Why won’t I let myself feel bad?

Exploring the link between grief and toxic positivity after the pandemic…

I was trying to swallow the crowd with my wild, wide-eyed pupils. I was awash in cherry-red light, and the bass had worked its way to the soul of my feet. My friend fluttered a metallic fan, her face lit up in shimmering silver particles. Later, we tumbled out of the club into the soft dawn sunshine. We asked around for the after party, ending up winding through Ibizan hills until we were high up in a villa, a half-empty swimming pool below us and DJs in the living room pumping beats out into liquid smoke.

Reflecting on this night, last week, I flashed back to the deep grey January of 2021 where I wrote a poem, sitting on my bedroom floor. I’d plugged in my £29.99 Amazon disco ball and tried to let the lights transport me back to a time when I could be awash with stranger’s sweat, clubbing with friends, alive with youth, possibility and freedom. I promised, at the end, that all of that joy would eventually return.

I wasn’t sure I believed myself, if it would ever come back. But I needed hope, hope that was dashed each time I turned on the news, spoke to friends. My blood was newspaper ink. I was, like everyone else, terrified.

And now. It’s back. The clubs, the crowds, the cuddles. I know not everyone loves the allure of the shattered night, the disco ball… but the things you’ll have craved during lockdown, whatever they may be, hopefully have returned. You’ll have had a day or night like mine where you’ll have looked around and inhaled everything you once missed.

But maybe, also… if you’re like me, you’ll be experiencing a low hum of anxiety, one that runs circles around you, snapping at your heels. It’s hissing at me to enjoy everything more, to not let any sadness in.

I’ve touched on this, quite a few times before, how toxic positivity looms in the aftermath of loss. The way it can shape our whole grieving process. It can:

• Warp our idea of grief, make us believe it comes to an end.

• Force us to twist our faces into smiles, insist that we’re fiiiine (when we’re anything but)

• Think that we have total control over our emotions (and feel failure when we can’t just downward dog our way out of them)

• Silence how much we really miss someone, by justifying their death as ‘expected’ or ‘good’

• And… what I’ve been doing the most recently…

• Not allowing anger, or irritation in as we know how easy it is to lose the ones we love.

However they manifest, toxic positivity ideals are placed deep inside of us. We know they are impossible to meet but we feel guilty for not managing all the same.

I’ve said before that I believe we are all in a form of collective grief, post lockdown (found here) and so I am reflecting on how that post-loss toxic positivity is seeping into me again. Perhaps you’re experiencing it too?

Currently I am jittery in my love of life, I’m trying to absorb it all in fast-forward.

I don’t give myself space, or grace, to… have a bad time. That’s not to say that everything I do is fun, and happy and go, go, go. It’s more that when I do feel angry, sad, irritated, I heighten those feelings by being angry, sad, irritated at myself for feeling them. You know: be more grateful bitch, think of all the things you’d lost, all the things you thought would never return. 

A few days after that trip I was standing in my corridor at work, so overwhelmed by my to-do list it felt tattooed on my skin. I moaned to colleagues about tiny, inconsequential things and then went home and chastised myself for being grumpy.

It’s like I’ve forced myself onto an extreme see-saw where during the lows I press hard, with all my strength, to spring myself back up again. I know it isn’t healthy.

But then I’m also torn. As all those things that people say, that reinforce the toxic positivity, the “oh it makes you hold your loved ones a little tighter” and “oh you realise how fragile life is” I’ve said them. I wouldn’t even have been in those Ibizan mountains if it wasn’t for my desire to gobble down experience, a desire born from all that I’ve been through. I’m a hypocrite as I’m sure I’ve concluded a few features reflecting on how grateful I am for the lessons death has taught me about life. 

I’m also in a SPECTACULARLY good mood today. I’m loving the sunshine, people, my passions, everything. Right this very second, it’s really fun to live this way.

So… what should I do?

In my work, we talk about ‘service’ journalism. An article that addresses a problem and gives you specific pieces of advice on how to deal with that problem. I say to writers “don’t just tell someone to be confident, tell them how to be.” The reader has to come away with, rule of thumb, three things they could action right away to make their problem a bit easier to handle. It’s how I approached this newsletter at first, I wanted to service others (and myself) out of sadness. I felt like I’d failed when I wrote a letter, like this one, that contained no answers.

Now I’m beginning to recognise that grief, and life in general, is a cauldron of positivity, negativity, toxicity, safety… It’s all so swirled within us, it’s what makes us. I don’t always need to find a solution, something to soothe.

I just have to try to keep accepting that all my emotions are OK, whether they are under disco balls or at-home flashing lamps. As when I think of both nights: the crazy happy Ibiza club and the sorry sadness writing on my bedroom floor, they had one thing in common: I was breathing in my life, its experiences. I was alive.

What do you think? Do you try to silence your inner grump? I hope I made sense here, I’m on deadline for a number of other things and am not sure I made my point succinctly, but again, maybe that’s OK. Thank you for being here and reading. Untangling all these thoughts is a great help to me, I hope it is to you too. Also please find that original poem below here…

Remember arms in the air, the neon fog of liquid smoke, how each inhale vibrate through you, the beat now deep in your lungs

Remember clammy skin, the tang of collective sweat, the crowd an organism swaying as one

Remember gripping your best friend's waist, another's hands cupped around your own. A private snaking conga line, as you weave through the crowd, your destination, the smoking area... you're bursting with love that needs to be spread

Remember packed out benches, crouching on concrete, wide pupils lit up, up by orange flames

Remember looking through a gap in the crowd and seeing your friend, locked lips with a stranger. Rushing out, searching for the others, dragging them in. "You've got to see this."

Remember chanting, the power in your throat, feet stamping, an earthquake spreading below, one mare tune, one mare tune, one mare tune

Remember the violent lights, the emptying dance floor, the clatter as you mke your way through discarded cans, to find your coat, soaked in its cold corner

Remember hellos in huddled groups, asking for the afters, shrugging when the answer is home, moving on, hopeful, consumed by the chase, clinging onto the evening's magic

Remember the frost on cars at 3am, holding your hand out for a cab, screaming your breath billowing clouds around you "why'd you leave your light on then" as wheels whizz past you

Remember the buzz in your brain, the DJs pulse inside of you, flowing through your veins

Remember one foot on the floor, your body waltzer spinning, asking will sleep ever come

Remember morning or afternoon or evening creeping through the curtains. Stamps up your wrist, glitter on your pillow

Remember the sound of stirring, the flick of a kettle. Blankets over knees, the night a hilarious jigsaw puzzle to be pieced together

Remember how the forgotten memories weren't lost. How they returned. How they will again

Remember.