3 Common “Uplifting” Phrases Subtly Toxic to Your Mental Health
Living in a culture in which awareness around mental health has become much more prominent, and in which phrases like “self-growth,” “self-care,” and “being trauma-informed” have become buzz words, it can be tempting to think that, as a whole, we’re growing in all the right ways.
But just as a tool as innocuous as gratitude can easily turn into toxic positivity, there are a few commonly repeated phrases that seem encouraging, uplifting, or validating on the surface, but in reality do more harm than good — and in far subtler ways than most of us realize.
So I’d like to call out the following phrases, and then offer three replacements we can use to bolster our self-confidence, self-compassion, and self-love in far more healing and lasting ways:
Phrase #1: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Actually, what doesn’t kill you often gives you trauma. For as many people who manage to get back up, learn, and recover from the traumatic event, there are just as many people who develop debilitating PTSD, negative coping mechanisms, and grow more jaded over time.
While I realize that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is, for the most part, to be taken metaphorically, the fact of the matter is that some things (people, events, circumstances) will come your way that will be absolutely devastating, and if you’re struggling to recover from it, or you’re doubting your own strength to continue to hold yourself up despite that event… that’s completely understandable.
Why it’s toxic: Because not everyone has the same sort of access to tools for healing, support, and growth that others do. Not everyone has the opportunities or life circumstances to build up the sort of resilience that recovery from something that literally tried to kill you requires.
Not to mention the fact that your strength in no way lies in the pain you endure; it lies in how you come out of it.
What to say instead: “What doesn’t kill you makes you a survivor.”
Naming that you survived validates the fact that what you went through was incredibly difficult, and yet you’re still here. It recognizes that you made it through, as well as the fact that this is not the end. Your pain and your struggle doesn’t have to be your strength. It can simply be a part of your story that, for a time, may have been incredibly painful, but which ultimately did not defeat you.
What actually makes you strong? Your grit. Your perseverance. Your ability to keep going despite all odds; despite wanting, perhaps, very badly to lie down and give up forever. How you heal, how you grow, and who’s there to support you… these are your strengths. Not that which sought to break you.
BS Phrase #2: “Everything happens for a reason.”
No. No it does not. Sometimes terrible things just happen, and there’s no explanation for them. We can’t possibly know if there’s a reason for them, and putting a reason to them just glorifies the disaster as if it was necessary for our own growth.
Why it’s toxic: When you chock up things like abuse, natural disasters, or loved ones suddenly passing away to some higher purpose, you not only diminish the effects of those traumatic events, you deny yourself feeling the full weight of the grief and/or pain that comes with such hardships. And ignoring your emotions, pretending they’re not as bad as they are, or trying to “gratitude” your way out of them will only make those emotions grow over time in all the ways you can least control. Researchers know now that denying your feelings doesn’t make them go away, but rather causes them to metastasize in your body over time.
What to say instead: “Sometimes, terrible things happen for no reason, and when they do, I will make it through.”
In saying this, you acknowledge your lack of control over certain situations, you validate the fact that they’re terrible to experience, and you empower yourself by establishing that this is not the end. It’s not for us to understand why something happens; rather, it’s for us to show up, fully present with ourselves in the moment — and nothing more. If in hindsight there is something to be learned (and there often is), amazing. We’re all for growth. But no matter what we learn in the wake of terrible circumstances, we don’t have to believe that each painful thing that occurs does so solely in order to teach us something.
BS Phrase #3: “I’m grateful for what happened to me because it made me the person I am today.”
Similarly to the first two phrases, what made you the person you are today is not what happened to you, but how you chose to respond to it. The turmoil you went through when you were manipulated, abused, taken advantage of; when you had to fight for what was right, what you needed, what you deserved; when you lived through a war, whether literal or symbolic… you don’t have to be grateful for any of these things.
Why it’s toxic: By telling yourself to be thankful for the pain you endured, you subtly gaslight yourself into believing that trauma is necessary for your own self-actualization; as though without it, you could not have become who you’re so proud of now. But the trauma isn’t the thing that shaped you; it was your fortitude, forgiveness, courage, strength, and support from those around you that helped make you who you are today.
What to say instead: “I would never choose to go through what I did again, but I’m grateful for what I learned.”
You do not have to be grateful for anything that causes you immense pain. Manipulative relationships, abuse, chaotic households, toxic work environments, endless toiling just to make ends meet… while you may have learned something positive in your recovery from such things that you wouldn’t want to trade… luckily, you don’t have to. Again, there’s no need to glorify traumatic events just because you managed to find something uplifting afterwards. It’s absolutely okay (encouraged, even) to alchemize your pain into learning opportunities, but in no way should we confuse your ability to persevere, learn, and grow with the thing that caused the pain itself.
You are so much bigger than that.
