Taking Being Positive To Unhealthy Extremes

by Anna

She came into the office smiling and laughing as if she had no cares in the world. She handed me a stack of papers, looked down on me warmly, talked to a few other people in the office, then left.

There was nothing unusual about the stack of papers in her hands, nothing out of the ordinary about the way that she handed the papers to me. She had done this many times before. I was used to the lighthearted manner in which she usually talked to me and others, and the way she always stayed to chat or find out the latest news in our section. However, something about this time was different. I could just feel it. It started in my throat, my stomach, and my chest, until it spread out all over my body like an invisible alarm. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I wanted to ask her what it was. I wanted to stop her smiling, her laughter, her everyday small talk.

The other people in the office smiled and laughed with her. Isn't that the conditioned response? If someone else is smiling and laughing you must do the same?

When the woman left, everyone settled in to do their jobs as if it was just another day. I got up, went into my boss's office and asked him if he'd noticed anything different about the woman. He asked me to shut the door. After I shut the door, my boss told me that he was just informed that the woman's husband and two young sons had been killed in a plane crash the day before. She had come to work just as always. Then my boss said something that I will never forget. He said, 'Isn't she amazing? Now that's being positive. Nothing can stop this woman. I wish that I was more like her. We should all learn to be as positive as she is.'

I was stunned. I looked at my boss as if I was searching for the human being that he obviously kept locked up in there somewhere within himself. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him, 'Don't you think that she might be in shock? Should we call her relatives? Should we watch her for signs that she may have to be taken to the hospital?' He said, 'No, she looks just fine to me'.

The next day I found out that the woman had a breakdown later in the day and had to be admitted to the hospital.

This happened at a job that I had years ago. I am no longer at that job. I believe that my former boss was an example of being positive taken to an unhealthy extreme. I can see being positive to a certain point. In my recovery I have had to talk and write about my past, cry, get angry, feel the fear, and go into the hell that I experienced in my childhood. Going down into that dark basement of unresolved pain is a part of recovery that I have had to learn to embrace. I also use affirmations. I've found that using affirmations has helped me to feel better about myself while I'm in recovery.

I think that Dr. Bill DeFoore's program of talking and writing about your childhood, releasing emotions, and using affirmations, creates a recovery that is balanced and moves towards peace, happiness and joy. However, when someone uses affirmations that do not allow for looking at their past, feeling the emotions they need to feel or going through the recovery that they need to go through, I think that those affirmations may be unhealthy.

I believe that using being overly positive as a way to avoid or deny dysfunctional present and past situations, being overly positive as a way to not feel the emotions we need to feel in order to heal, and being overly positive as a way to cover up what is really happening inside of ourselves, is just not healthy. There needs to be a balance.

I don't know how many times someone has aggressively tried to force me to be positive when something horrible was happening in my life, or I was getting out emotions that I needed to feel. It is so invalidating when someone tells me how to think, how to feel and what kind of attitude to have. I actually have an affirmation script about dealing with people who take being positive to a ridiculous extreme.

I have gone through a stage in recovery where I took certain things from one extreme to another. I used to be in a stage where everything was either all bad, or everything was all good. There was no middle ground. I have had to learn to see both the good and the bad, and both the darkness and the light in my life in a way that causes more balance and sanity to my world. I need to be able to see when there is a problem that I need to face and deal with and I also need to be at a place where everything is not all bleak and dark.

Balance is not an easy thing to do during recovery. Being told to smile when I really need to cry is so invalidating. Being told that things were not as bad as I think they were is also invalidating. On the other side, being told that things were worse than they really were is no help either. When I write my stories about my childhood I always try to remember that it's not good to over exaggerate about what happened and it's not good to minimize what happened either. The truth always ends up making me feel so much saner.

Anyway, I think I'll just go and cry about something that happened in my past and after I get done doing that, I'll read some comforting affirmations about being able to just be myself and live my life the best way that I can. I'll strike my own balance and give myself a hug afterwords.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

What a great story, Anna. You make some powerful points here, that show tremendous insight into emotional healing. Keep up the good work!

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore

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