacks “growth opportunities,” and keep it moving.
Got a problem with exhaustion? Just meditate harder. Need support? Here’s a breathing exercise and a Slack channel called #mindfulness-monday. Feeling overworked? That’s not burnout—it’s an opportunity to "step into your leadership era."
According to a 2025 Gallup report, a solid 62% of employees said their employers promote “positive thinking” without making any tangible improvements to mental health policies, workload distribution, or pay equity. Translation? A free yoga class in the breakroom, followed by six passive-aggressive “Just circling back :)” emails from your manager who “believes in you.”
And the irony runs deep. A major marketing agency in Chicago recently rolled out “Gratitude Fridays,” asking employees to publicly share what they’re thankful for each week. This came literally days after they slashed health benefits and implemented unpaid “resilience leave.” But it’s fine. Jenny’s grateful for her succulent and her ergonomic chair, so clearly the vibes are immaculate.
This is how toxic positivity operates in modern workplaces—it sugarcoats dysfunction, rebrands burnout as “purpose,” and treats emotional honesty as a performance issue. You’re not supposed to feel overwhelmed—you’re supposed to optimize your mindset and remember that stress is just “a sign you’re evolving.”
What we’re really evolving into? Emotionally disconnected productivity robots with great posture and no PTO.
🔗 Also read: Middle-Class Productivity Guilt Is a Trap
Are Social Media Filters Rewriting Our Emotions?
Yes—and not just visually. Emotionally.
Social platforms don’t reward honesty. They reward emotional optics. The algorithm isn’t boosting a post where someone says, “I feel lost and disconnected.” But it will absolutely throw confetti over, “Grateful for this healing journey ✨”—even if you’re crying into soggy takeout between doomscrolling and pretending you’re okay.
According to a 2025 APA study, 71% of young adults admit to feeling emotionally inauthentic on social media. Not because they’re liars—but because being real online no longer feels safe. Vulnerability is fine, as long as it’s curated, captioned, and hashtagged just right.
Remember that influencer who posted her “breakup glow-up” while clearly processing heartbreak in real time? Yeah. That’s toxic positivity in action. It convinces us to turn pain into performance—trauma into content—before we’ve even had the chance to feel the damn thing.
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Why Are We Burned Out But Still Smiling?
Because we’ve been taught that admitting struggle is failure. That “negative vibes” mean we’re not trying hard enough. That mental health is a mood board, not a messy, unpredictable experience.
Because we’ve been taught that showing struggle equals failure. That anything less than “good vibes only” means you’re not trying hard enough. That mental health is a Pinterest mood board instead of the messy, unpredictable rollercoaster it actually is.
Burnout? It’s not just trending—it’s a pandemic of its own. According to the World Health Organization, global burnout rates have jumped 26% since 2020, with the steepest spike among workers in “empathy-driven” roles like healthcare, education, and customer support. You know—the same folks being told to “choose joy” after ten-hour shifts dealing with underfunding, understaffing, and constant emotional labor.
Real-life example? A Texas middle school teacher went viral in early 2025 after quitting mid-semester. Her final straw? An all-staff assembly on “Positive Mindsets in the Classroom”—held the very next day after three teachers were laid off. She reportedly walked out during the trust fall segment.
This is how toxic positivity is hurting mental health in 2025: by turning grief into content, burnout into a branding opportunity, and real human suffering into yet another PR-friendly moment for corporate wellness teams.
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How Do You Detox From Positivity Porn?
First, stop gaslighting yourself. It’s okay to not be okay. Say it with me. Again. Louder.
Real mental health isn’t just about gratitude journaling and affirmation reels. It’s about setting boundaries, naming your emotions, and refusing to turn pain into performance.
What helps? For starters:
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Unfollow accounts that only post “positivity at all costs”
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Say no to corporate “mental health days” if they come with a guilt trip
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Stop “reframing” your trauma into some kind of divine lesson before you’re ready
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Let yourself just be—sad, angry, messy, silent—whatever you actually are
As psychotherapist Dr. Jamie Kreiner put it in a 2024 Psychology Today interview, “Suppressing emotions to appear positive only delays healing and fuels long-term anxiety.”
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Final Thoughts: It’s Okay to Not Be Okay in 2025
Let’s not pretend life in 2025 is normal. It’s not. The world is glitching, everyone’s tired, and no amount of “high vibes only” mantras is going to magically fix that.
Toxic positivity isn’t healing anyone. It’s a decorative Band-Aid slapped over a festering wound—one we’re told to ignore as long as it looks pretty on a Canva quote card. But real healing? That starts with truth. With naming the hard stuff. With sitting in discomfort without rushing to reframe it into something inspirational.
It means letting your friends cry without telling them “it’s all going to be fine”—because maybe it won’t be. And honestly? That’s okay.
So if someone tells you to smile more this week—don’t. Or do. But do it because you want to, not because society has decided your feelings are bad PR.
Toxic positivity is hurting mental health in 2025. But radical honesty—the messy, inconvenient kind? That might just be what saves it.
I completely agree—this is a powerful and timely message. It's okay to not be okay, especially now. Life isn't normal, the world feels broken, and people are tired. Just saying positive things doesn't make the problems go away.
ReplyDeleteOften, people are scared to face reality. Even when they know the truth, accepting it takes time. So they pretend everything is fine and try to stay positive. While being positive can help, they forget the most important first step: acceptance. If you don’t accept what’s really happening, you can’t truly move on.
Absolutely. Denial might feel like a safety net, but it actually delays healing. It’s like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound—looks neat on the outside, but inside you're still bleeding.
DeleteReal growth begins when we stop gaslighting ourselves with forced positivity and instead say, “Yeah, this sucks—and that’s okay.” Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up. It means facing the storm head-on instead of pretending it’s just a little rain. Only then can you actually figure out what umbrella you need.
Positivity has its place, but not at the cost of honesty.