It's Ok Not to Be Ok

It's ok not to be ok, and saying it'll be ok to someone who's struggling often does the opposite of helping: it rushes them past a feeling they haven't finished having yet. Real support means letting people, yourself included, actually feel the emotion instead of being cheered past it.

Reassurance Feels Like Kindness. It Often Isn't.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about it'll be ok. Most of the time, we say it for us, not for them. Watching someone hurt is uncomfortable, and reassurance ends that discomfort fast, for the person giving it anyway.

I had a client who stopped bringing up her dad's death at work entirely. Not because she'd processed it. Because every time she mentioned it, someone jumped in with he's in a better place now before she'd finished the sentence. She learned that grief made people uncomfortable, and being fine made them relax. So she got very good at being fine.

That's the trade toxic positivity makes. It swaps honesty for comfort, and the person paying for that swap is whoever's actually in pain.

Where Always Look on the Bright Side Went Wrong

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about exactly this in Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, back in 2009. She'd just been treated for breast cancer, and what struck her wasn't the diagnosis, it was the pressure to be upbeat about it. Doctors, other patients, well meaning friends, all pushing relentless optimism as though fear and anger weren't allowed in the room.

Her argument still holds up. A culture that insists on positive thinking, in hospitals, at work, in how we talk to the people we love, ends up punishing anyone who admits things are hard. Hope isn't the problem. Hope used as a lid is.

Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, Barbara Ehrenreich (2009)

Toxic Positivity Has a Name Now, and a Cost

A 2026 scoping review pulled together 59 studies to actually define toxic positivity as a concept, something psychology had talked about for years without pinning down. It landed on emotional invalidation and emotional suppression as two of its core dimensions, alongside disingenuous happiness and unrealistic optimism.

(Premlal & K, 2026, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2026.2707485)

A separate concept analysis described toxic positivity as an exchange between a giver and a receiver, where the receiver is left worse off. That's the bit worth sitting with. When you tell someone it'll be ok, you're the giver. They're the one carrying the cost.

(Shipp & Hall, 2024, DOI: 10.1111/jan.16057)

Naming the Feeling Isn't the Same as Getting Stuck in It

A lot of people avoid hard emotions because they're scared that if they start feeling it, they won't stop. In my experience, it's almost always the opposite.

In one study, people with a fear of spiders were exposed to a live spider while using different strategies to cope with it, distraction, cognitive reframing, or simply naming the fear out loud, I'm scared, my heart's racing. A week later, the group who'd named their fear had a calmer physiological response than the others.

(Kircanski et al., 2012, DOI: 10.1177/0956797612443830)

Putting a feeling into words doesn't trap you in it. It's often what lets it move. That's the self-help version of everything above: not breathing exercises, just naming the thing. I'm angry about this. I'm scared and I don't know why. Said out loud, written down, or said to someone who isn't going to flinch.

What to Say Instead of It'll Be Ok

None of this bans reassurance. It means timing matters, and so does what comes before it.

That sounds really hard is a good place to start. So is I'm not going to pretend that's fine. If it's you who's struggling, try I don't have to be ok right now for this to be alright. Small sentences. They don't fix anything, and that's rather the point.

Reassurance vs Validation: What Actually Lands

• Bereavement
• Depression
• Fear, Shame and Trust: Why we people please

When did someone last let you just be upset, without rushing to fix it?

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