"The Horrible Tyranny of Cheerfulness"

Today I read a quote today by an author and activist that I have a great deal of respect for. If I’m not mistaken, in context it has to do with something that may be a bit off the topic I’m about to align it with; but not entirely. Barbara Ehrenreich speaks openly about her experience with breast cancer, and the “tyranny of cheerfulness” (Google it). The idea that happy thoughts and reframing will make a situation less difficult, even manageable. A spoonful of sugar, and all that.

I’ve touched on this before, and I’m sure I will again.

The idea of a “tyranny of cheerfulness” is something I’ve put a lot of thought into myself. During an especially difficult bout in my life I was told by a counselor that I was being too negative, too sad. Long story short, I’d lost my job, my driver’s license, and my long-term relationship was over. Given that information, is it somehow unnatural for a person to be especially and overwhelmingly sad in such a situation?? Just recently I’ve been told that I should “try really, really hard” to pass a class that I failed more than once (but less than ten times), as though my problem is not a lack of understanding or a struggle with the material, but a lack of trying. A very good friend of mine received some scary, life-changing news about her health right around the time her beloved grandmother died, and friends told her to “put on a happy face,” and to love life and such things. I understand that some people like and need inspirational quotes and platitudes to get them through hard times, but I also understand that some people have to feel sad and pissed off in order to grieve their loss before they can find that ever-so-popular silver lining.

I have friends I don’t know very well tell me they’re divorcing before they tell the people closest to them. I don’t always know what to say. In fact, I rarely know what to say to someone I don’t know well. But there’s a part of me that feels honored that someone can come to me with their feelings of negativity, because they know I won’t try to invalidate them. People feel these ways for a reason, and not everyone who gets pissed off, who gets upset, who feels inadequate, or feels deep sadness is a constant Debbie Downer or Negative Nancy, and it’s total bullshit for people to make them feel like they are. It seems pretty well established that holding in negative feelings can lead to much deeper depression. So what is the big deal with letting people just feel shitty sometimes??

And that’s what it is about these inspirational quotes that pisses me right off. If you have the unmitigated gall to preface your sentence to a person who is suffering with “if you think about it,” you are only presuming that they have not. And obviously you have. So you must know something they don’t. It’s rude. It’s like prefacing your sentence with “Uuuuumm, no offense but.” You’re coming across to a friend in mortal pain like an insensitive asshole.

It seems to me that people who are going through something will get to the other side with or without their friends. The ones who make it to the other side are, in my experience, rarely the ones who tell their wounded comrades to “create your own reality.”