“I tend to put on this facade… when in reality I’m burnt out.”

And today I wanted to talk about a new word that I learned today. It’s – I was listening to a podcast titled, “How To Be Impeccable With Your Words,” and it was kind of discussing mental health and how your words play a role in your mental health and the host used a term called toxic positivity and she stated that that’s when you put on this facade that everything is great and fine. However, it’s really, um, it’s really not and how that can be really exhausting and degrading to like your – your own self if you aren’t able to own your own words, and I think that is a really interesting term. I feel like I am pretty socially aware and like personally aware of my own feelings and how to express them and who I can express my feelings with but I also noticed that a lot of times like especially when talking about grad school I tend to put on this facade like, “Everything’s great. I love it. I am just enjoying and soaking up every moment of being in grad school.” When in reality, I’m burnt out and stressed and disappointed and sleep deprived and isolated and… and I want to say that I’m thriving and having a great time because I have this support of family and friends who are cheering me on and happy for all that I’ve accomplished, but grad school is hard and I mean, there are… I’m sure there are other like deeper connections that people can make to the term toxic positivity, but ’cause it for sure can apply to like mental health and identifying when you need help and things like that, but I think it also is just a good word to describe a phenomenon that people use all the time.