Toxic Positivity is... TOXIC

You cannot be happy without being sad - negative states make our positive states possible.

Hi, and welcome to The Journey Never Ends.

Today,

I want to talk about my experience with glorifying bipolar disorder and,

in general,

toxic positivity.

So, in my 20s, I struggled a lot, but I also had really good days.

Even yesterday, I had a pretty awesome day, and I think to myself while I'm driving...

I say, wow, and I'm sitting there dancing, having an amazing day.

And I think,

wow,

I am likely having such a positive emotion right now that I'm sure 90% of the

population have never felt this type of joy.

I mean, maybe they have, I have no idea.

All I know is that my emotions are intense.

And when I have intense and negative emotions,

I also have the ability to have intense,

positive emotions.

I have clung on to the concept that I can experience more love and more joy as the

silver lining of bipolar disorder.

In my twenties, I really feel like I had a lot of toxic positivity around this.

I tried to think of bipolar disorder, not just as a superpower, but a good thing.

I really tried to tell myself that.

But in reality, it isn't.

It's a disability.

That being said, I do think that there are perks, side effects maybe, to being bipolar.

And I do think that some very influential people that change the world happen to

think differently and experience the world differently in such a way to create

great change.

But I don't want

people to glorify bipolar disorder.

I've actually even read people and met people who claim to be bipolar just because

they get happy and they get sad.

And that's not the case.

It really is a clinical diagnosis.

And again, it is more than being happy and sad.

It is

a lot more than that.

And it shows up differently for every single person.

In my experience, I again had hallucinations, psychosis, long hospitalizations, et cetera.

So I just sit here and want to talk about the reality of

of bipolar and the reality of everyone's life to see that you have to,

in a lot of ways,

embrace the darkness.

You have to understand that contrast is the way you can see light.

So if you're in a dark room, no.

You have to realize that contrast is your friend.

And I like to exemplify this with the concept of hot and cold.

How do you know something is hot and how do you know something is cold?

This might sound like a really stupid question,

but when it comes down to it,

you really only know what is hot and what is cold,

not in an absolute truth,

but more so in a relative fashion.

This is very similar to moods.

How do you know what happy is?

How do you know what is a positive emotion?

Well,

you have to juxtapose it and compare it to what a negative emotion is or what a

quote unquote sad emotion is,

angry emotion.

I also do believe in this is a little bit of the silver lining and just

fundamentally how I see emotions.

I do believe that the darker emotions you feel,

the better, higher, happier emotions that you have the capacity of feeling.

So I don't see the emotional spectrum to only expand in the negative.

I do believe that it expands in the positive,

at least gives you the potential for that positive emotion.

So yeah, I do agree that there is some

You know, silver lining to experiencing more joy and love and happiness.

But it's at a cost.

I always used to say, well, at least I'm not unipolar depression.

And at least I get to be super happy sometimes.

But when it comes again to contrast,

I think that this contrast of,

you know,

very high emotions to very low emotions is also one of the reasons that makes

bipolar disorder very difficult to manage.

The roller coaster of thinking you can take over the world and then the reality

that you can't get out of bed,

that's debilitating.

And while there have been some breakthroughs in treating depression through a lot

of different medications and even exercise and lifestyle changes,

it is specifically very difficult to treat bipolar depression.

And that being said, I never want to glorify again the concept of bipolar disorder.

Another example of where people glorify bipolar disorder is the

kind of proven research that has been done on bipolar disorder patients that shows

that we are creative,

that we are able to think differently and create art,

ideas,

and make those neural networks that maybe other people can't,

and likely other people

Normal people cannot.

And I call them normal people as just a almost funny way of explaining it because,

you know,

the real question is what is normal?

I think we all have some type of deviations in our brains.

The bipolar deviation and diagnosis simply being maybe a more extreme and debilitating one.

At the end of the day,

I want you all,

normal people and bipolar people and emotional people,

to be positive but rooted in reality.

To be positive but not on a toxic level, not on a delusional level.

I want you to lean into the darkness,

learn from your bad days,

have happier days because of the worst days.

Remember that contrast is the foundation of experience.

The darker it is, the easier it is to see the light.

The colder it is outside, the hotter room temperature will feel.

So that's all I really wanted to chat about today.

Appreciate you guys being here.

Much love.