Since the beginning of time, if not before, non-disabled people have always been jittery around visibly disabled people, at least on first encounter.
And often on second, third, and fourth encounters, too. Is this a natural impulse buried deep in the lizard brain, fearful of all impairment, or just shock of the unknown? Which of course raises the question: How unknown are people with disabilities in America, where one out of every four adults are disabled, and one out of every two Americans know a relative or close acquaintance who is disabled? We no longer incarcerate or isolate the disabled -- except for the three-four million we continue to stick in institutions -- and we don’t shun or demean them in public, at least not overtly. There is not a politically active Ableist Society trying to permanently separate the disabled from the rest of us.
No, today, the most prevalent mode of disguising your jitteriness about people with disabilities -- or any kind of life trauma -- is to do your best to cheer them up. The reason for this is simple: it’s the quickest way to distance yourself from their perceived pain and misery and still feel good about doing so. When in doubt, be positive. There’s no downside to being cheerful and encouraging, right? No one is going to accuse you of being insensitive or tone deaf by being upbeat in the face of loss. That’s why “The Power of Positive Thinking” is one of the best-selling books ever.
Well, there’s a new school of thought about positive thinking, but it isn’t positive. Popularized by a Miami-based psychotherapist, Whitney Goodman, it’s been called dismissive positivity or toxic positivity. It’s the kneejerk response we often give when confronted with someone else’s negative experience. You pull positive catch phrases out of the hat in an attempt to instantly fix the situation with the right response. You may mean well, you may think you are saying the right thing, but in most cases, you are causing harm -- you are glibly dismissing the other person’s real experience of pain and grief, almost as if they should be ashamed of having such dark feelings. It’s called toxic because, with your cheery little clichés, you are actually making that person feel worse about themselves. You are doubling the pain by being so blithe and cavalier.